“Have you ever cringed so hard, you could feel your DNA strands unraveling?”
Why yes, Will Arnett, many times — especially watching “Memory Hole,” your tedious survey of pop-culture train wrecks on the new streaming platform Quibi.
Quibi, which debuted with more than 40 series on Monday, offers content that is designed for phones and comes in pre-sliced chunks of under 10 minutes each. (The name stands for Quick Bites.) Admittedly, I started my exploratory binge with one bad choice after another. Whether it was “Gayme Show!,” “Singled Out” or Chrissy Teigen’s downright painful “Chrissy’s Court,” everything on my initial watch list felt like one of those guys who, for whatever reason, overcompensate with giant cars, biceps or guns: pitched way too big, as if desperately trying to escape the phone’s confines.
But things improved once I navigated away from the reality shows and into the “movies in chapters,” as Quibi calls its serialized features. And the documentaries included several worthwhile selections, as well.
Here’s a list of nine good shows from the debut lineup — Quibi-good, if not necessarily good-good — that you may want to sample during the platform’s 90-day free trial. (After that it’s $4.99 per month with ads, $7.99 without.)
‘&Music’
Watch it here.
This documentary series looks at the support system behind musicians: The mixing engineer MixedByAli and the rapper YG explain their relationship, as do the light director Gabe Fraboni and DJ Martin Garrix among others. This won’t be news to anybody following the music scene, but the show is good at describing in quick strokes how music stars’ careers are made of distinct building blocks.
‘Dishmantled’
Watch it here.
To win $5,000, two cooks must recreate from scratch a dish that has been blown out of a cannon and into their faces. “Dishmantled” is as close as American TV gets to a Japanese game show: preposterous, messy and loud-loud-loud. Its host, Tituss Burgess, and a rotating cast of judges (including Jane Krakowski and Daniel Levy) look into who came closest to the original dish and crack semi-wise. Numbing at first, the show does have a certain nutty charm once you get used to it.
‘I Promise’
Watch it here.
This documentary follows the first year of I Promise, the public school for at-risk youth that LeBron James created in his hometown, Akron, Ohio, in 2018. The show could easily have devolved into celebrity back-patting, but it is insightful and touching. In confronting systemic problems, it also provides a necessary counterbalance to Quibi’s patronizing and at times infuriating “Thanks a Million,” in which celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Kevin Hart and Aaron Rodgers each donate $100,000 to initiate a series of benevolent acts.
‘Most Dangerous Game’
Watch it here.
Liam Hemsworth’s character in this series, Dodge, is in debt and terminally ill, and his wife is pregnant. Volunteering to raise money by becoming the target in a human hunt suddenly becomes a valid life choice. Yes, this is yet another variation on the enduring “human-hunting” concept. Yes, the serialized movie squanders four installments to finally get Dodge on the run. And yes, Hemsworth’s acting barely squeaks above bare minimum (though it’s fun to watch Christoph Waltz run circles around him in their scenes together). But I kept coming back for more, so mission accomplished.
‘NightGowns’
Watch it here.
The “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Sasha Velour provides the soul behind “NightGowns” — both the live revue of that name and this series tracking the backstage action. Velour ventures onto the fantastical side of drag, making imaginative use of projections and costumes, and she encourages the other participants, who include Sasha Colby, Vander Von Odd and the drag king K. James as they develop their performances. The series documents the often obscure inspiration behind the acts, like the 1920s drag aerialist Barbette, and the work required to pull them off. But beyond the art, the series also documents community building. This is among the most life-affirming shows you could find on any platform.
‘Run This City’
Watch it here.
As soon as we meet the cocky, smarmy Jasiel Correia II in this documentary series, we start rooting for his demise. He’s just that kind of guy. In 2015, Correia was elected mayor of Fall River, Mass., at the ripe age of 23. A few years later, he was indicted on charges of fraud and extortion. Executive produced by Mark Wahlberg, the show follows Correia’s rise and fall like a slo-mo car crash. It is both sobering and infuriating.
‘Shape of Pasta’
Watch it here.
Foodie travelogues are popular because they hit two aspirational sweet spots at once: eating and scenery. Here, the California chef Evan Funke, who looks like a soft-spoken extra from “Sons of Anarchy,” investigates obscure pasta shapes in various Italian villages. Each episode is dedicated to a different type, with Funke consulting local nonnas. The best part, besides watching pasta being made and then eaten, is how preposterously serious Funke is about it all: “Her pinkies are just on the outside, holding in the edges,” he observes, or: “More pressure? It’s a little awkward.” You don’t say.
‘Survive’
Watch it here.
Nominally, the star attraction in this movie is Sophie Turner, who played Sansa on “Game of Thrones.” But the real draw is the effortlessly charismatic Corey Hawkins, from the short-lived “24: Legacy” spinoff. They are the only two who survive their plane’s crash, and they must make their way back to civilization — if they’re lucky, without resorting to cannibalism. Underneath its glossy exterior, “Survive” is a cheap and efficient B movie, just the way we like ’em.
‘When the Streetlights Go On’
Watch it here.
This crime thriller could have felt like reheated leftovers, having been in the works for years. But it’s not bad at all. Set in the summer of 1995 — cue nostalgia for those happy post-grunge days — the show revolves around the killing of queen-bee Chrissy (Kristine Froseth) and her English teacher-slash-completely inappropriate lover, Mr. Carpenter (Mark Duplass). At times, “Streetlights” strives for a “Blue Velvet” vibe about a small town’s dark underbelly, but it completely lacks that film’s perversity. Still, it’s worth a look because of its ace ensemble, which also includes Queen Latifah, Tony Hale and Chosen Jacobs.
Source: Television - nytimes.com
