Amazon scares up more Etheria and HBO Max has a Haute Dog
Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Thursday, September 24. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
Etheria (Amazon, 3:01 a.m., complete second season): A new round of horror and sci-fi arrives on Amazon today with the release of season two of Etheria, the genre-based anthology series featuring short films all helmed by women directors. If the breadth of concepts and ideas feels a little narrower than it did in season one—there’s an awful lot of stalk-and-kill yarns this time out—it’s certainly not lacking ambition. Several of the new installments feel like feature-length stories crammed into 10-minute runtimes, leaving them rushed as they sprint through their narratives. The best ones wisely play to the strengths of the limited format, taking a single kernel of an idea and teasing it out without overcomplicating the setup, leaving plenty of room for stylistic flourishes. The first and last chapters are the strongest, executing the trusting-the-wrong-person idea with nightmarish glee, while multiple installments (including one shot by Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Amber Benson) play with the conventions of the feminist-revenge tale. There’s even some star power, though Elizabeth Debicki mostly looks lost in the nonsensical sci-fi romance of “Gödel. Incomplete,” which is nothing if not a proof-of-concept video for a longer film. Anne Ramsay fares better in the efficient, Rod Serling-like fallout shelter tale “Zone 2,” and fans of torture porn will enjoy the redneck-meets-lucha gross-out of director Gigi Saul Guerrero’s “El Gigante.” As with any anthology, the quality runs the gamut from good to almost startlingly bad; but then, horror fans are used to panning for gold among the silt. [Alex McLevy]
Can you binge it? Yep, Amazon’s got the first season as well.
Haute Dog (HBO Max, 3:01 a.m., first half of first season): One of the first shows to complete its filming during These Troubled Times, HBO Max’s dog-grooming competition series deserves a treat for managing to safely exist at all (and with zero positive test results, no less.) But Haute Dog—which should not be confused with Well Groomed, HBO’s dog-grooming documentary, nor with The Dog House: U.K., HBO Max’s unscripted reality series about dog adoption—would be worth a look even if it weren’t, you know, 2020. Hosted by comedian Matt Rogers (Gayme Show) alongside judges Robin Thede (the show’s “haute expert”) and Jess Rona (the dog/grooming/dog-grooming expert), the series follows a familiar format in brisk and genial style: Three groomers compete in two challenges to become Top Dog and win $10,000. Winning dogs are presented with the option of a lavish, Wheel Of Fortune-style prize package or a treat. You can guess which they choose. The series combines a nice-reality vibe (à la Bake Off or Making It, the latter of which shares a producer with Haute Dog) with the efficiency of Chopped and the wink-wink, nudge-nudge energy of RuPaul’s Drag Race, a blend that’s undeniably appealing but oddly static at times. But by episode three, the sincerity of the contestants and judges makes its way to the fore and Haute Dog becomes exactly the kind of breezy comfort-food show promised by its premise. All that, plus dogs getting glamour shots in front of a wind machine. What more could you want in your television programming? [Allison Shoemaker]