Mostly Screen Time: April 2026
What I watched so you can watch it too.
This month: Clocking out of The Pitt and Abbott, various coming-of-age tales and comedy specials, and David Rose Dan Levy returns.
⭐️ Starred items are ones I’d recommend!
⭐️ ⚰️ Big Mistakes (Netflix) - Dan Levy, while not beating the only-one-note-as-an-actor allegations, is so maddeningly fun to watch on screen that I’ll never not be charmed by his comedic voice, even when the stakes become life and death. Looking for ways that Nicky Dardano deviates from David Rose, it’s hard to underestimate how much work the costumes in Schitt’s Creek did. Taylor Ortega, playing his sister in a role that was obbbviously meant to go to co-creator Rachel Sennott, is such a breakout star and there is no greater proof than the arguments these two have while on an accidental cocaine bender. And god Laurie Metcalf is so convincing as a mom so loving it veers on scary, until it’s needed in a heartfelt moment. She should be the voice of baby boomers everywhere because I’ve never been more disarmed by her arguments against her millennial adult children. (Peak line delivery re: the saddest fake charcuterie board with American cheese slices and peanut butter ritz crackers: “This plate makes me want to walk into traffic.”) DISCLAIMER that shouldn’t render this hugely positive review unworthy: I watched all 8 episodes of this as a captive audience on a transatlantic flight when I should have been sleeping.
⭐️ 🏥 The Pitt S2 (HBOmax) – Now baby if you need me to convince you of The Pitt in this day and age, April 2026, you either know or you don’t. You’re either okay with on-screen blood or you must step away towards Cocomelon. I just think that all of these characters need a hug (if they can find the time!!!) and I will not be the ones hugging them because I wear my seatbelt, for example. And I do wish Dr. Al-Hashimi a season three return. At this point in the year, I don’t see a world where this doesn’t sweep the drama Emmys for a second year.
🏝️ Laguna Beach: The Reunion (Roku Channel) – I was initially confused why this was on the “Roku Channel”— look it up; god knows I had to find out it was free and also not available on AppleTV, sus— but I now think airing this on a medium that was not MTV/Paramount-owned presented a missed opportunity to talk a little more candidly about the show. Laguna Beach was (one of?) the first reality shows that presented as highly polished/produced/edited and I firmly believe that the Real Housewives franchise wouldn’t have existed if not for this show. Let these plucked-from-obscurity high schoolers talk about their impact on culture! AND the impact this show had on their lives— Sure maybe they had dreams of celebrity but it was a nearly unheard of format at the time so it was new to us all. Had MTV not found them, what would have happened? I doubt half of them would have various clothing brands. Despite it being shiny and coerced (reality shows are pushed in certain directions but I never believe they’re “scripted”), I believe these friendships and love triangles were at least somewhat real, and glad to have this in 2026, the year of my 20 year high school reunion.
👩🏻❤️👨🏻 Love on the Spectrum S4 (Netflix) – It’s hard to think back on this show presenting such saccharine love when the reality shows one of the star couples having broken up after years together. I love that this show continues to let the stars lead the situations and production will work around them if they’re uncomfortable. It seems we got multiple admissions this season of loved cast members who declared they weren’t actually ready for a relationship. Point me to any other media where a cast of real people clock a rainbow and then breaks into singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in earnest. As long as I’m single, I’ll have something to learn from these people.
👵🏻 Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat (Prime Video) – They can’t do it again, we all said! And yet, here we are, another lovable nobody fooled by dozens of actors and crew just for our enjoyment. Where Jury Duty (2023) was able to hit the ground running, mostly because of the absurd appearance of James Marsden, this season took some getting used to, and I wasn’t fully in until episode three. The finale felt almost too perfectly structured in a way that makes one wonder… ok so there are good people in this world who will come out of their shell to do the right thing! My remaining question with this type of production: how do we make the promo materials; is it completely digitally designed or did everyone sit for photoshoots where the hero character had to shrug like “what is going on?!” after knowing everything?
