What to Watch This Week: April 2 to 7

From Guy Ritchie’s latest British crime epic to Mo’Nique’s controversy-laden new Netflix comedy special, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week

1. Royal Crackers – Sunday, April 2, Adult Swim | Series Premiere

Just like Succession, except animated and even more absurd, this twisted comedy follows brothers Stebe and Theo—one a family man, the other a wannabe rock star desperate to revive his glory days—who find themselves in control of their father’s snack food empire after the old man slips into a “super-coma.” The show premieres with three back-to-back episodes, before settling into a one-per-week model starting next Sunday. 

2. American Experience – Tuesday, April 4, WTVS & KCTS

For nearly 50 years, engineer and inventor Mária Telkes applied her prodigious intellect to harnessing the power of the sun, designing the world’s first successfully solar-heated modern residence and identifying a promising new chemical that, for the first time, could store solar heat like a battery. During a career that spanned from the 1930s until the ’70s, however, her brilliance was undercut and thwarted by her boss and colleagues—all men—at MIT. Telkes is the focus of new documentary The Sun Queen, exploring the legacy of this pioneer in the field of sustainable energy, whose work continues to influence how we power our lives today. 

3. Mo’Nique: My Name is Mo’Nique – Tuesday, April 4, Netflix

It once seemed unlikely that we’d ever find a new Mo’Nique special debuting on Netflix. Indeed, in 2018, the comedian actually asked her fans to boycott the streaming service, a situation which came about after she learned that Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle were getting $20 million per special, Amy Schumer was offered $11 million for a special and Mo’Nique was initially offered a (relatively) paltry $500,000.  

This led to a lawsuit in 2019, which was settled in 2022, and while the details were confidential, the end result must’ve been satisfactory, given this special’s arrival so soon thereafter. In the trailer, Mo’Nique proudly declares, “When you turn your TV off from this one, you’ll say, ‘Now we understand that woman.’ There are things I’m going to say in this comedy special that I thought I would take to my grave.” 

4. Dave – Wednesday, April 5, FXX Canada | Season Premiere

Dave and company begin season three by kicking off their sure-to-be-epic rap tour, starting in Texas before moving to Dave’s hometown of Philadelphia, where his sordid origins are ultimately revealed. 

5. The Crossover – Wednesday, April 5, Disney+ | Series Premiere

Like sports movies and shows with lots of heart? If so, the Mouse House is here to deliver the show you (and quite possibly your family) didn’t even know you needed in your life. The Crossover is based on the critically acclaimed and bestselling novel in-verse (told through poetry rather than prose) by Kwame Alexander. The show traces the lives of two brothers, Josh and Jordan Bell, young basketball phenoms. As their father (a retired pro baller) adjusts to life after the game and their mother starts pursuing her own dreams after years of putting them on hold, there is plenty of change afoot for the siblings to deal with.  

The interesting twist here is that the story is told through Josh’s perspective as an adult, as he looks back and narrates his own coming-of-age—through prose, of course. Jalyn Hall and Amir O’Neil star as Josh and Jordan, while Daveed Diggs is the narrator.  

6. Schmigadoon! – Wednesday, April 5, Apple TV+ | Season Premiere

In the summer of 2021, Apple TV+ welcomed viewers to the magical town of Schmigadoon, a strange place discovered by two New York physicians—Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key)—while on a backpacking trip devised to help them restrengthen their romantic bond. Upon entering the town, which basically existed within a musical à la those made during Hollywood’s Golden Age, the couple discovered that they were unable to leave until they’d found true love. Thankfully, they found it within themselves, thereby providing them with the opportunity to return to New York, but as season two begins, they’re just sorta bored, so they decide to seek out Schmigadoon again. This time, however, the musicals have changed, and they’re much more inspired by those of the 1960s and 1970s.  

“During those years, the musicals got darker,” said Cinco Paul, co-creator and executive producer of Schmigadoon!, during the show’s panel at the Television Critics Association press tour. “They don’t have happy endings. They’re more complicated. And as the composer, too, it was really interesting to me how just… You know, the sound of the Rodgers & Hammerstein era is pretty similar. You know, all the songs sound the same. But here just like the musical split into so many different—you know, you have the rock pop of Schwartz and Lloyd Webber, and then Kander & Ebb with their sort of ragtime, and Sondheim with his thing. There was so much variety in this era, the musicals just exploded.” 

