Staying Fit
What’s on this week? Whether it’s what’s on cable, streaming on Prime Video or Netflix, or opening at your local movie theater, we’ve got your must-watch list. Start with TV and scroll down for movies. It’s all right here.
On TV this week …
Jim Henson Idea Man (Disney+)
You’d have to have a heart of stone not to tear up a little watching the life’s work of Muppet creator Henson and his poignantly short life story, drawn from his immense archives and interviews with his family and collaborators (Frank Oz, Jennifer Connelly, Rita Moreno). You’ll crack up, too (and mist up), watching the toddler who thwarts the Cookie Monster’s attempted duet on the A-B-C song (she keeps insisting “Cookie Monster” is a letter, then notes, “I love you!”). Director Ron Howard (Apollo 13) creatively uses animation to dramatize Henson’s artwork and reveals a bit about the man himself: his best-friend brother’s death; the pimples that made him grow a beard; his broken marriage that remained an artistic and financial collaboration; the imagination that produced the Muppets; David Bowie in The Dark Crystal; his Oscar-nominated, Rod Serling-ish short Time Piece; and the incredible drive and health neglect that figured into his death at 53.
Watch it: Jim Henson Idea Man, May 31 on Disney+
Don’t miss this: 7 Life Lessons From Diane Lane, 59: ‘Regret Nothing’, in AARP Members Only Access
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Erased: WW2’s Heroes of Color (NatGeo, Disney+, Hulu)
Idris Elba, 51, narrates and coproduced this docuseries that tells the story you never saw in Saving Private Ryan — the dark-skinned troops who served on D-Day and at Dunkirk, including the original Black Panthers, whose tanks fought America’s bloodiest conflict, the Battle of the Bulge. These heroes found more honor in combat than back home yet helped inspire the civil-rights social change to come. “Ten percent of the soldiers were Black and brown, and that ten percent has not been pictured or honored with medals everyone else was given,” says Elba. His mom’s father left to fight in the war, leaving not even a photo behind. “My granddad has been erased, and the people reading their granddads’ and brothers’ testimonies in the film really put a lump in my throat.” Erased is preceded by The Real Red Tails, a one-hour doc about a Tuskeegee pilot’s mysterious crash in 1944, narrated by Abbott Elementary’s Sheryl Lee Ralph, 67.
Watch it: Erased: WW2’s Heroes of Color, June 3 and June 10, 9 p.m. ET on NatGeo, streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu
Watch it: The Real Red Tails, June 3, 8 p.m. ET on NatGeo, streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu
Don’t miss this: What We Saw Backstage With the Rolling Stones in Vegas, in AARP Members Only Access
Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse (Magnolia Network, Max, Discovery+)
Chip and Joanna Gaines celebrate 10 years of their hit home improvement show with a tough challenge: a rather time-worn 1960s home that urgently requires their genius.
Watch it: Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse, June 2 on Magnolia Network
Mayor of Kingstown, Season 3 (Paramount+)
Jeremy Renner, 53, was nearly crushed to death by a snowplow in 2023, but he’s back, portraying a convict turned civic leader in a town whose business is prisons. In the new season of this show from Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone), the Russian mob invades Kingstown, and a drug war erupts both behind bars and outside.
Watch it: Mayor of Kingstown, June 2 on Paramount+
Note: Paramount+ provides a discount to AARP members and pays AARP a royalty for the use of its intellectual property.
Don’t miss this: Michael McDonald, 72, on the Doobie Brothers, Marriage and Why He Loves AARP in AARP Members Only Access
Clipped (FX/Hulu)
Ed O’Neill, 77, plays former LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling in a miniseries about his spectacular downfall, with Laurence Fishburne, 62, as the Clippers’ coach, Cleopatra Coleman as the mistress who brought him down, and Jacki Weaver, 76, as the wife who triumphed over the mistress.
Watch it: Clipped, on FX/Hulu
The Great Lillian Hall (Max)
Jessica Lange, 75, guns for an Emmy as a great stage actress stricken with dementia on the eve of her opening in The Cherry Orchard, comforted by her longtime assistant (Kathy Bates, 75) and a kind neighbor (Pierce Brosnan, 71).
Watch it: The Great Lillian Hall, May 31, 8 p.m. ET on Max
Your Netflix Watch of the Week is here!
Eric
In scary 1980s New York, a puppeteer with a TV show (Benedict Cumberbatch) freaks out when his 9-year-old disappears on the way to school and gets obsessed with his son’s drawing of a blue monster puppet.
Watch it: Eric, May 30 on Netflix
Don’t miss this: The 12 Best Movies on Netflix Right Now
And don’t miss this: The 12 Best Things Coming to Netflix in June
Your Prime Video Watch of the Week is here!
Outer Range, Season 2
The first season of Outer Range was a genre-bending mind-melt about a struggling, Clamato-gulping Wyoming rancher (Josh Brolin, 56) who discovers a giant hole at the edge of his land that may or may not be a portal to the past and the future. Expect the seven new episodes to answer some lingering questions (what happened to the rancher’s eldest son, Perry?) while raising a barn or two full of new ones.
Watch it: Outer Range on Prime Video
Don’t miss this: The 10 Best Things Coming to Prime Video in May
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