Rolling Stone - USA (2020-02)

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What to stream, what to skip this month

WATCH LIST

DARIA

MTV, 1997-2001

Technically, The

Simpsons is TV’s

number-one spinoff.

But while Homer

and Bart never

interacted with the rest of the

Tracey Ullman Show, it’s amazing

what a rich character frustrated

Beavis & Butt-head classmate

Daria (Tracy Grandstaff) turned

out to be away from the boys’

slack-jawed sniggering. Rivals

My So-Called Life as TV’s

definitive teen-girl portrait.

XENA: WARRIOR

PRINCESS

Syndicated, 1995-2001

Hercules: The

Legendary

Journeys was the

exact right amount

of warm cheese

that viewers expected from the

Nineties’ first-run syndicated

action boom. Its spinoff about

reformed villain Xena (Lucy

Lawless) and her sidekick —

and, let’s be honest, girlfriend —

Gabrielle (Renée O’Connor) was

smarter, crazier, and just more

fun all-around. Yiyiyiyiyiyi!

FRASIER

NBC, 1993-2004

Cheers is about

as perfect as a

live-action sitcom

gets. Frasier at

its best was just

as good, swapping the bar’s

romantic-comedy intrigue and

quippy insults for more highbrow

references and farcical structure

in the Seattle hometown

environs of Dr. Crane (Kelsey

Grammer) and his family.

THE JEFFERSONS

CBS, 1975-1985

All in the Family

spawned three Hall

of Fame spinoffs,

including Maude

and Good Times.

The Jeffersons — where Archie

Bunker’s neighbors George

(Sherman Hemsley) and Weezie

(Isabel Sanford) moved on up to

a deluxe apartment on the East

Side — was the longest-lasting

and most beloved, with good

reason. And of course there’s

that amazing theme song. A.S.

As Breaking Bad byproduct

Better Call Saul, one of TV’s top

spinoffs, returns for Season

Five (February 23rd on AMC),

we salute four all-time-great

examples of the form.

TV’s Best

Spinoffs

SECOND ACTS

McElhenney

as a smarmy

exec

Cosio, Santos,

and Soria

(from left)

the narcissistic creative director,

Charlotte Nicdao as the frustrated

chief engineer, David Hornsby as

their emasculated go-between, F.

Murray Abraham as the grandiose

head writer, and Danny Pudi as

the smug head of monetization.

Most of it is petty beefs and silly

crises — the game is overrun by

Nazi players; an unstable assistant

(Jessie Ennis) wages emotional

warfare against the 14-year-old

streamer who helps keep the

game popular — but the charac-

ters are frequently given moments

of genuine vulnerability. And that’s

when Mythic Quest is strongest.

The wonderful fifth episode — a

dramatic short story starring Jake

Johnson and Cristin Milioti as a

couple trying to launch their own

game in the Nineties — feels like

the show McElhenney and the

others really wanted to make. If

so, watch out for when they finally

play things entirely seriously.

GAME OVER

Mythic Quest:

Raven’s Banquet

NETWORK Apple TV+

AIR DATE February 7th

3

For most of its 14 seasons and

counting, It’s Always Sunny in

Philadelphia has been a comedy

that out-Seinfelds Seinfeld in its

aversion to hugging and learning.

Now and then, though, it offers a

moment of catharsis so strong,

you wonder how the creative team

might do with more consistently

sincere material. Mythic Quest,

created by Rob McElhenney, Char-

lie Day, and Megan Ganz, answers

that question. It’s a more straight-

forward workplace comedy, set

behind the scenes of a popular

World of Warcraft-esque online

video game, with McElhenney as

CALIFORNIA LOVE

Gentefied

NETWORK Netflix

AIR DATE February 21st

#

When the TV landscape was much

smaller and lily-white, any series

that centered on minorities shoul-

dered an unfair burden of repre-

senting that entire group. In the

bigger and more inclusive world of

Peak TV, there’s more room to just

tell a specific story. This dramedy

about a Mexican American family

battling gentrification as they run

a taco shop in East L.A. isn’t the

only show currently covering this

sociological territory. (See Starz’s

excellent Vida.) And even its four

main characters — a gruff but

wise grandfather (Joaquín Cosío);

a tough-talking cousin (J.J. Soria)

who’s happiest at the library; an

artist (Karrie Martin) torn between

her family and her activist girl-

friend; and an assimilated chef-in-

training (Carlos Santos) forced to

pass a “Mexican test” to appease

his fellow kitchen staffers — repre-

sent very different points of view

in this corner of the world. Smart,

surprising, alternately clever and

sad, it’s a very welcoming place to

spend 10 episodes. A.S.

ADULTING

Awkwafina Is Nora

From Queens

NETWORK Comedy Central

AIR DATE Wednesdays, 10:30 p.m.

3

The Farewell star goes autobio-

graphical for this comedy, in

which she plays an aimless young

woman desperate to stop living

with her dad (B.D. Wong) by any

means necessary, whether that

means working as a cam girl or

helping a smug Silicon Valley

cousin develop an app to scrub

embarrassing pics off the internet.

Nora often feels like a version

of Broad City where Abbi and

Ilana have been combined into

one emotionally inconsistent

person, and the wilder parts of

Nora’s persona — like an episode

where her “melancholic flute-

like queefing” becomes part of

a SoundCloud sensation — tend

to suit Awkwafina better. Lori Tan

Chinn is hilarious and warm as

Nora’s grandmother, a Chinese

immigrant who dislikes her Korean

peers but is addicted to Korean

TV dramas. A promising show that

just needs to figure out exactly

who its leading lady is playing.

As Nora,

Awkwafina

struggles to

get her life

together.

Rolling Stone | 87