Hopedale‘s Hometown News Site

PLATONIC returns for a second season with the same irreverence, sharpness, and chaotic chemistry that made its debut such a refreshing entry in the “messy adult comedy” genre. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne still lead the charge as Will and Sylvia, two longtime friends navigating adulthood from wildly different angles but often colliding in the same emotional struggles.

After more than a decade off the air, KING OF THE HILL returns with its long-awaited fourteenth season—and somehow, it feels like it never left. From the very first episode, the rebooted series strikes a balance between nostalgia and relevance, honoring the character-driven heart of the original while evolving enough to fit the world as it is now. This isn't just a return to a greatest hits compilation; it's a thoughtful extension of the lives we left behind in Arlen, Texas. And by the end of these ten episodes, it’s clear the show still has something to say.

SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE: A TEENAGE HOLY WAR plays like a mirror to a very specific moment in American pop-religious culture: the height of evangelical youth movements in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The second season of the docuseries, which began with an unflinching look at the Duggar family and the IBLP, now turns its attention to Teen Mania Ministries—once a towering presence in youth ministry and the force behind Acquire the Fire, one of the largest Christian stadium events in U.S. history.

JUSTICE ON TRIAL sets its sights on the courtroom not just as a place where verdicts are handed down, but as the battleground where American ideals are tested—and sometimes fail. Created by Judge Judy Sheindlin, the eight-episode docuseries revisits landmark legal decisions that have shaped the country’s sense of law, order, and fairness. While only the first three episodes were available ahead of the series’ release, even this partial view makes clear that the show isn’t just interested in the cases themselves. It seeks to explore how these decisions reverberate through history, public opinion, and the lives they impact.

SURF GIRLS: INTERNATIONAL rides the wave left behind by SURF GIRLS: HAWAI’I, expanding its view from the shores of Oʻahu to the larger stage of professional surfing. But this isn’t just a bigger playground—it’s a deeper dive. The five-part Prime Video docuseries follows returning standout Ewe Wong and four new competitors—Sophia Medina, Kika Veselko, Jessie Van Niekerk, and Sol Aguirre—as they navigate the grueling Challenger Series circuit. What we explore isn’t merely a travelogue of surf destinations, but a high-stakes portrait of ambition, resilience, and the complicated cost of chasing greatness.

THE TROUBLE WITH TESSA opens with the eerie quiet of a town that looks just a little too polished. A porch, a welcome, and the kind of friendliness that feels rehearsed. That’s what greets Tessa Fowler—a former documentarian whose credibility is in shambles—when she moves to Lowery looking for peace. What she finds is a half-buried history and a chilling sense that the people around her are playing roles in a much older script.

Set across six episodes and soaked in sun, SUSPICIOUS MINDS (LADRONES: LA TIARA DE SANTA ÁGUEDA) SEASON 1 is less concerned with reinventing genre formulas than it is with twisting them around two people whose chemistry is as dangerous as any alarm system. It's a series that thrives on contrasts—glamour versus grit, strategy versus chaos, and a love story entwined within a high-stakes con job.

There’s no shortage of post-apocalyptic stories on screen, but what sets FALLOUT: SEASON ONE apart is how confidently it charges through the wreckage, blowing the dust off its video game roots to build something truly cinematic, dark, hilarious, and emotionally grounded. It’s not just an adaptation—it’s an evolution.

There’s something satisfying about watching a show that knows exactly what it wants to be. SERIES 4 of MY LIFE IS MURDER doesn’t try to reinvent itself—it doesn’t need to. Instead, it doubles down on its strongest assets: intelligent mysteries, warm characters, and the irresistible presence of Lucy Lawless as Alexa Crowe. But this time, it also finds something a little deeper. Beneath the humor and procedural structure, there’s a personal reckoning building in the background, and it gives the season just enough weight to elevate the experience without weighing it down.

Death stops meaning what it used to when the people you’ve mourned walk through the door like nothing happened. That’s the unsettling starting point for a story that doesn't scream its horror but lets it crawl slowly up your spine. What could’ve easily been another reanimated-body horror fest takes a more calculated, character-driven route, where the supernatural is just the backdrop for something more personal.

For those who remember when network sitcoms didn’t take themselves too seriously, THE DREW CAREY SHOW was a glorious beacon of working-class chaos. A staple of ABC’s comedy lineup from 1995 to 2004, the series ran for nine seasons, pushing boundaries while maintaining its core identity. Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment delivers the long-awaited Complete Series collection on DVD. While the phrase “complete” comes with an asterisk, it’s still a solid tribute to one of the quirkiest sitcoms ever aired.

From the outside, Chelsea still looks pristine—clean streets, and old money—but in Season 3 of THE CHELSEA DETECTIVE, the cracks in its polished veneer only deepen. This new run of episodes leans further into its identity as a methodical, character-driven procedural, stripping back any gimmicks in favor of solid police work, grounded personalities, and morally tangled cases. The formula hasn't changed drastically, but the tone has grown more confident, more deliberate. If you’ve been watching from the beginning, this season feels like a reward: a detective series hitting its stride.

