What to Watch This Week: January 31 to February 5

From zany costumed dancers to the big game’s best ads, we round up the top 10 shows to watch this week

1. Penguin Bloom – Netflix

This new film tells the inspiring true story of Samantha Bloom (played by Naomi Watts), beginning in 2013, when she leaves her home in Australia with her husband Cameron (The Walking Dead‘s Andrew Lincoln) and their three sons for a holiday in Thailand. While enjoying a view, Sam falls off of a rooftop due to what was later determined to be a rotted railing, breaking her vertebrae in two places. Paralyzed from the chest down, Sam—a lifelong outdoorswoman, surfer and traveller—becomes unrecognizable to herself, spending months in a depression that makes her question who she could be in the world and in her own family. A year after the accident, her children bring home a wounded baby magpie. As Sam gets to know this new member of the family that her kids have affectionately named “Penguin,” she unexpectedly embarks on a process of emotional healing that surprises her husband, her sons, her mother (Jacki Weaver)—and ultimately even herself.

2. Jeopardy! – Weekdays, 7:30 p.m., CHEK & ABC

Following the death of longtime host and iconic Canadian Alex Trebek in November, a lot of names are being floated as potential replacements. Producers of TV’s brainiest game show, however, are in no hurry to fill the position; viewers will instead watch a series of temporary guest hosts fill in, and it’s a star-studded roster, to be sure. Jeopardy! champ par excellence Ken Jennings has been among the rumoured successors, and he’s been tapped here as a guest host. Also scheduled to emcee later this year are: former Today host and CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric; 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker; Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (an erstwhile winner of one of the show’s celebrity editions); and former Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik. As for the latter, lest anyone question her suitability in the braininess department, not only did Bialik play a genius on Big Bang Theory, the Blossom actress is also a neuroscientist.

3. Baroness Von Sketch Show – Tuesday, February 2, 9 p.m., CBC | Series Finale

It’s a rare thing in TV to go out on your own terms—to get the time to craft a final season that offers a real, proper goodbye to the fans who’ve stuck with you. And after five chuckle-worthy years, we can report that the stars/creators of this hit sketch show—Jennifer Whalen, Carolyn Taylor, Meredith MacNeill and Aurora Browne—did not get that chance. Indeed, Baroness wrapped this final season not realizing it would be their send-off… but that’s actually, completely fine with this foursome. “What you’re getting is just unadulterated Baroness von Sketch, the way that we’ve always approached it,” Taylor told Exclaim. “It would have been nice to have known and bid it farewell—but, in other ways, I think it’s better this way, because otherwise you would have had a lot of long, tearful sketches where characters hug each other for no reason.”

4. Firefly Lane – Wednesday, February 3, Netflix | Series Premiere

Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy) and Sarah Chalke (Scrubs) team up for a series based on the novel by Kristin Hannah, charting the tumultuous friendship of Tully and Kate, who connect as kids and remain inseparable over the next 30 years—for better and for worse.

5. The Masked Dancer – Wednesday, February 3, 8 p.m., CTV & Fox

When South Korean reality battle The Masked Singer made its way stateside in the spring of 2019, few could anticipate the enthusiasm it would elicit. Capitalizing on the craze, the Fox franchise has now expanded to another art form: masked dancing. Judging the costumed celebrities’ performing moves ranging from breakdancing to ballet are American Idol judge and master choreographer Paula Abdul, Community and The Hangover funnyman Ken Jeong, Beverly Hills, 90210‘s Masked Singer alum Brian Austin Green and High School Musical diva Ashley Tisdale. TV Week had a chance to hear from the judges and their master of ceremonies, The Office‘s Craig Robinson, about this new venture.

The idea for the series appears to have come from a quip about how difficult it would be to figure out the identity of a contestant without hearing their voice. How is this not going to be insanely hard for the panel to figure out?
Brian Austin Green: This show is harder. There’s a different way of viewing this show than Singer and a different focus for people to put on what they are watching. And at the end of the day, even though this show is more difficult, we did a pretty good job.
Paula Abdul: But it was definitely hard. You have to pay a lot of attention to the clues because we don’t have a voice to base it on. And the clues came from within the costume, the package, even the stage setting and choreography. It was incredible.
Ashley Tisdale: I went into it thinking, “I know celebrities. This is going to be pretty easy.” Right? And it was so difficult, especially for me. I think what is so cool is that I can see how celebrities who haven’t sung could be really nervous to go out and sing, whereas everyone loves to dance. It opens it up to even more people.

Were the costumes easier to dance in than the singing ones? They still look like a lot to move in. And you are definitely not putting on crazy shoes because that would just be deadly.
Green: [Competing on] Singer, it was hard because there was such a limited range of motion that you could do within those costumes, and I think they’ve solved that on this show. The costumes seem a lot more streamlined and a lot slimmer and easier to move in. But your field of vision, the little window that you have to look through, definitely makes it difficult.
Abdul: The head has to be so secure because spotting is everything for dancers, especially when they are turning. It was amazing for me to see that they could have their core balance and not get vertigo. I mean, it’s crazy because they are turning all over the place. They are doing skillful pirouettes, and they have this little window to see out of.
Craig Robinson: When Brian dances, there’s usually a limited range of motion.
Green: I thought we were all going to be positive on this panel. Jeez.
Robinson: I forgot that email. My bad, my bad.

