What to Watch This Week: March 19 to 24

From a new country music competition featuring Kacey Musgraves and Reese Witherspoon to a new season of Love is Blind, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week

1. Essex County – Sunday, March 19, CBC | Series Premiere

CBCThis five-part series follows four disparate characters linked together through bloodlines—old Uncle Lou (Stephen McHattie), young Lester (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong), Anne the country nurse (Molly Parker) and Ken (Brian J. Smith), the stoic farmer—who ebb and flow into each other’s lives.

2. Sullivan’s Crossing – Sunday, March 19, CTV | Series Premiere

CTVBased on the work of Virgin River author Robyn Carr, this 10-episode drama follows the journey of neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan (Morgan Kohan, Transplant), who’s perfectly planned life is turned upside down after finding herself in unexpected legal difficulties. Needing time to reflect, she temporarily leaves her life in Boston, taking refuge in her childhood home of Sullivan’s Crossing, a Nova Scotia campground run by her estranged father, Sully Sullivan (Scott Patterson of Gilmore Girls fame). There, Maggie must deal with her complicated present while also navigating her painful past. Further complicating Maggie’s matters is the arrival of mysterious newcomer Cal Jones (One Tree Hill alum Chad Michael Murray), whose presence in Sullivan’s Crossing will ultimately lead Maggie to question all of the carefully laid plans she’d set in place. Also starring are Tom Jackson (Cardinal), Andrea Menard (The Velvet Devil), Allan Hawco (Republic of Doyle), Lynda Boyd (Virgin River) and Peter Outerbridge (Designated Survivor).

3. Waco: American Apocalypse – Wednesday, March 22, Netflix | Series Premiere

NetflixThirty years ago, cult leader David Koresh led his Branch Davidians in a faceoff against the federal government in a bloody 51-day siege at the cult’s compound outside Waco, Texas. Released to coincide with the grim anniversary of this national tragedy, this immersive three-part series from acclaimed filmmaker Tiller Russell (Night Stalker) promises a definitive account of how this horrific situation unfolded. Featuring exclusive access to recently unearthed videotapes filmed inside the FBI’s Hostage Negotiation Command Post, in addition to FBI wiretap recordings and raw news footage never before released to the public, Waco: American Apocalypse is driven by intimate and revealing interviews with people from all sides of the conflict, including one of Koresh’s spiritual wives, the last child released from the compound alive, a sniper from the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit Chief, the key journalists covering the story, as well as members of the ATF tactical team who watched their colleagues die in the shootout.

According to Netflix, the series “retells this infamous event with never-before-seen material as well as realistic CGI visualizations,” recounting how what began with the biggest gunfight on American soil since the Civil War ended with a fiery inferno captured live on national television.a

4. The Night Agent – Thursday, March 23, Netflix | Series Premiere

NetflixIn 2002, a writer named Shawn Ryan changed how crime dramas were made when he debuted The Shield, a gritty cop show starring Michael Chiklis as a morally compromised cop. If you were into that series, you’ll probably want to mark your calendar for the debut of Ryan’s next project, which hits Netflix this week. The creative (who also brought us The Unit and the S.W.A.T. reboot) adapted the show from Matthew Quirk’s novel (which has been compared to John Grisham’s and David Baldacci’s early works.)

The Night Agent revolves around a low-level FBI agent named Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso), who works in the basement of the White House. Nothing ever happens there until one night, it does. That fateful evening, the emergency hotline for American spies abroad suddenly rings, with a terrified and down-on-her-luck tech entrepreneur named Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan) on the other end. The relatives she was staying with were attacked by assassins, and her only choice was to call the mysterious number her aunt and uncle had left behind. Before he knows it, Sutherland must do everything he can to protect Rose and uncover a deadly conspiracy leading to the Oval Office. It’s a high-octane ride with plenty of twists and turns, so be sure to set aside the weekend if that’s your jam because all 10 Vancouver- and L.A.-shot episodes drop at once.

“If you like the Jack Ryan books, the Jack Reacher books, if you like the Bourne Identity stuff, if you like political intrigue, then The Night Agent is for you,” Ryan promises.

Also in the mix are recent Oscar-nominee Hong Chau (The Whale) as Peter’s supportive yet mysterious boss, and Lucifer’s D.B. Woodside as a disgraced Secret Service agent in need of redemption.

5. Ginger Minj: Bless Your Heart – Friday, March 24, Paramount+

Paramount+Last year, one could argue that the greatest thing that’d ever happened to RuPaul’s Drag Race favourite Ginger Minj was getting to work on Hocus Pocus 2 with one of her heroes.

“Bette Midler told me, ‘You were robbed!’ ” Ginger gushed in an interview with Billboard. “This was right after All Stars 6, and I don’t know that she’s ever seen an episode of Drag Race in her life, but I’ll tell you what: it did the trick. It disarmed me, it made me feel very comfortable, it was so cool.”