Season 4 of THE MADAME BLANC MYSTERIES continues to play to the series’ strengths while shaking up just enough to feel like a new chapter rather than a simple continuation. At this point, the show’s confidence is undeniable. It knows exactly what it’s doing—delivering bite-sized, well-crafted mysteries in a picturesque village, with just enough cheek, charm, and cleverness to keep longtime viewers coming back. What sets this season apart is how much more rooted it feels in character relationships and emotional stakes, while still delivering the cases of mystery that have become its bread and butter.

If THE BETTER SISTER proves anything, it may be that blood is thicker than water, but it also stains deeper. Based on Alafair Burke’s novel, this eight-part limited series is the kind of domestic thriller that wraps you in familiar genre pacing and slips something sharp beneath the surface. It’s a story about guilt, control, and survival—but more than anything, it’s about the complicated connection of sisterhood, where old wounds rarely heal in a straight line.

When the screeners for the first two episodes of the new season of PHINEAS AND FERB landed in my inbox, I realized something embarrassing—I’d never seen a single episode. Not out of disinterest, just one of those pop culture moments that had slipped through the cracks. But if I was going to weigh in on the revival, I figured I’d do it right. So I hit play on season one… and didn’t stop until I binged the original series. All 104 days of summer. All the ridiculous inventions. All the thwarted schemes. Through to the final curtain call. (This was quite the process, but it was a blast!)

THE SECOND BEST HOSPITAL IN THE GALAXY – SEASON 2 continues to thrive on contradictions: hilarious but heartbreaking, strange but surprisingly grounded. It doesn’t try to be everything for everyone, but instead leans into its boldness, using absurdist sci-fi as a launchpad for emotional exploration. The result? A season that often feels as if it was written during a sugar rush and edited during a midlife crisis—but that’s exactly where its strength lies.

The strangest thing about fear is how easily it blends into the everyday. This is where this unique addition to the found-footage horror landscape takes root, not by charging into something unfamiliar but by amplifying what was already working. Six episodes long and crafted with purpose, this story doesn’t reinvent its mythology. It just deepens it. Instead of continuing in the form of a third installment, the series rewinds and replays, each with a new twist on the same unsettling theme.

There’s something about a documentary that feels like piercing rather than simply remembering. That’s the approach taken here, and it makes all the difference. Instead of offering a polished account or a myth, this project gets into the tension between public legend and private cost. It's less about stats and more about the man behind the machine—Dale Earnhardt—and the complex legacy that didn’t end at the finish line.

There’s something undeniably magnetic about a story that refuses to simplify its subject. This documentary embraces that complexity with both arms, painting a picture of a performer who thrived in the spotlight but never stopped guarding the man behind the curtain. It’s not interested in tidy conclusions—it wants you to sit in the gray areas and ask what happens when an act becomes an identity, and whether the cost of disappearing into a role is ever worth the control it buys.

When a show gets its hooks in you fast and doesn’t let up, it’s usually because it understands what it's trying to say. MOTORHEADS may not rewrite the rules of coming-of-age storytelling, but it knows exactly what gear it wants to drive in. With a youthful centric cast, raw emotion, and a backdrop of clashing steel, oil, and growing pains, it moves intentionally, even when it hits a few familiar bumps in the road. Once it gets going, it’s hard not to get swept up in its emotion.

This happens when a series with cult-level recognition decides to stare into the multiverse and ask, “What if we changed everything… but also nothing at all?” RICK AND MORTY: THE ANIME attempts to reshape the long-running animated favorite through a different visual and emotional filter. What it builds is neither a straight sequel nor a self-contained reboot, but rather a remix that reinterprets familiar characters in unfamiliar ways. It’s messy, oddly charming, and sometimes contradictory, but it certainly plays it safe.

A unique energy comes with a story that isn’t afraid to get messy while figuring itself out. That makes OVERCOMPENSATING feel alive—it doesn’t chase perfection. Instead, it leans into its imperfections, confident that the cracks are where the most interesting parts emerge. At the center of the chaos is Benny, played by Benito Skinner, a former high school football star and homecoming king. He is a freshman navigating a college world that refuses to play by his old social rules. Benny walks onto campus carrying an image he can’t maintain and a truth he doesn’t know how to live. The accumulation of awkward interactions marks his journey, missed signals, and small revelations that slowly unravel the persona he once depended on.

What happens when a machine gains autonomy, not to conquer or to serve, but to become its true self? That’s the premise behind MURDERBOT, a science fiction series that sidesteps pretentious plotlines for a slower, more personal story. Based on Martha Wells' celebrated book series, this ten-episode Apple TV+ project trades the genre’s usual fixation on high-stakes action (although there is still some) for something less common: an exploration of emotional detachment, existential confusion, and the quiet desire for solitude. It’s a gamble that pays off, leaning into discomfort and awkwardness with dry humor and refusing to spell everything out.

Galaxies can stretch across timelines, but meaning doesn’t always make the journey. That’s the core dilemma faced by DUNE: PROPHECY: SEASON 1, an ambitious prequel that dares to peer 10,000 years into the past, hoping to unearth the genesis of one of science fiction’s most cryptic tales. As a foundational chapter in a mythos already defined by dense philosophy and speculative theology, the series wants to say something profound. The question is whether it trusts its audience enough to let them hear it.