Too Much TV: I've Been Watching Things

Here’s everything you need to know about the world of television for Monday, April 20th, 2026:

PRODUCTION NOTES
If you are receiving this newsletter, this means you are one of the people I included in the first group of subscribers I am moving from Substack to Beehiive. Overall, I have about 170,000 plus subscribers to move and I am doing it in small groups to lessen the opportunities for me to make a mistake.

A couple of notes about paid subscriptions. If you currently have a paid subscription through Substack, that subscription should automatically move over to Beehiiv. There shouldn't be any issues, but please let me know if you notice something. This will be a gradual process that will hopefully be completed by May 1st.

The situation is a bit more complicated for those of you who have paid via Apple Pay. I try to discourage subscribers from using Apple Pay in general because they take a 30% fee of the top. So along with Substack's 10% flat fee, I was only receiving 60% of the money you spent on a paid subscription,

But the bigger issue is that Apple also controls your subscription information. I can't update or change anything and you'll need to do that yourself. If you did pay via Apple Pay, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I can send you a couple of suggestions (along with a special offer) that should help.

On an unrelated note, I'm bringing back the weekend "Ask Rick" mailbag. Eventually, part of it will go behind a paywall, but with the gradual shift to BeeHiiv, that likely won't happen until June 1st. If you have a TV or media question you'd like answered, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

HERE ARE SOME VIEWING TIPS IF YOU'VE ALREADY BLOWN THROUGH 'MARGO'S GOT MONEY PROBLEMS'
When I recommend things, I tend to opt for either newer titles that are less covered or some fun recent shows you might have missed. No one needs another review explaining why you should watch Margo's Got Money Problems (although you should). But highlighting other options is useful information. And to be honest, it's the stuff I'm drawn to the most. 

So here are a few things I've been watching:



If It's Tuesday, It's Murder (Hulu)
I am not generally a fan of the combination of broad humor and the murder mystery genre. I enjoy Any Murders In The Building, but even that show sometimes into to much of "Martin Short being Martin Short." That reluctance, combined with the tendency for Spanish and Portuguese comedies to be as subtle as a ballpeen hammer to the head almost convinced me not to watch this new comedy produced in Portugal for Disney+.

But I'm glad I pushed through and watched it, because it is one of my favorite shows so far this year. The premise of the show is simple enough. A bus full of Spanish tourists take a week-long to trip to Lisbon. Stuck in a seedy hotel underneath a highway, four members of the group decide to solve the case after one of their fellow travelers is found dead in his bathtub. I won't say more, except that after watching an episode, the sometimes broad humor sucked me in and I didn't even mind the regular breaking of the fourth wall when various characters speak directly to the camera. 

And I especially appreciated the performance by Biel Montoro as Daniel. His character is a nuanced neurodiverse person who has keen observational skills but also can't bring himself to mislead others. Which doesn't help the situation as he attempts to help solve the case. It's also great to see Daniel wrestle with overprotective parents and a fellow traveler who is drawn to his differences in a way Daniel can't quite navigate.

ALSO: Here is a look at the trailer, as well as a photo gallery of images from the series.


The Rig (Prime Video)
Movies and TV shows such as The Thing and The Mist are tautly-written projects that are part character study, part an exploration of what happens when a creepy mist brings horror with it. There is a bit of that in this two-season series, but it turns out to be so much more. Most of season one centers on the ramifications of a fog that rolls out of nowhere on an oil rig located in the North Seas off of Scotland. The rig is cut off from communication and strange things begin happening. Like a worker who falls off a high communications tower and not only survives, he begins healing himself. And hearing strange voices warning him of doom.

I won't give away too much other than to say that while season one takes place on the oil rig, season two amps up the spending with massive underwater explorations, hundreds of refugees and an evil oil company that has apparently decided to pick a fight with Mother Nature. Most of the cast are UK-based character actors you've seen before, although it also includes Emily Hampshire (Schitt's Creek) and Martin Compston (Line Of Duty, Red Eye). But everyone does a solid job and the premise is neatly resolved by the end of season two.

ALSO: Here is a look at the season two trailer.


From (MGM+)
If this series was airing on HBO, it would likely be a show that everyone talked about. Instead, it premiered on Epix, which then became MGM+. But despite the smaller platform, it has found a passionate audience.

Television history is littered with shows that have tried to balance that line between terror character development, but few have done it better than this series created by John Griffin and showrun by Jeff Pinkner (Fringe). Harold Perrineau plays Boyd Stevens, the self-appointed sheriff and de facto mayor of the Township. His acting has been consistently stellar and he provides the moral and emotional center for a show that could have evolved into meaningless chaos. 

It's impossible to write much about this show without taking away the experience of watching the show unfold over the seasons (Season four is now streaming). But it's a great show and I've been hooked since episode one, even though it's not my typical kind of show.

