What's on TV this week—Time Bandits and The Decameron
Plus, Hulu premieres a fashion challenge, Netflix explores the dark side of '90s boy bands, and more
Lisa Kudrow in Time Bandits (Photo: Apple TV+); Zosia Mamet and Saoirse Monica-Jackson in The Decameron (Photo: Giulia Parmigiani/Netflix)
Welcome to What’s On, our weekly roundup of notable shows. Here’s what happening from Sunday, July 21 to Thursday, July 25. All times are Eastern. [Note: The weekend edition of What’s On drops on Fridays.]
The biggies
Time Bandits (Apple TV+, Wednesday, 12:01 a.m.)
Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement love to take their spin on beloved films to television. After bringing What We Do In The Shadows to the small screen, the duo now teams up with Iain Morris to reboot the 1981 film Time Bandits. The 10 episodes follow a ragtag group of thieves as they travel through time and space along with a new recruit, an eight-year-old boy named Kevin (Kal-el Tuck). Lisa Kudrow, Charlyne Yi, and Matt King also star (as do Waititi and Clement). The A.V. Club will recap each episode of the show.
The Decameron (Netflix, Thursday, 3:01 a.m.)
The Decameron goes well with Time Bandit‘s history-adjacent genre. Set in the Italian countryside in 1348 during the bubonic plague, it looks at—of course—the theme of class issues, taking place in a castle where the rich and poor mingle and try to survive the pandemic with the help of wine and sex. The dramedy features Tony Hale, Saoirse Monica-Jackson, Zosia Mamet, Tanya Reynolds, Amar Chadha-Patel, Karan Gill, and Leila Farzad. The A.V. Club‘s review publishes Thursday.
Hidden gems
Dress My Tour (Hulu, Tuesday, 12:01 a.m.)
Look like Hulu wants its own Project Runway, huh? Kate Upton hosts the new reality series Dress My Tour, in which 11 aspiring fashion designers face daunting challenges and create outfits for musical artists like Toni Braxton, Paula Abdul, JoJo Siwa, and Ty Dolla $ign in the hopes of nabbing the show’s $100,000 prize.
Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam (Netflix, Wednesday, 3:01 a.m.)
Lou Pearlman, the talent manager who put together memorable boy bands like Backstreet Boys and N’Sync in the ’90s, was also allegedly a big-time fraud. Dirty Pop digs into his long-running Ponzi Scheme and how he created a web of lies and made money off the dreams of young artists.
More good stuff
Resurrected Rides (Netflix, Wednesday, 3:01 a.m.)