‘Fionna and Cake,’ ‘The Super Models’ and more to stream this weekend
Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who’s more than ready for a lazy weekend in front of the TV.
Maybe your intrepid newsletter editor is just wiped out from the premiere of “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” concert movie this week, with its screaming fans, celebrity sightings and nearly three-hour running time, but curling up at home with a new show doesn’t sound half bad — especially with the days getting shorter and shorter.
Which is why we’re bringing you a heavy dose of recommendations in Screen Gab No. 103, including an “Adventure Time” spinoff, a Max documentary about the Navajo Police Training Academy and a study in the heyday of the super model. Plus, the executive producer of “Bosch: Legacy” joins us to preview Season 2.
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Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times
‘Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake’ (Max)
As someone who enjoys covering some of the biggest pop entertainment franchises, it’s painful to admit that even I have been hit with reboot-spinoff-sequel-repeat fatigue lately. Thankfully, “Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake” completely understands that. Part spinoff and sequel, the 10-episode series follows Fionna and Cake, the gender (and species) swapped versions of “Adventure Time’s” lead twosome Finn and Jake, as imagined by the Ice King. Or are they? Fans of the original animated fantasy may be surprised to see this Fionna is your everyday young adult. She’s stuck in an unfulfilling job, living paycheck to paycheck, running on caffeine and desperate for more magic in her life. Without spoiling anything, “Fionna and Cake” is a series that not only understands that recapturing storytelling magic is an impossible goal, it incorporates that as one of its central themes. But that doesn’t mean the show doesn’t include your favorite denizens of Ooo! The series is an expansion of the “Adventure Time” mythos, after all, with plenty of Easter eggs, a splash of existential crisis and even a bit of closure. —Tracy Brown
‘Navajo Police: Class 57’ (Max)
“Dark Winds” and “Reservation Dogs” have introduced viewers to the institution of tribal police, but even great scripted television is still scripted television. The three-part documentary “Navajo Police: Class 57,” premiering Tuesday on HBO, offers a taste of the real thing, as tribal police officers train a smaller-than-hoped-for class of recruits to join their overstretched ranks. Though there are some dark moments, it’s on the whole much sweeter and more inspiring than one might expect — this is not “Cops” — as young and less young men and women train to deal with violent situations before they have to encounter them, facing not only the physical but the social challenges of a potentially dangerous, often thankless job. Family members show concern; superiors are empathetic; veterans provide context, practical, spiritual and political. The series is beautifully shot, with an eye for wide landscape and small detail, and can be surprising in workaday ways, as when, before an exercise that will require his staff to shout hard at the recruits, a commanding officer hands out throat lozenges and reminds them to yell from the diaphragm, not the throat. —Robert Lloyd
Catch up
Everything you need to know about the film or TV series everyone’s talking about
In an era of feature-size ideas stretched to three-, six-, even nine-episode lengths, “The Super Models” (Apple TV+), Roger Ross Williams and Larissa Bills’ docuseries about the heyday of the celebrity supermodel, achieves the showman’s old adage: Always leave them wanting more.
Tracing the rise of Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington from ordinary origins to extraordinary fame, the series doubles as a crash course in contemporary media studies, pausing to consider how the zenith of print, the triumph of cable television, and the emergence of the internet reshaped society in the last years of the 20th century. If anything, really, its four parts feel rushed, skipping like a stone over the surface of subjects like racism and sexual abuse in the fashion industry, changing beauty standards, and the democratizing influence of social media.
Still, for all the minutiae I’d have happily watched an entire episode on — Elite and Ford modeling agencies’ clashing cultures, say, or the techniques that produced indelible images before the advent of retouching — the series’ success comes down to the four vivacious women at its center. Their career-long collaboration, and close-knit friendship, is the spine along which “The Super Models” drapes its discussion of “cover tries,” George Michael’s “Freedom ‘90” video, and the ascent of the waif, with casual asides and tossed-off reminiscences that now seem almost inconceivably quaint. Living together as roommates, dancing in the street with drag queens, carrying a book with just three looks: If the series’ rose-colored nostalgia occasionally registers as too gauzy for comfort, in moments like these — intimate, unexceptional — it feels not just earned, but honest. It turns out someone was ever so young. We all were. —Matt Brennan
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A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching
Though he’s no longer with the police department, there’s no question Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch (Titus Welliver) remains a detective down to the bone. In fact, as “Bosch: Legacy” executive producer Henrik Bastin tells Screen Gab, Season 2 of the L.A.-set spinoff series, which premieres Oct. 20 on Amazon Freevee, suggests that retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be: “It’s not what’s better for him. It’s what’s worse.” Of course, what’s worse for our grizzled hero, created by author Michael Connelly, is often great for TV viewers — including the kidnapping of his daughter Maddie (Madison Lintz) in last season’s cliffhanger finale. In advance of the series’ return, Bastin previewed what’s to come for Bosch, shared what he’s watching and more. —Matt Brennan
What have you watched recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?
I just re-watched “Friday Night Lights” [Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu] and it’s worth going back to. It’s one of the classic good TV shows and I got really sucked into this year’s NFL and college football season and thought, “Oh God I haven’t seen ‘Friday Night Lights’ in a long time. Does it hold up?” I went back and loved re-watching it. So many great actors and it stands the test of time.
What is your go-to “comfort watch,” the movie or TV show you go back to again and again?
“Band of Brothers” [Max, Netflix], the HBO miniseries about Easy Company in World War II. I’ve probably seen those episodes 15 times. I watch it at least once a year.
“Legacy” finds Bosch retired from the LAPD and working as a private investigator. What does moving out of the world of police and into the world of PIs allow you to do that wasn’t possible on the original? What do you miss?
Where he finds himself in Season 2, the reality that he has actually retired has started hitting him. He realizes that he doesn’t have the same powers and it’s the opposite. It’s not what’s better for him, it’s what’s worse. It’s being on the outside. And this is something that happens with a lot of people who retire or switch careers. They thought it would be one way and find, when reality sinks in, that you miss a lot of the old world that you thought you hated before.
From a story perspective what it gives us is that he can now pursue things that he couldn’t do before. He was a cop that was known to bend the rules, but he never really broke them. He couldn’t do exactly what he wanted. Now, as a sort of freelancer and not beholden to any bosses, he can pursue things, including cases, in a different way. That gives a lot to how we can navigate the story. What we miss is the general world of policing... Being firmly anchored in Hollywood Station, both as a set and as a world, that was a go-to to drive stories. You miss that from time to time.
As a diehard fan of medical dramas, I was excited to see your company Fabel Entertainment has one — “Wolf,” inspired by the work of Dr. Oliver Sacks and led by Zachary Quinto — in the pipeline. What medical show do you love and why?
I was raised on “ER” [Hulu, Max]. It is the ultimate medical show. Especially because when I was still living in Sweden, where I’m from, I came to visit L.A. 17 years ago and I was invited to come on the set of Warner Bros. and it was a magical moment seeing how that show came to life. It’s one of the main reasons I moved here to the States and L.A. to pursue what I’m doing now. “ER,” hands down. It has everything.
The complete guide to home viewing
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You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
