The Best New Series Coming to Netflix This Week
Netflix is offering a series for everyone this week, whether you like Korean horror, martial arts action, or strange true-crime stories.
There’s something for everyone on Netflix this week, from the stylish and funny martial arts action of The Brothers Sun to Love on the Spectrum’s gentle portrayal of the romantic longings of people with autism. Here are the best new series on Netflix right now.
Love on the Spectrum U.S., Season 2
A dating reality show focusing on people with autism could have been an exploitive nightmare (and it has its share of critics) but I think Love on the Spectrum is handled with enough sensitivity and care that it's ultimately a show about normalizing neurodiversity and not infantilizing people with autism. Putting aside complex representational questions, Love on the Spectrum is just a great documentary series, full of gentle, funny, likable characters whose romantic longings will be relatable to anyone with a heart, no matter how their brain is wired.
Break Point, Season 2
Break Point is a sports documentary series that follows some of the best young tennis players in the world on their paths to victory and defeat at Grand Slams and the ATP and WTA tours. It’s hard to make a compelling documentary about tennis—much of the game takes place in players’ minds, and many potential fans may not understand the rules of the game. (Why do you count by 15? Why is zero called “love?”) Break Point’s second season rises to these challenge by taking us deep inside the psyches of the elite athletes it features, while being extra generous with basic explanations for tennis newbs.
Holey Moley, Seasons 3–4
Critics and snobs may focus on serious “prestige” series, but there’s a place on TV for big, goofy, family-friendly obstacle courses too. Holey Moley, on its fourth season after being born a summer replacement show on ABC, is above par in this purposefully lowbrow genre. The loose premise involves maximizing miniature golf by pitting outgoing weirdos against each other on over-the-top mini-golf/obstacle courses with a $250,000 prize. The hosts (comedian Rob Riggle and sportscaster Joe Tessitore) have real comedic chemistry, the writing is funny, and the overall tone is appealingly breezy. So gather the kids and turn off your brain for an hour or two.
The Brothers Sun
The great Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Everything, Everywhere, All at Once) stars in this stylishly violent cross-cultural action/comedy series. The brothers of the title are sons of an underworld kingpin from Taipei, but their father is the only thing they have in common. Charles is a hardened criminal versed in murder, martial arts, and being gangster-movie cool; Bruce is a nerdy Lyft driver who lives with his mom, takes improv classes, and has no clue about the family business. It’s a hilarious, fast-paced, addictive series that's perfect for binging—and all eight episodes are live now.
The Bequeathed
A series created by Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan, Hellbound) is not to be missed. This six-part horror series tells the story of Yoon Seo-ha, a harried academic who inherits a mysterious grave in the country from a previously unknown relative. A sensible person would have turned down the creepy offer immediately, but Seo-ha travels to the Korean countryside instead, where she meets disturbing relatives and investigates a series of murders that revolve around the family gravesite.
American Nightmare
This docuseries examines the police and media’s reaction to the very strange case of Denise Huskins. In 2015, a man named Aaron Quinn told police that a stranger wearing swim goggles and a wetsuit showed up at his house in the middle of the night and abducted his girlfriend, Denise Huskins. According to Quinn, the intruder drugged him with cold medicine and left him behind to tell the story. The story struck police as unbelievable, more like a movie plot than a real crime, so Quinn became the prime suspect. The plot thickened when Huskins showed up a few days later and told police her kidnapper just let her go and drove her home. Was this a Gone Girl style fake kidnapping? Or were Quinn and Huskins actually telling the truth?