Covid Diaries NYC
New York City was devastated by Covid’s first
wave. To document the crisis, five young film-
makers, ages 17 to 21, turned cameras on them-
selves and their households, revealing ground-
level dramas that statistics couldn’t capture.
Death was no abstraction as family members
tried to sort out when to go out, when to quar-
antine, when to show up daily for low-paying
“essential” jobs, and when, finally, to fill the
streets and join a nationwide protest movement.
Tuesday, March 9, at 9 p.m., HBO
Last Chance U: Basketball
A new season of Netflix’s acclaimed sports docu-
mentary series moves from the gridiron to the
hardwood but maintains its winning premise:
It’s at the junior college level, where you find
athletes working to rise from nobodies to stars.
The subjects this time will be the talented ballers
at a school in East Los Angeles, all being pushed
to their potential by a philosophical but tough
coach. Available Wednesday, March 10, Netflix
Generation
No one knows as well as a 17-year-old what it’s
like to be 17 these days. Writer Zelda Barnz was
exactly that age when she sold the pilot to this
new dramedy series about a group of LGBTQ
high schoolers, and it’s arriving not so long after.
With her screenwriter father Daniel serving as co-
writer and Lena Dunham overseeing the project
as executive producer, Generation has a chance
to be another Entourage for HBO, but with a
little more focus on the humor and joy of adoles-
cence. Available Thursday, March 11, HBO Max
Own the Room
Young talent expresses itself in many ways, and
this documentary finds five inspiring examples
from around the world. At the Global Student
Entrepreneur Awards, dozens of university stu-
dents whose innovative ideas have lifted them
to the finals compete for a cash grand prize.
The film’s featured competitors hail from Nepal,
Puerto Rico, Greece, Venezuela, and Nairobi.
Among their brainchildren are an app that helps
deaf patients communicate and a method of26 ARTS Television
The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching
HBO,
AppleTVSix space journeys...
Cosmos
Begin and end here— because
there’s no better place to
gain an in-depth understand-
ing of the universe than
through Cosmos. To watch
Carl Sagan’s groundbreaking
original series, you can piece
it together on YouTube. All 26
episodes of the updated ver-
sion, hosted by Sagan pro-
tégé Neil deGrasse Tyson,
can be found at Disney+
The Voyage of Curiosity
Before Perseverance ar-
rived on the Red Planet
last month, Curiosity was
NASA’s rover on Mars. This
detailed documentary about
the 2011 launch and 2012
landing of Curiosity captures
the enormity of the under-
taking and provides a good
primer on what we can learn
on Mars. Amazon Prime
The Mars Generation
Not to get ahead of our-
selves, but there’s a new
generation that’s already
planning for manned mis-
sions to the fourth stone
from the sun. This forward-
looking documentary
follows teens at the U.S.
Space & Rocket Center in
a program simulating such
missions. Netflix
The Saturn V Story
When NASA set its sights on
the moon in 1961, it needed
a rocket powerful enough to
get a manned capsule there.
The Saturn V was built to an-
swer that call, and it remains
the only rocket that has car-
ried humans past low Earth
orbit. Amazon Prime
Apollo 11
Todd Douglas Miller’s beauti-
ful 2019 documentary may
be the most inspiring visual
account of the space race’s
signature achievement. Hulu
Challenger: The Final Flight
Millions of schoolchildren
were watching on TV when
the Challenger space shuttle
exploded in 1986, killing all
aboard. This outstanding
series about that team and
its mission provides a pow-
erful reminder of the risks of
manned space travel. NetflixStreaming tips
A bright young Army medic returns home from
Iraq and takes up drinking, then oxy, and finally
a bank-robbery spree. So much promise, thrown
away; he had even already found the love of his
life. Nico Walker wrote a novel about the experi-
ence because he lived it, and now Hollywood’s
Spider-Man, Tom Holland, has stepped into
the Walker role in a lavish movie adaptation.
Brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, directors of
Avengers: Endgame, bring excessive style to the
proceedings, but the work of Holland and co-
star Ciara Bravo offer enough reason to watch.
Available Friday, March 12, Apple TV+Show of the week
Holland and Bravo: A squandered romanceCherryproducing synthetic chemicals using the sun.
Available Friday, March 12, Disney+
The 2021 Grammy Awards
Grammy night finally arrives, after a Covid-
related 10-week delay, and women have a chance
to dominate, with Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, and
Phoebe Bridgers all in the running for big awards
and Beyoncé arriving with nine nominations to
lead the field. Trevor Noah will host, but the
night’s performers will be announced closer to
the big event. Sunday, March 14, at 8 p.m., CBS
Other highlights
Assembled: The Making of WandaVision
A new series that goes behind the scenes on
Marvel Studio’s big projects begins with a look
at the attention to classic sitcom detail that pow-
ers the hit series WandaVision. Available Friday,
March 12, Disney+
kid 90
Punky Brewster star Soleil Moon Frye spent
her teen years with a video camera in hand,
filming her child-star friends. The footage has
been edited into a time capsule for 1990s kids.
Available Friday, March 12, Hulu
Yes Day
Jennifer Garner and Edgar Ramirez co-star in
a family comedy about parents who quit their
naysaying to let their kids make the rules for
24 hours. Available Friday, March 12, Netflix- All listings are Eastern Time.
Bus driver Carlos Guallpa, in Covid Diaries