ALSO: Take a look at this interview with Harold Perrineau, which I did between seasons one and two.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SHORT-FORM VIDEO BUBBLE BURSTS?
The newsletter Garbage Day has a great take on the growth of short-term video and it's the latest proof the newsletter should be a must-read in legacy media circles:

Hollywood studios are hiring clippers to make fan edits for social, Disney+ is launching a TikTok-style feed called Verts, Netflix is, as well, and microdramas are a billion dollar industry. And on the other, far darker (and dumber) side of the media landscape, last week, Braden Peters, the 20-year-old looksmaxxer better known as Clavicular, shared a chart ranking Kick streamers by clips. These clips were not made by fans, but through a freelance clipping service called ClippingExe. Kick offers its own paid clipping service through their creator program. But neither of these strategies — converting your intellectual property into short-form video or paying an army of clippers to make it for you — fixes the core problem, which is, incidentally, the very same problem animated GIFs had back in the 2010s: The majority of this stuff is disposable trash.

* Kash Patel has filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic over its story reporting on the FBI Chief's excessive drinking. Patel claims "Defendants published the Article with actual malice, despite being expressly warned, hours before publication, that the central allegations were categorically false." Discovery in this case should be fun.

* Season five of Clarkson's Farm will premiere with four episodes Tuesday, June 3rd on Prime Video. That's followed by two episode drops on June 10th and 17th.

* Director Frank Marshall says his documentary Rachel, Breathe was pulled from ESPN2 shortly before it was supposed to air Sunday night due to a disagreement with the network over rights to the project.

* The Austin-based ATX TV Festival has announced this year's top ten finalists in its Indie TV Pitch competition.

* At Reality Blurred, Andy Dehnart interviewed Million Dollar Secret showrunner Charles Wachter, and executive producer Glenn Hugill 

* Trent Moore at Static On The TV has a reminder that Southland is the best cop show you've probably never seen.

* Hulu is adding four more video podcasts to its service, with the first premiering today. The podcasts are Handsome, hosted by Tig Notaro, Fortune Feimster, and Mae Martin, and three podcasts based around television shows: The New Girl Rewatch podcast The Mess Around, hosted by Hannah Simone and Lamorne Morris, Prison Breaking, based on the TV show Prison Break, and That Was Us, hosted by This Is Us stars Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown and Chris Sullivan. I am available to participate in a podcast based around Asian sci-fi, zombie and action shows now available on streaming. 

* If you have wondering whether there is more to that Jonathan the Turtle story, there is so much, much more.

* The comedy Hangin' With Mr. Cooper is premiering Monday, May 4th on Cozi TV.

* The Ankler's Richard Rushfield has a kinda vague explanation of "Button-Gate," although he doesn't directly address the big question: did Paramount really threaten to pull advertising from the outlet? And has that problem been resolved?

I WOULD PAY EXTRA FOR A SPORTS CHANNEL THAT DOESN'T COVER BRONNY JAMES
The newsletter 500 Words With Kenny H took a look at 30 minutes of ESPN Sportscenter Sunday Morning and was not impressed:

We were in a hotel room yesterday morning and decided to put on an AM Sportscenter. THIS is what passes for the first half hour on a Sunday morning… when a full slate of NBA and NHL playoffs are ongoing….

• • Lakers wins, Lebron is old and good

  • NFL draft trade

  • 5 minutes of Wrestlemania talk, Miz cuts a promo4

  • Becky Lynch cuts a promo

  • More Wrestlemania talk

  • Messi highlights from a random MLS game in Denver

  • More NFL draft teases

  • Lebron again

  • Lebron and Bronny

  • Knicks highlight

  • Flyers win

  • Crazy plays from lacrosse

I’ll leave it at that, flipped to Willie Geist. Have a good one!

CBS JUST CAN'T STOP KISSING DONALD TRUMP'S ASS
At Karl Bode's newsletter The Fine Print, he provides a nice recap of the many unsettling decisions made in recent weeks by David Ellison:

Adding insult to injury, the Ellisons are now forcing CBS (and whatever reporters are left there) to host an embarrassing dinner this Wednesday to "honor" Donald Trump and "celebrate" the First Amendment. Trump has been, if you've been napping, easily the biggest threat to U.S. free speech in a century.

The dinner is being hosted a day before Warner Brothers investors vote to approve their merger with Paramount. And two days before the looming White House Correspondents dinner, participants in which have been taking a beating for normalizing our authoritarian President over giggles and cocktails.

David Ellison couldn't attend a Congressional hearing last week into the deal because of an alleged death in the family (nobody seems able to actually identify who died), but had time to show up to Cinemacon a day later to make a bunch of false claims about how his merger would be great for everyone.

Aside from what you think about his politics, the more I look at this Paramount/WBD deal, the dumber it seems. David Ellison is taking on $80 billion+ in debt in order to build a business that is making nearly all of its money from a declining linear business. I am no business expert, but this feels like a monumentally stupid debt, that is driven by the ego of people who are so rich, they've so far been immune to failure. An immunity which I suspect is close to wearing off.

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