Which TV shows made Show Snob’s Weekly 10: July 3, 2023

High Desert finished up last week and Never Have I Ever has aged off Show Snob’s Weekly 10 making room for Swagger and The Witcher.

Best TV Shows To Watch (Week of July 3)

1. The Bear (Hulu)

You can find the season 2 soundtrack on a playlist on Spotify if you want to at least relive the music. The Bear took home several awards last year and it should do something similar this year as season 2 was even better.

Technically, the restaurant still hadn’t opened at the end of the season and all the main characters were in complete disarray. This franchise has quite a bit of legs left.

2. Platonic (Apple TV+)

The brewery gang goes to San Diego to visit the billionaire, played by Ted McGinley (Shrinking), that is mass producing their beer. Of course, you would want to bring your best friend Sylvia on a business trip because she is still pretending to go to work after being fired, so she doesn’t have to tell her husband.

Seth Rogan and McGinley get into a food fight after McGinley disrespects Sylvia, so the fun begins. Rogen kind of steals this week’s episode as he begs Sylvia to tell her husband during an overall solid episode.

3. Righteous Gemstones (MAX)

Baby Billy is the star of the show. Everything he does is wild and hysterical.

Was it an episode of break-ups? Will we see Keef again?

What will happen to BJ and Judy’s marriage? The betrayal of the cousins will loom large in the next episode.

Righteous Gemstones continues to put out quality entertainment every week.

4. Silo (Apple TV+)

Silo finished up this week and the audience got a taste of one of the lies perpetrated by Bernard (Tim Robbins), IT and Judicial. As Juliette walks outside she makes several revelations, among double twists of the show, that will successfully lead us into a second season.

Silo was a decent mystery, sci-fi-ish show that will keep you wanting to get to the end to see what truths are being withheld. The final reveal wasn’t so mind blowing, and you could have guessed it without reading the book.

But Silo was good TV and it stayed on Show Snob’s Weekly 10 during its entire season.

5. Based on a True Story (Peacock)

All episodes are out for this crazy serial killer turned podcaster crime comedy. Starring Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina, this story of a couple who blackmail a serial killer to helping them with a true crime podcast is a great dark comedy.

And, unlike Beef, it stays a dark comedy all the way through. Laughs are fast and frequent.

6. Swagger (Apple TV+)

Coach Ike is continually threatened by his “interim” title as head coach, but he does win the first game of the season. Not so subtly, we get that Cedar Cove is kind of a white, rich, ignorant school, but clearly Jace likes going there and convinces his friend Phil to attend as well, to put the Swagger team back together.

The Athletic Director is not going to like the team calling the school Swagger Prep. Great quote of the week when Ike complains about taking college classes at night, “How does geometry make me a better basketball coach?”

Answer from his wife, “Isn’t it a game of angles?”

7. The Witcher (Netflix)

Season 3 of The Witcher has returned with Henry Cavill. Cavill has had a tough year being replaced as Superman, fired from The Witcher (Liam Hemsworth replacing him), and they just announced he is too old to play James Bond.

However, The Witcher is still great. Yennifer, Geralt, and Ciri are back to save the continent.

Yennifer is training Ciri, Ciri is having visions, and Geralt is guarding everyone. Multiple kingdoms, including the Elves, are searching for Ciri.

8. Black Mirror (Netflix)

The Twilight Zone-ish show had a good release with just 5 episodes a couple of weeks ago. Of special note, episode 4 is a twist I never saw coming and wasn’t even expecting.

Episode 5 is phenomenal with a demure shoe saleswoman being forced by a demonic entity to do despicable (or maybe not so despicable) things.

9. Break Point (Netflix)

This show is fantastic but the time lag between seasons continues to bother me. Since this is just a reality show, postproduction should not force the show to come out a year after events take place.

One of the frustrating aspects that the time lag causes is that the player they focus on, like Ons Jabeur or Taylor Fritz, are not having a good year in 2023. So, following your favorites isn’t much fun this year.

