The 5 Best New TV Shows of May 2024

TIME

With the Emmys eligibility deadline looming on the 31st, May tends to be a big month for TV. But 2024 has borne the brunt of 2023’s Hollywood strikes, so the number of prestige projects sliding in before the cutoff has been conspicuously low. Most of May’s best new shows look nothing like Emmy bait. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - Times TV critic Judy Berman breaks down

00:08 her top five new TV shows for May, 2024.

00:12 - The FBI has been pursuing Huey Newton for years.

00:18 They saw the programs worked and change was happening.

00:21 - "The Big Cigar" on Apple TV+.

00:25 Huey P. Newton would have been skeptical of "The Big Cigar",

00:29 a mini series that dramatizes his flight

00:31 from the US to Cuba in 1974,

00:34 and the show is the first to admit it.

00:36 In a voiceover that prefaces

00:38 the electrifying six-part series,

00:41 the Black Panther Party co-founder,

00:43 played by actor Andre Holland, says,

00:45 "The story I'm about to tell you is true,

00:48 but it is coming through the lens of Hollywood,

00:50 so let's see how much of my story

00:52 they're really willing to show."

00:54 That Newton's wariness of mass culture

00:56 frames the story from the very beginning

00:59 is a sign that viewers are in for something much smarter,

01:02 bolder, and more challenging

01:04 than the entertainment industry's typical

01:06 sanitized take on radical politics.

01:09 - 48 hours since Edgar Anderson

01:15 was last seen around 8 a.m.,

01:17 I wrote to school.

01:19 We're urging anybody with information, however small,

01:25 please come forward, pick up the phone,

01:28 and help us bring Edgar home.

01:30 - Eric on Netflix.

01:32 The morning after a particularly painful confrontation,

01:36 busy bickering with his long-suffering wife,

01:39 prickly children's television creator Vincent

01:42 instructs his nine-year-old son Edgar

01:44 to walk to school by himself.

01:47 On one hand, it's only a few blocks away.

01:50 On the other, this is 1980s New York

01:52 and danger is everywhere.

01:54 So of course, Cassie panics when she receives word

01:57 that Edgar never made it to class.

01:59 She spends all day trying to reach Vincent

02:02 with the terrifying news.

02:04 It's only that night

02:05 that the weight of his error falls on Vincent,

02:08 who soon becomes obsessed with the idea

02:11 that he can convince his son,

02:12 who's likely to be dead in a ditch,

02:14 to come home by building Eric,

02:17 a big blue monster character that Edgar has been sketching

02:21 and putting him on TV.

02:23 Our hero is also, you see, an alcoholic

02:27 with a history of mental illness.

02:29 What holds it all together is the parallel Morgan draws

02:32 between a world overpopulated with bad dads

02:35 and a patriarchy, one that in the city

02:38 encompasses the police, real estate, and politics

02:42 that is rotting from the inside.

02:44 - Now, you're probably thinking,

02:46 you keep hearing us say LA.

02:48 What do we mean by LA?

02:49 Well, in many ways, we mean Los Angeles.

02:52 Let's take a look at what that means.

02:55 (audience laughing)

02:56 Yeah, dude, this is it.

02:58 - John Mulaney presents "Everybody's in LA" on Netflix.

03:04 Let's get one thing straight.

03:05 John Mulaney is not angling to become the full-time host

03:08 of a late night talk show.

03:10 He confirmed as much in the monologue

03:11 that opened his six-night stint

03:13 at the helm of John Mulaney Presents "Everybody's in LA,"

03:17 the Netflix talk show that ran concurrently

03:20 with the streaming giant's annual LA-based comedy event,

03:23 Netflix is a Joke Fest,

03:25 and is now available to stream on the platform.

03:28 The "Everybody's in LA" concept,

03:29 Chicago native Mulaney and a panel

03:32 of Netflix-affiliated comics

03:34 and thematically appropriate guests

03:36 dissect a different aspect of Los Angeles life each night.

03:39 It's too specific, not to mention too dependent,

03:42 on everybody actually being in LA

03:45 to fuel an indefinite run.

03:47 But the four episodes that I've aired so far

03:49 prove that Mulaney has everything it takes

03:52 to be the best late night personality of his generation

03:55 at a time when the format seems more desperate

03:58 than ever for a savior.

03:59 - One man's trash is Julia Fox's treasure.

04:03 - I just couldn't part with the actual floor itself.

04:06 (laughing)

04:07 You have five items that you must use in-

04:09 - OMG Fashion on E.

04:12 Project Runway is a reality TV classic,

04:14 one whose influence has only been reinforced

04:17 by the emergence of shameless yet watchable rip-offs

04:20 like "Making the Cut" and "Next in Fashion."

04:24 We certainly don't need another runway dupe,

04:26 so it's exciting that E's "OMG Fashion"

04:30 feels like something genuinely fresh

04:32 in the fashion competition category.

04:35 In blissfully brief episodes edited

04:37 at the brisk pace of 90s MTV,

04:40 multi-hyphenate "It Girl" Julia Fox

04:42 challenges trios of designers to make themed ensembles

04:46 suited to her own outre aesthetics.

04:49 Prepare yourself for plastic tampon applicators,

04:51 BDSM gear, and her actual blood.

04:56 Visionary stylist, Laura Roach, co-hosts

04:58 colorfully comparing one garment

05:00 to Oscar de la Renta on fentanyl, meant as a compliment.

05:04 While Fox's incessant repetition

05:06 of the word disruptor can grate,

05:08 the show packs more creativity, wit, and transgression

05:12 into each half hour than runway and its imitators

05:15 have mustered in years.

05:17 - Asa Hayes, Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas, Otis Redding.

05:21 - "Facts, Soulsville, USA" on HBO.

05:27 When Jim Stewart hit up his sister Estelle Axton

05:30 for funds to start Satellite Records in 1957,

05:33 the white producer and fiddle player

05:35 envisioned a country music label,

05:37 along with a record store that would keep the company

05:40 connected to music fans in its home base of Memphis.

05:43 But by 1961, Satellite had become Stax,

05:46 and the many black musicians who frequented the shop,

05:49 one of few businesses in what was then a segregated city

05:52 that didn't discriminate, were pioneering a sound

05:55 that would come to be known as Southern Soul.

05:58 It's a remarkable story recounted with insight and nuance

06:01 in a four-part docuseries.

06:03 Through interviews with Stewart, who died in 2022,

06:06 Booker T. Jones, the ingenious executive Al Bell,

06:10 and other crucial characters,

06:11 director Jamila Wignott weaves Stax's tumultuous history

06:15 into the fabric of a society

06:17 in the throes of the civil rights movement

06:19 that was just beginning to integrate.

06:21 Otis Redding's breakthrough performance

06:23 for thousands of white hippies at Monterey Pop,

06:26 masterminded by Bell,

06:27 Stax, musicians' eye-opening tours of Europe,

06:30 where they were treated like stars

06:32 rather than second-class citizens,

06:34 and the label's Blaxploitation-era revival

06:36 with Isaac Hayes' "Shaft" soundtrack

06:39 are just a few of this series' fascinating vignettes.

06:42 But Wignott also acknowledges

06:44 that Stax was no post-racial utopia,

06:47 making space for Jones and other alums

06:49 to reflect on their frustrations with white colleagues

06:52 who rarely seem to consider the Black community's plight.

06:55 (upbeat music)

06:57 (upbeat music)

07:00 (upbeat music)

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