7. Beef – Thursday, April 6, Netflix

Since leaving behind his career-launching role as Glenn on The Walking Dead courtesy of a barbed-wire bat to the head, Steven Yeun’s career has only been on the upswing—including an Academy Award nomination in 2021 for bittersweet immigrant saga Minari.  

Now, he’s set to dazzle us again in Beef, one of the most intriguing new series of the year. A genre-bender that offers an intoxicating mix of dark comedy, thriller and poignant character study, the 10-parter from creator Lee Sung Jin casts Yeun as Danny and comedian Ali Wong as Amy. They’re two people who, on the surface, couldn’t be more different. He’s a contractor barely making ends meet. She’s an entrepreneur about to sell her company for millions. But after a moment of road rage in a parking lot, they’re set on a tragicomic collision course—their mutual need for petty retribution sending them both down the road to self-destruction… and, just maybe, self-discovery.

8. Boom Boom! Boris Becker vs. the World – Friday, April 7, Apple TV+

Boris Becker took the world of tennis by storm, winning Wimbledon at age 17, then proceeding to win 49 career titles, including six Grand Slams. In the midst of these triumphs, the German athlete became mired in controversy for his scandalous personal life, which included fathering a child during a brief tryst with a waitress in a restaurant, and being sentenced to prison in the U.K. for hiding assets during his bankruptcy. Filmed over the course of three years, including the period of his trial, this two-part doc from Oscar-winner Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) also includes interviews with rivals John McEnroe, Björn Borg and Novak Djokovic.  

“I’m the last person to complain about my life. I’m 55 years old and I’m very proud of the things that I’ve done. But I’ve made mistakes,” Becker admitted during a press conference for the film. “It is very difficult to win Wimbledon at age 17. You have to be a bit crazy. Borderline. Crossing the line. Doing things that nobody has done before in order to achieve something nobody has achieved before. To have that mindset and live a normal lifestyle is almost impossible. And when the going gets tough I usually get better… But in real life that is a problem sometimes. I’ve paid a heavy price for some of the things I did in my past.”

9. Transatlantic – Friday, April 7, Netflix

If period dramas are your jam, and if a show based on historical happenings sounds like a good time, this seven-part series is for you. The project hails from creator Anna Winger (Unorthodox), and is inspired by the true events featured in Varian Fry and Julie Orringer’s 2019 novel The Flight Portfolio.  

The intrigue picks up in Nazi-occupied France, with an international group of undercover fighters who are doing everything they can to help refugees escape the country. Many of those people happen to be on Hitler’s most wanted list. In each episode the people at the heart of the story put everything on the line for their cause and the people who depend on them, but along the way “the threat of moral danger gives way to unexpected collaborations and intense love affairs,” as per the show description. For those who need a history refresher, the Emergency Rescue Committee (which later folded into the International Rescue Committee) was founded in 1940 by European exiles and American liberals close to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Over the course of 13 months, more than 2,000 political, cultural, union and academic leaders were rescued. Fry was an American journalist who went to Marseille at the age of 32 to help that effort on the ground level. Marc Chagall and Hannah Arendt were among those saved, as were French painter André Masson, German writer Lion Feuchtwanger, sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, filmmaker Max Ophüls, harpsichordist Wanda Landowska and writer Franz Werfel.  

It’s a big story to tell in such a short time, which is why creatives have recruited an all-star cast. It include Gillian Jacobs (Community), Corey Stoll (House of Cards), Cory Michael Smith (Gotham) and Yoli Fuller (Marie Antoinette). 

10. Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre – Friday, April 7, Prime Video

From Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels to Snatch to Wrath of Man, director Guy Ritchie and actor Jason Statham have collaborated on some of the most memorable crime flicks of the past three decades. Now, they’re at it again, as Ritchie casts Statham and The White Lotus‘s Aubrey Plaza to play two spies hired by the British government to swipe a billion-dollar piece of tech from an arms dealer (Hugh Grant). To pull off the job, they concoct a ruse that requires the services of the bad guy’s favourite movie star (Josh Hartnett).