If your goal is to enjoy TV Recommendations that don’t involve The World Cup or America’s 250th Anniversary well…I did my best. Still, shall we #SetTheVCR?
Monday, June 08
Alice and Steve: Season 1 (Anytime / Hulu & Disney+)
Alice is devastated when her best friend Steve starts dating her 26-year-old daughter, Izzy. She’s going to lose her best friend and her daughter in one fell swoop. Alice tries everything she can to end the relationship. Unfortunately for her, Steve’s more than ready for the attack, and what begins as a perfect friendship devolves into an all-out feud. Here’s another silly age gap romance that’s such a ridiculous obsession for many Americans. In this one she’s 26 so the age isn’t a factor. Like at all. Have a good time. Do whatever and whoever you want.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: SELF RELIANCE (ANYTIME / CRAVE & HULU)
Tommy receives an invitation to win $1 million by playing a game where he must outwit hunters attempting to kill him. Given the opportunity to participate in a life or death reality game show, one man discovers there’s a lot to live for.
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Five minutes into Self Reliance, Andy Samberg shows up—pretty much as Andy Samberg and informs Jake Johnson: “Congratulations. You’ve been selected.” Selected for what? To win $1 million by surviving a dark web reality show where hunters spend 30 days trying to kill him. Well, if you know Jake Johnson you know he is no John Wick. Jake Johnson plays Tommy Walcott, a disillusioned man (read that as loser) stuck in a world that he doesn’t want to be in and trapped in a routine. So the opportunity for an adventure is most welcome. Though, this might be way too much adventure. Fortunately, he’s found a Nick Miller sized loophole! Even Schmidt would be proud of him. Jake Johnson wrote, produced and directed Self Reliance in 2023. It comes to Crave, now but you can be self reliant and check it out on Hulu.
Tuesday, June 09
Fast X (Anytime / Crave & Peacock)
Team Ruckus Reporting for Duty…I saw Fast X at the cinema. I’d need to watch Fast X again but the Letty/Cipher fight was a weird distraction. The scene dragged and didn’t resolve much by the end of it. This 10th movie wasn’t as tight as it shoulda been. (Truly this entry wasn’t as sharp or as tight as previous Fast and the Furious movies…we’re “family” so I can speak honestly…I paid for these movies, got this violent franchise to 10. So I’m still in; let’s finish this. Mash up those cars, mash em up good! I hope with the 10.5 that follows this they stick the landing…) Yes this is the first part of a a two-part finale planned since October 2020, though with the Hollywood strikes and other issues Part 2 has been delayed. The sequel, titled Fast Forever, is scheduled to be released on March 17, 2028.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: WOODSTOCK: THREE DAYS THAT DEFINED A GENERATION (7:30 P.M. / PBS)
Woodstock turns the lens back at the audience, at the swarming, impromptu city that grew up overnight on a few acres of farmland. What took place in that teeming mass of humanity — the rain-soaked, starving, tripping, half-a-million strong throng of young people — was nothing less than a miracle of teamwork, a manifestation of the “peace and love” the festival had touted and a validation of the counter-culture’s promise to the world. Who were these kids? What experiences and stories did they carry with them to Bethel, New York that weekend, and how were they changed by three days in the muck and mire of Yasgur’s farm?
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As America (and American networks!) gears up to celebrate its 250th birthday, it’s worth revisiting one of the country’s most impactful generations. In 1969, roughly half a million people descended on a 600-acre dairy farm in upstate New York. Roads were jammed. They ran outta food after the first day. Rain turned the grounds into a massive mud pit. By all accounts Woodstock should have been a disaster. And yet…this complete catastrophe became history. Woodstock: 3 Days That Defined a Generation bypasses the music mythmaking and focuses on the audience and organizers who lived through the festival. “Directed by Barak Goodman, the film explores how a poorly planned, logistically overwhelmed event survived near-disaster to become a triumph of peace, cooperation, and counterculture ideals.” This wasn’t just a concert for stoners and hot hippie chicks. It was a cultural flashpoint. This muddy, chaotic weekend became a defining cultural moment that would sculpt American history—and culture—for decades. (It is fittingly branded as an American Experience documentary on PBS. It’s wildly American to confront the unimaginable by making it up as you go along and somehow pulling it off.) You can’t reflect on America’s 250 years without acknowledging incredible historical moments like Woodstock and what it meant then and now.
Wednesday, June 10
Every Year After: Season 1 (Anytime / Prime Video)
Told over the course of six years and one week in Barry’s Bay – the quintessential lake town – Every Year After is a romantic, nostalgic story of first loves and the people and choices that mark us forever. It Is What It Is.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: OVER YOUR DEAD BODY (ANYTIME / PRIME VIDEO-CANADA)
Miserable couple Dan (Jason Segel) and Lisa (Samara Weaving) head to a remote cabin to fix their marriage, but both secretly plan to kill the other. Their murderous plots are interrupted by violent prison escapees, forcing the couple to pivot from killing each other to surviving a chaotic weekend.
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This English-language remake of Tommy Wirkola’s Norwegian thriller The Trip trades marital counseling for high-octane gore and pitch-black comedy. Jason Segel plays a struggling director, reduced to shooting pop-up ads after making his first and only feature film, and unhappily married to Samara Weaving, an aspiring actress. So murder seems like a logical way to bring back that spark. Only, their mutual, botched assassination plots at a remote cabin backfires when a trio of escaped convicts unexpectedly crashes the bloody romance party, forcing the broken couple to violently communicate and see the good psycho in each other if they wanna survive. Till death do we part but murder brings us closer together.