How is the show cast?
Abdul: What I love about the show is that you don’t have to be a dancer. It’s about being celebrated on that stage and having fun. Some of the people who didn’t have any dance training were the most entertaining.
Robinson: And they don’t have to be that well known. You can go anywhere from the highest, like Tom Cruise to, like, Dr. Ken. Do you know what I’m saying?
Ken Jeong: True. Yeah. I can corroborate that. You go to the highest of the highs or the gutter with me. That is a great range.

Is there any possibility of having The Masked Comedian down the road?
Jeong: It is funny you say that, because there were moments while we were doing The Masked Dancer where I would watch Craig on stage, and I was thinking, because [he and I] go so way back in standup, “Wow, there could be an amplification of this, totally.”
Robinson: It would be so messed up to bomb a standup in an octopus costume.

We’ve seen one of Paula’s songs being used, but Ashley, Brian, do any of your songs show up?
Green: I sure hope so. [Laughs]
Robinson: “He said, she said.”
Green: Fingers crossed.
Robinson: A little “Mind and Da Body.”
Tisdale: My song was used by Craig Robinson in the dressing room before the show.
Green: Mine was on when Craig was doing hair and makeup. That’s all that matters to me.
Tisdale: I do have to say, their choices in music, there’s something about it that, like, you just want to get up and dance. I have never judged anything. I’ve never been on a panel before, and I have to say this is the most fun show I’ve ever done.

6. Super Bowl’s Greatest Commericals – Wednesday, February 3, 8 p.m, CBS; 9 p.m., Global

Some folks tune in to football’s biggest night for the game itself, some for the halftime show and others simply for all those million-dollar, star-studded commercials. This special revisits the biggest, boldest and wackiest ads of all time.

7. Summer House – Thursday, February 4, 6 p.m. & 10 p.m., Slice | Season Premiere

Sunny days are still a few months yonder, but in the meantime how about a televisual trip to the Hamptons to heat things up? Summer House is back for a fifth season of volatile friendships, carnal entanglements and unhinged partying; although, like every other aspect of life over this past year, things aren’t quite proceeding as per usual. The obscenely wealthy ensemble of Kyle Cooke, Amanda Batula, Lindsay Hubbard, Carl Radke, Hannah Berner, Paige DeSorbo, Luke Gulbranson and Danielle Olivera return as a “quaranteam,” spending 24/7 together for six weeks last summer—living, working and playing under the same overpriced roof.

Their opulent lives are, of course, still a mystery to most of us who can’t afford to vacay in the Hamptons, but common ground can be found in the fact that, after this past year, just about everyone on the planet knows what it’s like to spend way too much time with loved ones. (Though most of us haven’t had cameras documenting all of our struggles for posterity.)

So, what can we expect precisely from season five? For Kyle and Amanda, they’re regrouping after COVID-19 postponed their wedding plans. Meanwhile, Lindsay is hoping to fast-forward her own relationship timeline, a fact she makes very clear to the man in her life, Stephan. As for Carl, he’s coming off a tough year and turning to a combo of therapy, meditation and hard work to become the best version of himself possible, while Hannah seems to still be pining for Luke following that fling last summer. But when Luke shows up at the house with his new girlfriend Ciara, a frontline hero hoping for a break after working as an ICU nurse in NYC, drama ensues.

8. Selena & Chef – Thursday, February 4, 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m., & 7:30 p.m., Crave1 | Season Finale

Pop star Selena Gomez is out to do something constructive with her time in quarantine, and learning to hold her own in the kitchen is it. Join her and two more special guest chefs as they broaden her culinary horizons in the season’s closing episodes.

9. Bliss – Friday, February 5, Amazon Prime Video

This mind-bending love story follows recently divorced Greg (Owen Wilson), whose life is falling apart when he meets Isabel (Salma Hayek), a woman who lives on the streets and convinces him that the ugly, harsh world in which they all exist is a simulation inside of the beautiful, peaceful “real” world of bliss.

10. Malcolm & Marie – Friday, February 5, Netflix

This is not a love story, this is the story of love. So goes the tagline for a new Netflix film that’s already generating lots of Oscar buzz. Malcolm & Marie was one of the first projects to be shot after the pandemic hit, and if the trailer is any indication, it may earn itself a spot in the time capsule explaining to future generations what life was like in 2020.

Not that you should go in expecting masks and talk of vaccinations, however. The poignant romance, rendered entirely in black-and-white, revolves around a filmmaker (John David Washington, BlacKkKlansman) and his girlfriend (Zendaya, Euphoria), as they sit around at home and reflect on past relationships. In the teaser, there’s pillow talk, ferocious fights and even a tense scene involving Kraft Dinner. The story hails from visionary director and writer Sam Levinson, who’s quite familiar with Zendaya’s work as the showrunner on Euphoria. Since that HBO series had to halt production on its second season in the wake of COVID, Levinson set out to keep his crew paid by whipping up this film-for-our-times.

Now, Netflix is pushing it hard heading into awards season, throwing lots of cash into promotion after purchasing the rights for a cool $30 million at last fall’s virtual Toronto International Film Festival.

“I am so grateful to this cast and crew, many of whom are my Euphoria family, for coming together during such uncertain times,” Levinson said in a statement after the sale. “We felt privileged to be able to make this film together and we did so with a lot of love.”