If you're looking for a brand new show to watch on Prime this week, you can check out The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy, an animated comedy set among outer space health care practitioners. There's also Apartment 404, a new reality show featuring stars who are huge in Korea. Those aren't the only shows worth watching on Prime, though. Read on for my picks of the best new (and newish) shows streaming on Prime.
The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy
An animated series and written by Cirocco Dunlap (Russian Doll) The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy is a workplace comedy about an outer space medical facility where alien surgeons Sleech and Klak battle space disorders while wrestling with their messy personal lives. Starring the voices of Maya Rudolph, Natasha Lyonne, Keke Palmer, Stephanie Hsu, Sam Smith and Kieran Culkin.
Apartment 404
It's cool how streaming gives Americans a chance to watch TV shows we'd have no idea existed in the before times, like Apartment 404, a comedy/reality show that asks South Korean celebrities like Jennie (from K-Pop super-group Blackpink) and Yoo Jae-suk and Yang Se-chan (from Korean show Running Man) to become detectives and solve crimes that supposedly happened in mysterious apartment 404. Whether Apartment 404's manic investigations will cross cultural lines to resonate with you cannot be determined until you give it a look.
Swarm (2023)
Created by Janine Nabers and Donald Glover, Swarm is a savage takedown of celebrity worship that mixes horror and dark comedy to tell the story of Dre (Dominique Fishback), an obsessed super-fan of a Beyoncé-like pop star. Dre's off-the-deep-end quest to meet her idol takes dark, murderous turns in a series that finds its space in the hidden world between reality and delusion.
Reacher (2022)
Based on the novels of Lee Child, Reacher is excellent action-adventure TV. Alan Ritchson plays the title character, Jack Reacher, a former military police officer turned do-good drifter, who metes out justice with his ham-hock fists and his Sherlock Holmes brain. It's the kind of testosterone-soaked wish-fulfillment that hearkens back to the action movies of the '80s, especially in its star, who outdoes both the physique and the swag of Arnold in his prime.
Last week's picks
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
This Prime original series shares a title with the 2005 film starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but it strays far from the source material. In this version of the story, the Smiths (Pen15's Maya Erskine and Atlanta’s Donald Glover) are a couple of intelligence agents who get married for real to make their undercover identities bulletproof. But feelings develop between the two opposites; complicated feelings. Each episode details a dangerous case the couple work as well as charting their equally dangerous marriage.
Good Omens (2019)
Amazon teamed up with the BBC to make this TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's 1990 novel in which a demon and an angel are forced to work together to prevent the end of the world. The six-episode first season proved so charming they adapted some Gaiman/Pratchett ideas for a second season, in which the odd couple search for the Angel Gabriel. Season 2 is a bit of a fall-off, but the chemistry between leads Michael Sheen and David Tennant still carry the show.
Dead Ringers (2023)
In Dead Ringers, Rachel Weisz plays identical twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle. (Is that not enough for you to watch it?) This TV update of a David Cronenberg 1988 cult, body-horror classic updates the source material by swapping the main characters' genders and centering the story on birth instead of cosmetic surgery, but Croneberg's studied, cool presentation of queasy material permeate this nothing-quite-like-it show.
Jury Duty (2023)
Jury Duty is such a funny show, it managed to attract attention and gain an audience from the TV Siberia of FreeVee. Prime's sister streaming service took a chance on a reality show with an unusual premise: an unsuspecting guy thinks he serving on a jury, but everything around him is a put-on. The judge, the other jurors, the case, etc., are all fake. This could have been disastrous; it's full of hilarious moments that make you ask "how could he not know this is a joke?" but it holds together thanks to the otherworldly improv talent of its cast. Among the many highlights, actor James Marsden, playing an asshole version of himself, growing increasingly insufferable and ridiculous as the trial goes on.
Flack (2019)
In Flack, Anna Paquin stars as Robyn, a public relations professional. She's the fixer that rich and famous people call when they've been caught doing something unspeakable. Her job is to minimize, misdirect, and mislead, and hopefully salvage the careers and good names of her clients. Each episode of Flack features a different, trashy scandal to enjoy, so if you're into glamorous people behaving like scallywags, you'll love Flack.