What I'm Watching: Never Have I Ever, Burden of Proof, the Dungeons & Dragons Movie, And More

On nine shows, two movies, and a rough week.

Chris Pine, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Paramount Pictures

Here’s the rundown on everything I watched, read, and wrote about this week.

The shows:

• The hilariously chaotic teen rom-com Never Have I Ever returned for its fourth and final season on Netflix this week, and I definitely think it’s the best the show has been since season one – if not ever. This last batch of episodes does something I’ve never seen a coming-of-age show do before, focusing almost entirely on the formative moments when one’s plans for adulthood don’t turn out to line up with reality. That sounds serious, but the show itself always keeps things fun, light, and delightfully ridiculous. Here’s my full review for The Playlist.

• I haven’t quite finished my screeners for season two of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds yet (it’s been a weird week), but so far I’m tentatively into the new season. So much of the Paramount+ era of the Trek franchise feels at once dense and bland to me, but Strange New Worlds never is. The first handful of episodes don’t quite reach the heights of season one, but they still use their winning cast well and mostly stick with the formula that made the first go-round so magical. Full review to come!

• After a four-year break, I’m surprisingly hyped about the return of Black Mirror. Screeners for the new season are hard to come by, so while I awaited the show’s return (it’s back on Thursday), I finally decided to catch up on season five. These episodes didn’t hold my focus when they first premiered, but they’re not bad! Neither the best nor worst the show has to offer. “Smithereens” is the best of the bunch for me, but I thought the Miley Cyrus episode had one of the show’s most embarrassingly on-the-nose scripts ever.