The Best in Streaming This Week, Including Season Premieres of ‘Archer’ & ‘American Horror Story’
The best in streaming this week includes a couple of big season premieres of long-awaited shows. The 12th season of the adult animated sitcom Archer returns to FXX on Wednesday night. The suave, confident, and devastatingly handsome Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) may be the world’s greatest spy, but he still has issues with his friends and colleagues who live to undermine and betray one another. This season’s episodes feature the final acting appearances of the late Jessica Walter. The actress, who portrayed Malory Archer in the series, died earlier this year at the age of 80.
The anthology American Horror Story returns for its 10th season Thursday night on FX. This season is subtitled “Double Feature” and is split into two parts: “Red Tide” and “Death Valley.” The acclaimed series uses the same primary cast in different roles each season. The new season has been postponed a year as a result of filming delays wrought by COVID-19. Both shows stream the day after they air on FXX and FX (respectively) on Hulu.
Hulu
Hulu is a video streaming service that gives access to thousands of full seasons of exclusive series, hit movies, kids shows, and Hulu Originals like “Only Murders in the Building,” and “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
The rest of the best in streaming this week includes:
The true-life disappearance of Brittney Wood shocked and captivated the entire state of Alabama in 2012. This led to a shocking revelation about Brittney’s family causing her disappearance to become forgotten in the public eye. Brittney’s mother Chessie continues the search for her daughter after the police investigation. Revealed through gripping plot twists, we discover the horrific truth Brittney’s family was hiding in the three-part docuseries Monster in the Shadows. All three parts of the documentary series stream on Thursday on Peacock.
The effects of Hal Wackner’s rogue courtroom have spilled beyond the occasional parking ticket and small civil dispute as Oscar Rivi’s employee has been detained by another rogue community courtroom judge, on the fifth season finale of The Good Fight, streaming Thursday on Paramount+.
Paramount Plus
Paramount+ is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 40,000+ TV show episodes from BET, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. and more. The lineup includes “1883,” “Tulsa King,” “Star Trek: Discovery,” Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and “PAW Patrol.” Subscribers can watch the NFL, college football, The Masters, college basketball, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa, Serie A, and NWSL. The service also offers the option to watch your live CBS affiliate. The upgraded ad-free package includes premium movies and shows from Showtime.
Pen15 is middle school as it really happened in the year 2000. Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine play versions of themselves as 13-year-old outcasts, surrounded by actual 13-year-olds. In the animated special premiering Friday on Hulu, Anna and Maya are introduced to new crippling insecurities while on vacation with Curtis. The girls try to ignore them but a mystical turn makes their self-doubt impossible to forget. The Pen15 animated special streams on Friday on Hulu.
This week marks the third and final week of the NFL Preseason. You can watch as the coaches make their final decisions ahead of the season opener in terms of who will make the final team rosters. The games are compressed into a three-day weekend: Friday, Saturday and Sunday this week and you can find them on NFL Network, CBS, and NBC.
Also in sports, is the first week of college football action — referred to as “Week Zero.” Only a handful of games are being played this week — all on Saturday. This week’s games include Nebraska at Illinois, UConn at Fresno State, Hawaii at UCLA, and the MEAC-SWAC Challenge in Atlanta featuring two of the nation’s premier historically black college football programs: Alcorn State vs. North Carolina Central. Regular season college football action gets underway next week in earnest with a full slate of action across the nation. The majority of the games will be on Fox, CBS Sports Network, and ESPN.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”
After premiering in theaters and online via Disney Premier Access, the motion picture Cruella becomes available for everyone for no additional charge on Disney+ on Friday. The motion picture, starring Emma Stone, is a prequel to the Disney classic 101 Dalmations, and tells the backstory of the villainous Cruella deVil.