As we recover from the Oscars, it’s a ripe time to re-up on some fresh content. This weekend is jam-packed with new series premieres, and if you’re not too busy with Ted Lasso’s return, we’ve got four new shows ranging from raunchy animation to sobering thinkpiece to vie for your attention this weekend.
Agent Elvis
Elvis Presley, voiced by Matthew McConaughey, moonlights as a secret agent and faces off against historical bad guys like Charles Manson. This not-for-kids cartoon pays homage to the action-packed alternative histories of 
Quentin Tarantino. A slew of A-listers like Don Cheadle and Johnny Knoxville also lend their voices to the show, and it was co-created by Priscilla Presley.
Why it’s worth watching
Fans of the raunchy and off-beat will enjoy this campy send-up of the espionage genre, with a trigger-happy chimp sidekick named Scatter to boot. After the recent Presley prestige of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and Austin Butler’s subsequent Oscar nom, Agent Elvis reminds fans of The King’s less serious side. Critics think it nails the over-the-top tone it’s aiming for, with Matt Roush of The Laconia Sun writing, “It’s Archer with a Beavis and Butt-Head sensibility, which will either endear this to you instantly or send you back to your turntable (or digital equivalent) to remember the good old Viva Las Vegas days.”
Streaming March 17th on Netflix
Extrapolations
A new anthology series on Apple TV+ brings interconnected stories around a potent theme: climate change, and the various ways it touches humanity over thirty-three years. Created by frequent Steven Soderbergh collaborator Scott Z. Burns, each episode is driven by a different star cast, with names like Meryl Streep, Edward Norton, Forest Whitaker, Kit Harington, and Marion Cotillard joining the bill.
Why it’s worth watching
The screenwriter of 2011’s Contagion delivers another fantastical rumination on real-life crises, wielding their effects to human ends. Critics praise the performances of the almost too many to name stars, and the sobering, stirring effects of their close-to-home arcs. Greg Archer of Movieweb
writes, “Does the new Apple TV+ environmental drama hit all the right marks? Mostly. And the ones it does hit illuminate an issue with great mindfulness and depth that it’s hard not to walk away from it moved, even shaken.” Extrapolations promises a difficult but rewarding watch for difficult but real times.
Streaming March 17th on AppleTV+
Swarm
A young woman, played by Dominique Fishback, becomes obsessed with a Beyoncé-like superstar and goes on a cross-country road trip following her tour in Prime Video’s new horror-thriller series. It’s co-created by Donald Glover and Janine Nabers of Atlanta and has been critically embraced as a worthy follow-up.
Why it’s worth watching
A horror satire for the “stan” generation, Donald Glover again proves he not only has his finger on the pulse but is deeply aware of pop culture’s unsavory side effects. Fishback’s Dre is consumed by her obsession with Ni’Jah, the show’s Beyoncé equivalent, and it leads her to twisted, and potentially bloody ends. A title card before the show cheekily reads, “This is not a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is intentional,” bringing home Glober and Nabers’ potent skewering. Critics seem to almost universally appreciate Fishback’s complex, ever-shifting performance, with Daniel Feinberg of the Hollywood Reporter writing, “She’s able to be a dull-eyed zombie — not literally — one moment and an adroit physical comedian the next, sympathetic and relatable in one interaction and chillingly sociopathic in the next.”
Streaming March 17th on Amazon Prime
Lucky Hank
An English department chairperson at an underfunded Pennsylvania University undergoes a midlife crisis. The first Bob Odenkirk-led show since Better Call Saul, the AMC series has been hailed as the perfect mix of sentimental and biting comedy.
Why it’s worth watching
Odenkirk, who deftly squeezes charisma from even the sorriest overly-loquacious characters, finds a natural if unlikely hero in a college professor who often talks himself into trouble. Lucky Hank has firmly lower stakes than
Odenkirk’s other AMC universe, but finds rich coloring in its overlooked but still picture-perfect deep Pennsylvania campus. AV Club’s Todd Lazarski writes, “The production practically smells like tweed, tenure is seen almost as something of a prison sentence, and everything feels just a few quotidian losses from a slip downstream into the campus disenchantment of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?”
Streaming March 19th on AMC+
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