Lifestyle
The best TV of early 2024: Here's what to watch in January
After two long strikes and the pandemic disruption, 2024 is the year everything comes back. Above, Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez in Echo.
Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios
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Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios
After two long strikes and the pandemic disruption, 2024 is the year everything comes back. Above, Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez in Echo.
Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios
This is the year everything comes back.
That’s the sentiment you can practically feel bursting from show business, as we start a new year freed from the shackles of two Hollywood strikes, easing away from compensation conflicts that threatened to hobble most of the country’s film and TV industry permanently.
Given everything that’s happened so far, it feels like a miracle to note that there are still a fair number of interesting, powerful and compelling TV shows headed our way in 2024 — from the return of one of the most creatively ambitious crime dramas in recent memory, now set in Alaska, to a Marvel series mostly shorn of superheroes that may demonstrate exactly how the MCU should do TV from now on.
Here’s a list ticking off the best stuff coming to the small screen in the next few weeks. You can’t say you weren’t warned.
Echo, Disney+, Jan. 9
Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin and Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez in Marvel Studios’ Echo.
Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios
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Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios
Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin and Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez in Marvel Studios’ Echo.
Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios
I know. I’m the one who was optimistic enough to say that dud of a Nick Fury series Secret Invasion might be the answer to Marvel’s problems with streaming. But it turns out, Echo‘s violent, back-to-basics story, starring Alaqua Cox is just what the TV critic ordered.
Here, Cox plays Maya Lopez, also known as Echo, a skilled fighter and gang leader who debuted in Disney+’s Hawkeye series. And this story — in which Lopez is forced to revisit her past after learning Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin wanted her father killed – hearkens back to the heyday of Netflix’s Daredevil-connected Marvel series, which mostly ditched flying people with capes for a more realistic, gritty style of action. Lopez, like the actor who plays her, is Native American, was born deaf, and wears a prosthetic leg, breaking loads of barriers in representation through one, powerful performance. She has to overcome a lot of assumptions and bridge a lot of different cultures while trying to discover exactly how she is going to make her former mentor pay for orchestrating the death of the person she loved most in the world.
Criminal Record, Apple TV+, Jan. 10
Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo in Criminal Record.
Apple TV+
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Apple TV+
Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo in Criminal Record.
Apple TV+
Featuring two of my favorite actors – The Good Wife/Good Fight alum Cush Jumbo and former Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi – this series explores in agonizing detail the effort by a young British police detective (Jumbo’s June Lenker) to learn if a police task force once led by Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty (a world-weary Capaldi) may have unfairly imprisoned a Black man years ago for murder. Along the way, we see Lenker forced to question her sensitivities to racism and sexism, while Hegarty fights to protect his legacy and his task force from accusations of corruption and prejudice. Best of all, there are no easy answers in this story, which delivers a delicious cat-and-mouse game between Lenker and Hegarty, with a surprising end.
True Detective: Night Country, HBO and Max, Jan. 14
Kali Reis and Jodie Foster in True Detective: Night Country.
Michele K. Short/HBO
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Michele K. Short/HBO
Kali Reis and Jodie Foster in True Detective: Night Country.
Michele K. Short/HBO
Since its groundbreaking first season in 2014 with movie stars Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson and Michelle Monaghan, this anthology cop drama has struggled to live up to its potential as a genre shattering, high-end TV show. Fortunately, the new season remedies that problem with a typically excellent Jodie Foster as an irascible chief of police Liz Danvers in remote Ennis, Alaska. She’s forced to partner with a state trooper she hates — Evangeline Navarro, an Indigenous woman played by Kali Reis — to solve a mysterious mass murder at a scientific research station.
Series creator Nic Pizzolatto steps aside as showrunner for the first time, allowing Mexican producer and film director Issa Lopez to serve as showrunner, director, and lead writer — crafting a complex, enthralling story centered on women resisting abuse from men, indigenous culture, mental health, mysticism and the odd things which can happen in a town shrouded by darkness for six months.
After Midnight, CBS, Jan. 16
Comic Taylor Tomlinson will host After Midnight.
Ramona Rosales/CBS
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Comic Taylor Tomlinson will host After Midnight.
Ramona Rosales/CBS
Late night TV stands at a crossroads, with stars like James Corden fleeing the genre as young people increasingly lose interest. I’m not sure if hiring youthful comic Taylor Tomlinson to host a faux game show centered on Internet culture will help any of that. But this program – a reboot of a former Comedy Central series called @midnight that’s replacing Corden’s The Late Late Show — might at least offer an alternative. As I write this, critics haven’t yet seen the rebooted show, which originally featured a trio of comics joking around while answering a series of questions about Internet culture. With Stephen Colbert and Funny or Die among a lengthy list of executive producers, one thing is certain: they will have few excuses for not bringing the funny.
