A look at some TV with movie ties
With The Mandalorian and Grogu putting TV in movie theaters, let’s look at some movie-flavored TV.
The Other Bennet Sister is currently in the final third of its 10-episode run on streaming service BritBox. Whether you’re a fan of the Jennifer Ehle-Colin Firth 1995 Pride and Prejudice BBC miniseries or the Keira Knightley-Matthew Macfadyen 2005 Pride & Prejudice movie, this sequel/sidequel miniseries based on the book by Janice Hadlow is worth a $10.99 one-month BritBox subscription. (The 1995 miniseries is available on Britbox and Peacock; 2005 is available for rent or purchase.) In Jane Austen’s book, Mary was the spinster-in-training sister of the five Bennet girls. Here, the action for Mary (Ella Bruccoleri) really begins after the death of her father. Mary heads to London to serve as governess for her uncle, Mr. Gardner (Richard Coyle), and aunt, Mrs. Gardner (Indira Varma), and she’s introduced to a new circle of family friends.
One of those friends, Thomas Hayward (Dónal Finn), seems as nerdily smitten with Mary as she is with him but he unfortunately has a preexisting “understanding” with the kind Ann Baxter (Varada Sethu). While Mary breaks out of her shell, she still sometimes finds herself trapped in her “the awkward one” persona, especially when she runs into Caroline Bingley (Tanya Reynolds), one-time Lizzy-competitor for Mr. Darcy’s affections. Caroline pours on the mean girl when she realizes that Mr. Ryder (Laurie Davidson), the new fella she has her eye on, has his eye on Mary.
This TV show very much catches the tone of both book-Austen and the beloved BBC series. Bruccoleri, who I probably only knew from her role in Call the Midwife, does a good job of selling both Mary’s initial awkwardness as the quiet one in a family of bigger personalities, and the character’s hero’s journey through the marriage market.
Want more of Mary’s cutie Dónal Finn? Catch him on Young Sherlock, released in March on Amazon Prime Video. Though not necessarily of the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie universe, it does share those movies’ director, Guy Ritchie, who co-created the show and directed two episodes, according to Wikipedia. Ritchie gives us characters who, in tone at least, could age into the people we meet in Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (both available for rent or purchase), particularly when it comes to Finn’s James Moriarty, just a hot-headed student at Oxford here. He seems to permanently wear a bemused smile and encourages young Sherlock (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) in assorted hijinks. Sherlock is sent to Oxford to serve as a porter as a way of keeping him out of trouble — a plan by his older brother Mycroft (Max Irons, son of the Jeremy Irons) to keep his younger brother from messing up his budding government career. Sherlock and Moriarty quickly find themselves tangled up in assorted crimes that all seem to lead to larger conspiracies, and the show has buoyant fun with the various capers and ye olde spycraft. And yes, the Sherlock actor is one of those Fienneses (a nephew of Joseph Fiennes who shows up to play the Holmes boys’ father).
Another TV show running sort of in parallel to its creators’ movie universe, also on Amazon Prime Video, is the eight-episode late May release Spider-Noir, starring Nicolas Cage, who also voiced the Spider-Man Noir character in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (available on Netflix), though the show’s Wikipedia page says that this character is a different version than the one in the movies. Here, Ben Reilly (Cage) is the rumpled 1930s gumshoe who was once the masked crimefighter The Spider. Though he still has web-slinging and spidey-sense abilities, Ben gave up the fight five years earlier when his fiancee was killed. That doesn’t stop his friend, reporter Robbie (Lamore Morris), from trying to convince Ben to get back in the game as the city sinks under the crime and corruption caused by Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson), a mob boss with his fingers in all the pies. All dames and crooked cops and scampy street urchins, this series (which I am a few episodes into) is a fun watch that won me over with its classic detective mystery vibes and its smart deployment of Cage’s whole goofy deal. And you can watch the show in black and white or color — while the color has its charms, I particularly enjoyed the shadows and rich contrasts of the black and white version.
A direct movie-tie-in series is Disney+’s eight-episode Wonder Man, a “Marvel Spotlight” series released in January, which features the character Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), who first appeared in 2013’s Iron Man 3 and later in 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. (Both are on Disney+.) Introduced as the terrorist “The Mandarin” in Iron Man 3, Trevor is actually, as Tony Stark discovered, a middling actor who agreed to play the part of the villain in exchange for a good-time mansion and an endless supply of drugs. Here, he meets our hero Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) as both men are at an audition. Williams, who has just had his small guest part cut from a TV show after he had too many ideas about his role, is desperate for work, especially for a role in the upcoming reboot of Wonder Man, Simon’s favorite superhero movie as a kid. Simon works to convince his agent, the film’s casting director and the film’s director that he can be Wonder Man — while also trying to hide that he kind of is Wonder Man. Because of a tragic (hilarious) incident that led to the disappearance of Josh Gad (gamely playing himself), studios won’t let actual superpower-having people work in Hollywood. The unmasking of Simon’s powers — kind of non-specific, energy-related abilities — is his greatest fear, as it would mean the end of his Hollywood ambitions.
His ambitions make Simon a regular-guy super, not an Avenger wannabe. And his relationship with Slattery — who has his own secrets as well as long-standing actor-y issues, such as his rivalry with Joe Pantoliano (also gamely playing himself) — give this show an enjoyable The Studio sensibility.
Also in the Hulu-verse, you’ll find the just-finished first season of The Testaments, a sequel to the Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale but a show that, perhaps because of its star Chase Infiniti, feels like it shares some vibes with Oscar winner 2025’s One Battle After Another as well. Like Infiniti’s Willa in One Battle, her Agnes in The Testaments is a teenage girl doing teenage girl things (going to dances, trying to assert some independence from her home life) during weird civil unrest. The Testaments picks up in the alt-America country Gilead, a Christian theocracy that segregates and oppresses women, where Agnes is expected to soon marry and “be fruitful.” A student at a finishing school for the daughters of the elite men of Gilead that is run by Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), Agnes is assigned to show the ropes to recent convert Daisy (Lucy Halliday). Or maybe Daisy is meant to spy on Agnes, as her fellow girls at the school warn her. What we in the audience know is that Daisy is a spy — an anti-Gilead plant picked by former handmaid June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) herself to infiltrate the school.
As the series goes on, we see Agnes develop a kind of steely strength and absolute loyalty to her friends that feels very spiritually connected with the government-fighting rebel-in-the-making that is Willa in One Battle. Infiniti also does a good job of selling the teen-girl-ness of Agnes, who, as Daisy explains in a later episode, has regular teen girl feelings and desires despite the oppressive society she’s growing up in. The relationships between the school’s girls — the ones headed for marriage, the ones who fear they might be left behind — is compelling and keeps you watching even when the Gilead of it all feels too much. (And if you need some “viva la revolución,” One Battle After Another is available on HBO Max.)
Featured photo: The Other Bennet Sister