10. The Rising (FX)

Didn’t air this week which was weird.

Great Shows That Did Not Make Show Snob’s Weekly 10 That You Should Know About

• Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime Video): After the perceived disaster of Citadel, Amazon is looking for the last season of Jack Ryan to be a winner. You don’t need to watch the first three seasons to enjoy the 4th. This season, John Krasinski’s (The Office) Jack Ryan is trying to figure out if the CIA is funding rogue operations with no supervision. Michael Pena (Narcos: Mexico) is a CIA assassin who may be a good guy or a bad guy.
• I’m A Virgo (Amazon Prime Video): Really strange show (in a good way) that has some superhero aspects, some social justice aspects, and some good comedy.
• Club Hooligan (Amazon prime Video): In Spanish, this story is about an organized crime family that revolves around the local soccer club. The gang takes profit from all manner of merchandising, ticket sales, food and beverage, and even trades. When the patriarch (Uncle) is killed, the nephews need to solidify their power and authority.
•  Warrior (MAX): It has been almost three years since we last saw Warrior. Back for season 3, the ex-Banshee team is starting right where season 2 left off. Set in San Franciso in the 1800’s, rival Chinese gangs are fighting each other, the police are fighting the Chinese, the Irish are fighting the Chinese, and everybody is just trying to make money. The story is politically complex, and the hand-to-hand fighting scenes are still as good as anything you’ll see right now.
•  The Crowded Room (Apple TV+): OK, the show is now officially good. I wish they would have started the show telling you about the split personality instead of insulting the audience that there is some big reveal. Now that there is no reveal, and instead, we are trying to figure out how to convince Danny he has multiple personalities, this show is very interesting. This week, we look back at the last 11 weeks through Amanda Seyfried’s eyes as she approaches his case. It was really interesting how she figured out he has multiple personalities. This show is worth watching now and I am really interested in where they take it from here.
• Deadloch (Amazon Prime Video): Great Australian crime thriller with really funny detectives. The ending isn’t great but looking forward to season 2.
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+): This week we do time travel (why not, everyone’s doing it) and they break out the normal gags, like not knowing how to drive a car, buying clothes, or gambling on two-dimensional chess because three-dimensional chess in the future is so much harder. This was a Quantum Leap thing as they have to solve some sort of problem before they can go back to their time.
• Cruel Summer (Freeform): We finally find out a little about Isabella’s secrets, even if we don’t really know what happened yet. Each episode gets a little closer to all the timelines intersecting, but it is happening slowly.
•  Secret Invasion (Disney Plus): Nick Fury got fired by Don Cheadle. And he has a Skrull wife?
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX): Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul (both from Breaking Bad) guest star as the gang tries to start a celebrity liquor business by blending Jägermeister, Goldschlager, and Schnapps. How could this idea fail?
• The Blacklist (NBC): The Blacklist is ending this year and they promise to answer all of our questions. If you have been watching for the last 9 years, you have no choice but to continue. But they haven’t really even started broaching how this might possibly end, who Reddington really is, and what his end game is, which is frustrating.

Wait and See

• The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC): A little bit of a lost episode, but it is good that they are focusing on Negan more than Maggie. We know that The Croat knows that Negan is in town, so maybe that will heat things up a bit.
• The Clearing (Hulu): Are we supposed to feel sorry for Adrienne now? This series went from a good, creepy cult show to really lost, really fast.
• And Just Like That (MAX): Episode 3 didn’t go as well as premiere week as we have to revisit Big’s death to make a show. We had enough of that last year.

Don’t Wait and Don’t See

The Other Two finished last week, on a sour note again. We’ll see if this show returns for another season and if the show returns to comedy. Fear the Walking Dead is on hiatus, waiting for the series ending Part 2 of the season.

• The Idol (MAX): Ridiculous show that would be tough to rebound as this point.

Which of the following shows from our list have you watched? Which one did you enjoy the most?

Let us know in the comments below!