American Nightmare, Netflix, Jan. 17
Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskins in American Nightmare.
Netflix
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Netflix
Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskins in American Nightmare.
Netflix
This three-episode docuseries is focused on a jarring story: When physical therapist Aaron Quinn called police with a bizarrely outlandish tale, claiming that someone had bound and drugged him and kidnapped his girlfriend Denise Huskins for ransom, the cops assumed what many would – that Quinn was lying to cover up something he had done. But the truth was much darker.
This Netflix docuseries briskly traces the evolution of Quinn’s story – including the re-appearance of Huskins a while later, seemingly unharmed – revealing the shocking, terrible consequences when a police department has unacceptable procedures for handling crimes involving relationships and gender violence, choosing easy explanations over believing potential victims.
Masters of the Air, Apple TV+, Jan. 26
Callum Turner and Austin Butler in Masters of the Air.
Apple TV+
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Apple TV+
Callum Turner and Austin Butler in Masters of the Air.
Apple TV+
Between the two of them, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks have given us a long list of films and TV shows centered on the valor of American soldiers in World War II. So it makes a certain kind of sense they would return as executive producers on this limited series, which is a kind of Band of Brothers set in the Air Force, depicting the true stories of an American bomber group in the Great War.
It’s a well-produced, at times gorily explicit drama featuring Austin Butler, working a buttery accent only slightly downshifted from his Elvis patois, playing an airman trying to stay alive as U.S. forces face staggering losses while bombing Nazi Germany. At a time when audiences are trying to sort out complicated geopolitical conflicts in real life, Spielberg and Hanks once again offer simpler stories from a time when America was more likely to be considered the unambiguous hero.
Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, FX, Jan. 31
Tom Hollander as Truman Capote in Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.
Pari Dukovic/FX
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Tom Hollander as Truman Capote in Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.
Pari Dukovic/FX
It has taken Ryan Murphy nearly seven years to craft a successor to the first season of his Feud anthology series, which debuted in 2017 with a take on the legendary rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. This time, Murphy’s taking on author Truman Capote’s estrangement from a coterie of wealthy New York City socialites who were his gossipy friends – until he published stories widely recognized to be thinly-veiled accounts of their turbulent personal lives.
The White Lotus alum Tom Hollander excellently reproduces the oddly-thin voice and cheeky mannerisms of mid-1960s-era Capote, who had already written Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, but was desperate for a new literary triumph while drowning in addictions. With Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Calista Flockhart and Chloë Sevigny on board, Murphy has packed his cast with big names who are sure to deliver big scenes.
Still catching up on last year? Here’s a collection of the best movies and TV of 2023, picked for you by NPR critics.
Paramount Pictures; MUBI; Sony Pictures; Jour2Fête; Hulu; Apple TV+
Lifestyle
In ‘No Other Choice,’ a loyal worker gets the ax — and starts chopping
Lee Byung-hun stars in No Other Choice.
NEON
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NEON
In an old Kids in the Hall comedy sketch called “Crazy Love,” two bros throatily proclaim their “love of all women” and declare their incredulity that anyone could possibly take issue with it:
Bro 1: It is in our very makeup; we cannot change who we are!
Bro 2: No! To change would mean … (beat) … to make an effort.
I thought about that particular exchange a lot, watching Park Chan-wook’s latest movie, a niftily nasty piece of work called No Other Choice. The film isn’t about the toxic lecherousness of boy-men, the way that KITH sketch is. But it is very much about men, and that last bit: the annoyed astonishment of learning that you’re expected to change something about yourself that you consider essential, and the extreme lengths you’ll go to avoid doing that hard work.
Many critics have noted No Other Choice‘s satirical, up-the-minute universality, given that it involves a faceless company screwing over a hardworking, loyal employee. As the film opens, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has been working at a paper factory for 25 years; he’s got the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect family — you see where this is going, right? (If you don’t, even after the end of the first scene, when Man-su calls his family over for a group hug while sighing, “I’ve got it all,” then I envy your blithe disinterest in how movies work. Never change, you beautiful blissful Pollyanna, you.)
He gets canned, and can’t seem to find another job in his beloved paper industry, despite going on a series of dehumanizing interviews. His resourceful wife Miri (Son Ye-jin) proves a hell of a lot more adaptable than he does, making practical changes to the family’s expenses to weather Man-su’s situation. But when foreclosure threatens, he resolves to eliminate the other candidates (Lee Sung-min, Cha Seung-won) for the job he wants at another paper factory — and, while he’s at it, maybe even the jerk (Park Hee-soon) to whom he’d be reporting.
