Globe TV critic recommends five new streaming miniseries to watch.
Globe TV critic recommends five new streaming miniseries to watch.Netflix, Hulu, Warner Brothers, Adobe, Ally Rzesa/Globe Staff
As I’ve written before, you can’t watch everything on TV. If you tried, you might enter new realms of social maladjustment. There’s simply too much out there — too many new series, too many ongoing series, too much sports (if you’re into such things, as I am, especially come NBA Playoff season. Sorry about the Celtics.)
In short, many shows slip through the cracks, even for a TV critic. The great thing about the streaming age is that the stuff you missed hangs around to be revisited when it’s time to play catch-up. You can always circle back to expand your horizons and your cocktail party patter.
And so, with apologies to “The Great Gatsby,” we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the recent TV past. Here’s a rundown of five limited or anthology series that I didn’t get to write about on their maiden voyages. As I dig out from under the digital pile, these shows strike me as exemplary or at least intriguing, and certainly worth a look amid the perpetual onslaught of the shiny and new.
In alphabetical order:
“Beef,” season 2 (Netflix, eight episodes)
What started in 2023 as a road rage incident, then became a knockdown, drag-out battle of wills between Ali Wong’s Amy and Steven Yuen’s Danny, is now a flexible anthology series with a new cast of characters and, of course, a new beef. Because let’s face it, in this world, there’s more than enough beef to go around.
(L to R) Charles Melton as Austin Davis, Cailee Spaeny as Ashley Miller, Carey Mulligan as Lindsay Crane-Martin in "Beef."
(L to R) Charles Melton as Austin Davis, Cailee Spaeny as Ashley Miller, Carey Mulligan as Lindsay Crane-Martin in "Beef."COURTESY OF NETFLIX
This season, which premiered in April, brings class warfare to the fore. Country club manager Joshua (Oscar Isaac) and his designer wife Lindsay (Carey Mulligan) get blackmailed by two employees (Cailee Spaney and Charles Melton). The club owner (Youn Yuh-jung) and her plastic surgeon husband (Song Kang-ho) have troubles of their own to cover up. Everyone has blood on their hands, some of it quite literal. The performances are all killer — Mulligan, in particular, has never been better — and while the personnel has changed, creator Lee Sung Jin’s authorial voice remains wickedly smart.
“DTF St. Louis” (HBO/HBO Max, seven episodes)
As I’ve also written before, I love shows that can’t be classified. This twisty, deceptively tender murder mystery, which is really much more than that, fits the bill.
It’s a masterpiece of misdirection, starting with the nod-and-a-wink title — yes, “DTF” stands for something naughty — and extending to its core themes of friendship, loneliness, and midlife disappointment. It’s funny, but it’s not really a comedy. It’s a procedural, but it’s not really a crime series. It is, more so than anything I’ve seen this year, its own special thing. “DTF,” which premiered in March, also boasts six fine performances: David Harbour, Jason Bateman, and Linda Cardellini as the three sides of a bizarre love triangle; Richard Jenkins and Joy Sunday as the police detectives trying to figure out whodunnit and why; and Peter Sarsgaard as the wild card who keeps showing up for a few minutes of quiet glory.
Netflix's "Lord of the Flies."
Netflix's "Lord of the Flies."J Redza
“Lord of the Flies” (Netflix, four episodes)
A tip of the cap to the Brits, who know how to keep TV storytelling (relatively) short and sweet. You were likely assigned William Golding’s novel, about a gaggle of schoolboys’ descent into adult-style tyranny on a remote island, when you were in high school. Guess what? It can still pack a wallop. Tyranny, like beef, never really goes out of style.
Especially not in the hands of “Adolescence” co-creator Jack Thorne, who turns the power struggles of Piggy (David McKenna), Ralph (Winston Sawyers), Jack (Lox Pratt), and the rest of their wee mates into a pungent dive into primal fear and aggression. You feel the glaring sun, hear the wild animals, and taste the tropical fruits. This “Lord of the Flies,” which premiered earlier this month, is visceral and practically viscous, a tactile sensation reminiscent of the Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay’s work (“Morvern Callar,” “You Were Never Really Here”). The kids are all great, but the standout is McKenna, who turns Piggy into a pitiable hero who finds that sometimes decency simply doesn’t pay.
Patricia Arquette, left, and Jason Clarke, right in "Murdaugh: Death in the Family."
Patricia Arquette, left, and Jason Clarke, right in "Murdaugh: Death in the Family."DJ Delgado/Disney
“Murdaugh: Death in the Family” (Hulu, eight episodes)
The less you know about the true crime story behind this dramatized account, the better. Then again, I was pretty familiar with the sordid Murdaugh saga when I sat down to watch “Death in the Family” — this isn’t the family’s first miniseries rodeo — and I sat riveted, nonetheless.
The short version: a bullying, glad-handing South Carolina legal dynasty, led by Alex Murdaugh (Jason Clarke), bends the law to protect wild youngest son Paul (Johnny Berchtold) after a drunken boating accident leaves a 19-year-old girl dead. Then things get crazy. Based on Mandy Matney’s podcast “The Murdaugh Murders,” Death in the Family,” which premiered last October, drills to the heart of a certain kind of Southern aristocratic entitlement and corruption. Clarke steals the show as the pill-popping Murdaugh patriarch, himself a product of a rotten family tree.
(L to R) Karla Crome as Nell, Jeff Wilbusch as Jules, Gus Birney as Portia, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Victoria, Ted Levine as Boris, Adam DiMarco as Nicky Cunningham, Camila Morrone as Rachel Harkin in "Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen."
(L to R) Karla Crome as Nell, Jeff Wilbusch as Jules, Gus Birney as Portia, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Victoria, Ted Levine as Boris, Adam DiMarco as Nicky Cunningham, Camila Morrone as Rachel Harkin in "Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen."COURTESY OF NETFLIX
“Something Very Bad is Going to Happen” (Netflix, eight episodes)
We’re in the midst of a mini horror renaissance on television, including “Widow’s Bay,” “The Terror: Devil in Silver,” and whatever Ryan Murphy happens to be cranking out in a given week. “Something Very Bad,” which gets extra credit for laying out the stakes in its title, deserves a spot in this recent scarefest.
Rachel (Camilia Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco) are heading to Nicky’s remote family home to get married. Wouldn’t you know it, Nicky’s family is a little … off. They have a way of talking around something, well, very bad, a grisly bit of folklore concerning a figure called The Sorry Man. You can tell some kind of nasty ritual is cooking. Ted Levine and especially Jennifer Jason Leigh excel as the parents of this strange brood, and creator Haley Z. Boston really knows her way around the visual grammar of horror. When all is said and done, “Something Very Bad,” which premiered in March, might just be the scariest in-law joke ever told.
Chris Vognar can be reached at chris.vognar@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram at @chrisvognar and on Bluesky at chrisvognar.bsky.social.