Thursday, June 11
Bonnaroo Livestream Day 1 (7:45 p.m. EST / Hulu & Disney+ Canada)
Welcome to the Day 1 livestream of the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. On Hulu & Disney+ (Canada) the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival takes place June 11 – 14. Day 1 offers a lineup of electronic and hip-hop acts, led by a highly anticipated headlining return from Skrillex. Four Tet is a highlight as are The Strokes. (And I’m curious about Wolfmother.) Aside from the concert stages, Disney+ and Hulu are launching a dedicated, on-site content studio called the Live Set which includes…artist interviews, behind-the-scenes access to the festival grounds and curated daily highlights.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: THE 2026 FIFA WORLD CUP TOURNAMENT (ANYTIME / FOX SPORTS)
Three host nations, 16 vibrant cities, and a historic 48 countries collide in North America for the largest, most unpredictable FIFA World Cup ever staged. The world’s greatest sporting spectacle as 48 nations battle through a grueling, high-stakes knockout bracket to claim football immortality.
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The FIFA World Cup kicks off in June, which means the entire planet briefly agrees on one thing: productivity is cancelled. Let the international arguing commence as the historic, newly expanded 48-team tournament kicks off with a massive double-header. FOX corner kicks things off with a full day of coverage, starting at 1:00 p.m. with a pregame show built for maximum hype. The music-filled opening ceremony follows the same template as the Super Bowl, the other loud and major football event. Then the actual soccer tournament begins at 3:00 p.m. as co-host nation Mexico takes on South Africa at the legendary Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The Opening Match is followed by The Night Match at 10:00 p.m. on FS1 as South Korea faces the Czech Republic. (Canada begins its tournament tomorrow in Toronto, while the U.S. is in LA.) This is one of those rare global moments where sports stop being just sports and becomes a shared broadcast reality show. Which means learning how to trash talk in different languages. Welcome to Sports Coachella! Programming Note: For cord-cutters…the opening match streams for free on Tubi.
Friday, June 12
The Listeners: Limited Series (Anytime / Starz-US & Hollywood Suite)
A provocative and psychological thriller about a mother tormented by a sound that no one else around her can hear. Increasingly isolated from her friends and family, she forms an unlikely bond with one of her students, and together the pair are drawn into a strange community who can also hear The Hum.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: DUST BUNNY (ANYTIME / CRAVE & HBO MAX)
An eight-year-old girl asks her scheming neighbor for help in killing the monster under her bed that she thinks ate her family.
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Yes. An 8-year-old girl hires a hitman to kill the monster under her bed. And that hitman is Mads Mikkelsen. Sold! “It was conceived and designed to be an Amazing Story story,” says Bryan Fuller. Remember the 2020 Amazing Stories revival by Spielberg? This dark fairytale premise has got an ’80s Gremlins vibe and style. That classic ’80s Amblin energy where childhood fear and weird imagination clash in slightly dangerous situations. I was sad I was unable to get this movie Done & Dusted last TIFF. With it steaming on Crave I can now snuggle with this Dust Bunny. Programming Note: Dust Bunny was added to HBO Max on Friday, April 17…2026.
Saturday, June 13
My Adventures With Superman: Season 3 (Midnight / Adult Swim)
Following the events of Season 2, Clark Kent embraces his role as Superman and his Kryptonian heritage, while Lois Lane settles into her role as a top reporter at the Daily Planet. Meanwhile, Kara Zor-El adjusts to life on Earth, causing a shift in her dynamic with Jimmy Olsen.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: FIND YOUR FRIENDS (ANYTIME / SHUDDER & AMC+)
Amber and her four best friends flee Los Angeles for a wild weekend getaway in Joshua Tree. Their partying draws intense, aggressive hostility from locals, spiraling their vacation into a violent, revenge-fueled nightmare.
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We got vulnerable influencers vs. dangerous locals. Is that becoming a genre or a sub-genre? We got a girls’ trip turns into a nightmare of unrelenting paranoia and psychological warfare. Also becoming a whole genre. I assume it’s only a matter of time before the masks come off? So put Friends in air quotes. As panic shifts gears from a high-octane chase into a brutal survival horror it all prompts one obvious question. In cast of girls…in a horror movie…who will be The Final Girl?
Sunday, June 14
The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Director’s Cut (Anytime / Disney+ US)
Mulder and Scully are called back to duty by the FBI when a former priest claims to be receiving psychic visions pertaining to a kidnapped agent.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: EPIC: ELVIS PRESLEY IN CONCERT (ANYTIME / PARAMOUNT+ US)
EPiC features long-lost footage from Presley’s legendary Vegas residency in the 1970s, woven together with rare 16mm footage from Elvis on Tour and treasured 8mm film from the Graceland archive, along with rediscovered recordings of Elvis telling ‘his side of the story.’
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Think of this Elvis documentary as Baz Luhrmann’s follow up to his 2022 movie Elvis. (Austin Butler did a decent Elvis. My favourite movie Elvis is still Val Kilmer in True Romance.) “Free of contemporary interviews with experts, critics or other stakeholders, the film is propelled by recently discovered archival footage shot at the beginning of the famed performer’s Las Vegas residency. Originally intended to last a few weeks at the International Hotel, the 1969 engagement was shockingly lucrative, and stretched on for over seven years.” Equally cool: “During the production of his 2022 film Elvis Luhrmann sought footage for potential use and discovered 68 boxes of film negatives and unseen 8mm footage in the Warner Bros. film vaults.” This is new Elvis. Elvis is fresh. Present tense.
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.