So yes, No Other Choice is a scathing spoof of corporate culture. But the director’s true satirical eye is trained on the interpersonal — specifically the intractability of the male ego.
Again and again, the women in the film (both Son Ye-jin as Miri and the hilarious Yeom Hye-ran, who plays the wife of one of Man-su’s potential victims) entreat their husbands to think about doing something, anything else with their lives. But these men have come to equate their years of service with a pot-committed core identity as men and breadwinners; they cling to their old lives and seek only to claw their way back into them. Man-su, for example, unthinkingly channels the energy that he could devote to personal and professional growth into planning and executing a series of ludicrously sloppy murders.
It’s all satisfyingly pulpy stuff, loaded with showy, cinematic homages to old-school suspense cinematography and editing — cross-fades, reverse-angles and jump cuts that are deliberately and unapologetically Hitchcockian. That deliberateness turns out to be reassuring and crowd-pleasing; if you’re tired of tidy visual austerity, of films that look like TV, the lushness on display here will have you leaning back in your seat thinking, “This right here is cinema, goddammit.”
Narratively, the film is loaded with winking jokes and callbacks that reward repeat viewing. Count the number of times that various characters attempt to dodge personal responsibility by sprinkling the movie’s title into their dialogue. Wonder why one character invokes the peculiar image of a madwoman screaming in the woods and then, only a few scenes later, finds herself chasing someone through the woods, screaming. Marvel at Man-su’s family home, a beautifully ugly blend of traditional French-style architecture with lumpy Brutalist touches like exposed concrete balconies jutting out from every wall.
There’s a lot that’s charming about No Other Choice, which might seem an odd thing to note about such a blistering anti-capitalist screed. But the director is careful to remind us at all turns where the responsibility truly lies; say what you will about systemic economic pressure, the blood stays resolutely on Man-su’s hands (and face, and shirt, and pants, and shoes). The film repeatedly offers him the ability to opt out of the system, to abandon his resolve that he must return to the life he once knew, exactly as he knew it.
Man-su could do that, but he won’t, because to change would mean to make an effort — and ultimately men would rather embark upon a bloody murder spree than go to therapy.
Lifestyle
Austin airport to nearly double in size over next decade
AUSTIN, Texas – Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will nearly double in size over the next decade.
The airport currently has 34 gates. With the expansion projects, it will increase by another 32 gates.
What they’re saying:
Southwest, Delta, United, American, Alaska, FedEx, and UPS have signed 10-year use-and lease agreements, which outline how they operate at the airport, including with the expansion.
“This provides the financial foundation that will support our day-to-day operations and help us fund the expansion program that will reshape how millions of travelers experience AUS for decades to come,” Ghizlane Badawi, CEO of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, said.
Concourse B, which is in the design phase, will have 26 gates, estimated to open in the 2030s. Southwest Airlines will be the main tenant with 18 gates, United Airlines will have five gates, and three gates will be for common use. There will be a tunnel that connects to Concourse B.
“If you give us the gates, we will bring the planes,” Adam Decaire, senior VP of Network Planning & Network Operations Control at Southwest Airlines said.
“As part of growing the airport, you see that it’s not just us that’s bragging about the success we’re having. It’s the airlines that want to use this airport, and they see advantage in their business model of being part of this airport, and that’s why they’re growing the number of gates they’re using,” Mayor Kirk Watson said.
Dig deeper:
The airport will also redevelop the existing Barbara Jordan Terminal, including the ticket counters, security checkpoints, and baggage claim. Concourse A will be home to Delta Air Lines with 15 gates. American Airlines will have nine gates, and Alaska Airlines will have one gate. There will be eight common-use gates.
“Delta is making a long-term investment in Austin-Bergstrom that will transform travel for years to come,” Holden Shannon, senior VP for Corporate Real Estate at Delta Air Lines said.
The airport will also build Concourse M — six additional gates to increase capacity as early as 2027. There will be a shuttle between that and the Barbara Jordan Terminal. Concourse M will help with capacity during phases of construction.
There will also be a new Arrivals and Departures Hall, with more concessions and amenities. They’re also working to bring rideshare pickup closer to the terminal.
City officials say these projects will bring more jobs.
The expansion is estimated to cost $5 billion — none of which comes from taxpayer dollars. This comes from airport revenue, possible proceeds, and FAA grants.
“We’re seeing airlines really step up to ensure they are sharing in the infrastructure costs at no cost to Austin taxpayers, and so we’re very excited about that as well,” Council Member Vanessa Fuentes (District 2) said.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Angela Shen
Lifestyle
After years of avoiding the ER, Noah Wyle feels ‘right at home’ in ‘The Pitt’
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Hear The Original Interview
Television
After years of avoiding the ER, Noah Wyle feels ‘right at home’ in ‘The Pitt’
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