Cool as that was, though, it’s hard to imagine that it tops getting your very own standup special. In Bless Your Heart, the veteran catwalk queen talks about dysfunctional family etiquette, haunted dolls, the infamous “Florida Man” and much more. If you’ve never seen Ginger Minj before, prepare to be shocked and enthralled.

6. Reggie – Friday, March 24, Prime Video

Prime VideoGet ready for a deep dive into the life of legendary MLB star Reggie Jackson, five-time World Series Champion and beloved New York icon. Over the course of his life and barrier-breaking career, Jackson witnessed a dramatic shift in race relations across America, having started his baseball journey in Birmingham, Alabama, at the height of the civil rights movement, moving to Oakland during the rise of the Black Panther Party, and landing in New York City as the highest-paid player in baseball as the Bronx burned. Jackson sits down with fellow legends Julius Erving, Hank Aaron, Derek Jeter and others to discuss their own personal experiences.

7. My Kind of Country – Friday, March 24, Apple TV+ | Series Premiere

Apple TV+Polish up the cowboy boots and get ready to bedazzle some denim. If you need a new singing competition to get into and you happen to be a country music fan, this series is probably for you. It also marks one of Apple’s first forays into the format, so there will be plenty of curious eyeballs on this one. According to the streamer, the show is meant to be a fresh take on the competition series. That’s because, in addition to finding talented voices, the goal is to pull back the curtain on the musical process and break down barriers by giving the opportunity to diverse and innovative artists from around the world. To do that, the show uses scouts Jimmie Allen, Mickey Guyton, and Orville Peck. Together they handpick up-and-coming artists and invite them to the home of country music: Nashville, There, they’ll showcase what they’ve got in an all-out competition. At stake isn’t just a life-changing cash prize or bragging rights, either. Apple also promises to use its full synergy to give support and exposure on its music platform. There’s tons of star power behind-the-scenes as well, including executive producers Kacey Musgraves and Reese Witherspoon. The latter may not be a notable country music artist, but she did win an Oscar back in 2006 for playing one: June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. The good news for fans is the duo will also appear onscreen, adding more inspiration and motivation for these competitors to reach their ultimate goals. Adam Blackstone, a.k.a. the guy responsible for soundtracks like In the Heights and Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (not to mention that he’s the bandleader on That’s My Jam), serves as the show’s music director.

8. Love Is Blind – Friday, March 24, Netflix+ | Season Premiere

NetflixOne of TV’s buzziest love-seeking series is back for season four, challenging singles to close their eyes and fall head over heels. This time, we head to Seattle, where Nick and Vanessa Lachey emcee 12 episodes of proclamations, heartbreak and, hopefully, a few wedding bells.

9. Up Here – Friday, March 24, Disney+

Apple TV+Whether you want to put the responsibility—or the blame—squarely on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s shoulders or not, the mind-blowing success of Hamilton has at least a little bit to do with the sudden popularity of musicals.

The latest example: Up Here, an eight-episode series set in the last days of 1999 and revolving around a young couple named Lindsay (Parenthood’s Mae Whitman) and Michael (The Flash’s Carlos Valdes). But this isn’t your typical song-and-dance spectacular.

“When I graduated college, I was really interested in telling a story about ordinary people as a musical, but they were always telling me, ‘No, it has to be set long ago and far away. It has to be characters that are larger than life, that have external obstacles and adversaries and all that stuff,’ ” said co-creator Robert Lopez during the Television Critics Association press tour. “And it just didn’t seem that exciting to me. I wanted to tell a contemporary story about ordinary people. So I thought, ‘Well, what if you did a musical inside someone’s head?’ Inside someone’s head is a crazy musical that they never feel comfortable expressing. There’s a lot of songs and emotion and yearning going on in everyone’s head that you never get to see. What about a show like that?”

As the logline explains, Up Here follows Lindsay and Miguel “as they fall in love and discover that the single greatest obstacle to finding happiness together might just be themselves—and the treacherous world of memories, obsessions, fears and fantasies that lives inside their heads.”

It’s an ambitious tale that asked a lot of its cast, given the sheer length alone. As Whitman noted: “We basically recorded an album and rehearsed every single dance number every day for a month before we even started filming.”

10. Perfect Addiction – Friday, March 24, Prime Video

Prime VideoWhen MMA trainer Sienna Lane (Kiana Madeira) discovers that her boyfriend Jax (Matthew Noszka), a top MMA fighter, has been cheating on her, she sets out for revenge. Her plan is to hit Jax where it hurts the most—in the ring, and she trains underdog Kayden Williams (Ross Butler) to bring down Jax.