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There are roughly 47,000—oh, wait, a new Netflix Original just dropped; make that 47,001—TV shows and movies coming out each week. At Obsessed, we consider it our social duty to help you see the best and skip the rest.
We’ve already got a variety of in-depth, exclusive coverage on all of your streaming favorites and new releases, but sometimes what you’re looking for is a simple Do or Don’t. That’s why we created See/Skip, to tell you exactly what our writers think you should See and what you can Skip from the past week’s crowded entertainment landscape.
See: Minx Season 2
Minx Season 2 is a testament to why some shows are worth saving. After a rocky road to its second season, the show about an erotic women’s magazine is back with more dicks, more drama, and the fighting spirit to go for a future third round.
Here’s Nick Schager’s take:
“Unceremoniously canceled following its first HBO Max season, Minx rises again on Starz—replete with a cornucopia of diverse dicks. Ellen Rapoport’s half-hour comedy series continues to hinge on the clash between men and women, and high and low. For the majority of its sophomore outing, it peddles a suitably silly—if a bit more scattershot—fiction about empowerment, compromise, and the lengths to which people will go to achieve their ambitions. What begins as a lighthearted and frothy tale of gender warfare, however, eventually devolves into a preposterous mess, thanks to its desire to imagine yesteryear through an ill-fitting contemporary lens.
Minx, which returns July 21, picks up with its characters at a moment of tumultuous early-’70s transition. Now in full control of Minx magazine, which has become a global sensation thanks to its marriage of feminist ideology and naked-men centerfolds, Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond) is being courted by the publishing world’s heavyweights (Hearst, Condé Nast, Meredith). Yet she can’t make a decision because she fears that giving up control will result in the destruction of her vision.”
(L-R) Tasha Smith, Michelle Buteau, and Peppermint in Survival of the Thickest.
Vanessa Clifton/NetflixSkip: Survival of the Thickest
Survival of the Thickest is ironically stretched thin, with a decent premise—bolstered by the affable star power of Michelle Buteau—that relies too heavily on old sitcom tropes to keep it from the fresh, empowering comedy it wants to be.
Here’s Coleman Spilde’s take:
“The 2000s were an especially tough decade to be a comedian. An increasing push to digital media meant there were more opportunities for up-and-coming comics, but it was less likely that they’d be a successful showcase for anyone’s talent. Comedians had to claw their way for airtime on talking-head clip shows and 10-minute spots on Comedy Central just to get a lick of recognition and stability. If they were lucky, they made it past the audition round of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, and even then, the winner was guaranteed about as much fame and stardom as a winner of The Voice would be today (which is to say: almost none).
Times were tough, no doubt. But comedian and actor Michelle Buteau was there for all of it, climbing the ranks to establish her sharp, observant voice. After years of growing her brand—becoming a staple of talk shows, podcasts, and the host of Netflix’s reality show The Circle—Buteau published her first book, Survival of the Thickest, a collection of essays about her winding road through the aughts to stardom.”
Erin Lichy and Sai De Silva on The Real Housewives of New York City.
Noam Galai/BravoSee: Real Housewives of New York Season 14
Real Housewives of New York Season 14’s entirely new cast revives the tentpole franchise for something remarkably fun. It’s a welcome surprise, given that the show’s two-year hiatus left fans wondering if all the waiting would end up being worth it.
Here’s Kyndall Cunningham’s take:
“As a longtime fan of the original Real Housewives of New York, a Dorinda Medley warrior and Ramona Singer apologist, I mourn the loss of the veteran cast on my television like a deceased relative. (I’m only slightly kidding).
After 13 years on the air, one of the oldest and highest-rated Housewives franchises came crumbling down after a staggeringly bad and borderline-unwatchable Season 13. Already hampered by filming restrictions due to pandemic, the season was largely defined by uncomfortable racial conversations—guided by the show’s first Black castmate Eboni K. Williams—a glaring lack of chemistry, and a lot of random outbursts from Leah McSweeney. Leading up to the ultimately axed reunion, it seemed like there were some tricky behind-the-scenes tensions at play. Apparently, things were so messy that the easiest choice at the time was to completely disband and rebuild the show from scratch.”
Lola Tung and Gavin Casalegno on The Summer I Turned Pretty.
Amazon StudiosSee: The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2
The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2 is total teen mush, replete with Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo needle drops that serve to tell this season’s story better than the actual writing does. If that’s mean, I apologize—this is the summer that I turned petty.
Here’s Fletcher Peters’ take:
“It’s no spoiler to say that, over the course of The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2, there are a whopping nine different Taylor Swift needle drops. (If you were looking to be surprised, don’t shoot the messenger—creator Jenny Han revealed this in a teaser for the show.) There are more T. Swift songs in the Prime Video show’s sophomore season than there are episodes.
Since it premiered last year, The Summer I Turned Pretty has become the one-stop-shop for previews of Swift’s new rerecordings. Last season, Swift premiered ‘This Love (Taylor’s Version)’ in the show, while both ‘Back to December (Taylor’s Version)’ and a new take on Folklore’s ‘August’ are featured in trailers for this season. But does the show itself actually live up to the sweeping, life-altering romance Swift muses about in her chart-topping songs? The first season certainly did. The second, not so much.”
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