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What to Watch on TV this week: The New Look, Life and Beth, Silent Service and more

Apple TV is back with a show about Christian Dior and Coco Chanel and Michael Cera and Amy Shumer are back for a second season of Life and Beth. Should you tune in?

By Larry Goldman

The New Look explains if Coco Chanel or Christian Dior was the actual Nazi sympathizer.
The New Look explains if Coco Chanel or Christian Dior was the actual Nazi sympathizer. /
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The New Look (Apple TV+)

Starring Ben Mendelsohn (Bloodline), Juliette Binoche (The Staircase), Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), and Claes Bang (Bad Sisters), Apple released three episodes of the fashion/WWII drama.

I have to admit, I thought this show was going to be a network TV style drama on the growth of the French fashion industry. This show might materialize into that concept, but its premiere was more like a WWII action and spy movie than about gowns and models.

Mendelsohn plays Christian Dior who uses the money he makes for designing clothes for Nazi girlfriends and wives in occupied France to help fund the French resistance. His sister (Williams) is the actual revolutionary who delivers messages for the resistance and is ultimately caught by the Nazis.

Binoche plays Coco Chanel who is half seduced/half blackmailed to help the Nazis in order to win her company back. But when Germany is kicked out of France, will she switch sides? How many times will she switch sides during the course of this show?

The New Look is suspenseful and complicated. If you didn't know much about how French fashion played an important part in the liberation of France from the Nazis, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Verdict: Watch.

The Silent Service (Amazon Prime Video)

Adapted from Japanese manga, The Silent Service is a Japanese version of Red October.

The Silent Service is about a Japanese submarine captain who steals the newest, fastest, most high-tech nuclear submarine from the Americans. The Americans want to sink the ship to save their pride and the Japanese want to capture the ship to help bolster the Japanese Navy like was originally planned.

The submarine captain has other ideas. He thinks that he can be a worldwide peacekeeping force by wielding the submarine's weapons and technology to resolve conflicts better than the United Nations.

The captain is just like the Sean Connery character in Red October in that he outthinks all of his opponents at every turn, uses all sorts of tricks to outmaneuver the entire US 7th Fleet, and evades capture by the Japanese. It is always fun to see how foreign shows portray Americans -- usually violent rednecks who make quick, uninformed decisions. The Silent Service is no different.

Though the show is pretty entertaining, it also very cheesy and predictable.

Verdict: Pass.

Life and Beth (Hulu)

Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer) and Micheal Cera (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off) are back for season two of the romantic pretty-much comedy. Hulu released all episodes that are 30 minutes or less. Schumer writes and directs most of the show.

Life and Beth continues the courtship of John (Cera) and Beth (Schumer) with flashbacks to Beth's traumatic high school relationships. This season, Beth and John are getting married which parallels Shumer's own husband who is on the autism spectrum.

Most of the show revolves around how John's disorder makes him seem unfeeling and awkward but, in reality, he is very much in tune with how he feels about Beth and always seems to come through in the end. Obviously, the awkwardness is part of the best jokes, too.

The real reality is that Beth's friends are the actual stars of the show, at least from the humor perspective. Most notably, Yamaneika Saunders, Laura Benanti (Gossip Girl), and Sas Goldberg (American Princess) receive all the best lines.

Verdict: Watch

Good Morning, Veronica (Netflix)

From Brazil and in Portuguese, Good Morning, Veronica concludes its series with a three-episode season.

If you haven't seen the first two seasons, don't bother with the last season. The story arc and characters are too complicated to catch up. In the third season, Veronica is chasing down the overall kingpin of the trafficking and sexual abuse organization that she has been chasing for the past two seasons.

The first two seasons of Veronica were interesting and fairly entertaining, but this last season is wildly predictable, almost eye-rolling. If you have watched the first two seasons, it is worth finishing up the show with just three episodes.

Verdict: Pass, unless you are already invested in the first two seasons.

Recent and Current Shows to Keep Watching

  • Fargo (Hulu). All episodes streaming.
  • Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (Apple TV+): All episodes streaming.
  • For All Mankind (Apple TV+): All episodes streaming.
  • Jack Reacher (Amazon Prime Video). All episodes streaming.
  • Boy Swallows Universe (Netflix). This show didn't finish as well as it started, but it's a decent show.
  • A Shop for Killers (Hulu). All episodes streaming.
  • Sexy Beast (Paramount+). Beast might be the best show on TV right now. Ultra-violent, not for the queasy.
  • Monsieur Spade (AMC+).
  • True Detective (MAX).
  • Zorro (Amazon Prime Video).
  • Expats (Amazon Prime Video).
  • The Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (Hulu)
  • Halo (Paramount+)

Note: Mr. and Mrs. Smith was an extremely entertaining series. It doesn't have a continuing story, mystery, twist, or turn. The ending is good. This show wasn't perfect, but maybe considered an honorable mention.

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