🛋️ Shrinking S3 (AppleTV) – While the lighting on this show continues to make it the brightest 30 minutes each week on my screen, the emotional beats continue to work for me, mostly with the supporting cast more-so than lead Jason Segel. It’s probably tough to handle stories of suicide well, as well as the eldest character/cast member reckoning with death/illness. I’ll continue to STAN Jessica Williams and know it’s only a matter of time before she gets on that Emmy stage (she was nominated for this role last year and, even if this isn’t the one that she wins for, she’s destined for that trophy).
🤟🏻 DTF St. Louis (HBOmax) – At the end of this sad limited series about two men’s suburban midlife crises, and even though the themes felt like they were edging towards these men getting together (did I even want that?), I wondered if it was all worth it for the scene of Jason Bateman and David Harbour dancing in a decrepit pool house in their poorly fitting underwear (the definition of “doing it just to feel something”). The murder mystery at the center of the series felt a bit underwhelming in its unfolding, and in the end, I was more invested by the detective characters than the victims. BIG praise to the cinematography and production design for making suburban St. Louis… cinematic?
👩🏽🏫 Abbott Elementary S5 (ABC/Hulu) - Don’t we just love a reliable, cozy ensemble comedy?? As bright as it burned in its first season, I only get a little saddened that it’s destined for a few Emmy nominations as long as it runs, but Janelle James may never get her time on that stage. Reminder that once a long-running sitcom couple gets together, it’s rude to split them up lest I get a little sad!
⭐️ 🎸 Mile End Kicks – Absolutely classic coming of age movie in terms of its structure, a main character who’s going to burn all her bridges before she realizes where she went wrong, and yet I kept rooting for her to make better decisions I knew she would not be making. I appreciate this for explaining that Montreal has a big alt rock music scene and that sets up the whole movie, and why it’s important to be there, while also bringign in us pop heads with a throughline of “Jagged Little Pill” references. Early on, there’s a scene where the main character sulks around a party as a nobody and there’s a literal (metaphorical?) spotlight on her the whole time and I just think that’s cinema.
⭐️ 👰🏽♀️ The Drama – What a fun time at the theater. It’s so interesting in 2026 to have a movie that’s marketed almost 100% on hiding the plot to audiences, yet hoping they show up based on the star power of the leads. Much has been made about the “twist” (said twist happens 20 minutes into the movie, some would just call it the plot) and the tone of the movie from there knocks the audience off its feet. It asks if we’re able to laugh at how absurd this all is, without being insensitive to the subject matter at hand. I wonder if this movie would hold up at all at future home viewings, without the guilty snickers of strangers in the audience enabling my laughter. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson are STARS, and I don’t think she’s in the wrong.
🎮 The Super Mario Galaxy Movie – I am so upset by this movie. Where its predecessor got by on some novelty but was overstuffed with ideas that could have extended this franchise out into 10 movies, this movie was so disappointingly thin in story and plot— which movies need to have, regardless of bankable property! I’m sad that this has turned into a poorly executed mid-to-bad franchise that will continue to make billions of dollars because there is heavy evidence of taking a known IP and making a really strong movie (see: The Lego Movie, Barbie). Every character is underutilized in this, in a way that makes me wonder how heavy the network and game studio notes were, to the point that everything got watered down into disconnected scenes and beats and post-credits teases that won’t amount to anything (Yoshi). That dinosaur did get on a motorcycle though.
🛏️ Roommates (Netflix) - A parable about the random and forced friendships in your first year of college, as told by comedian Sarah Sherman. So far so good! Except it was driving toward a revenge plot that took too long to materialize in my opinion and by the time the big comeuppance happened, it felt underwhelming, and so I felt like every character should have had a better ending.
🚇 Exit 8 – A thriller (horror?) movie that plays out like a puzzle for the audience (it is also based on a video game, which I haven’t played). Unfortunately that leads to the desire to scream at the screen when you can see something the characters are very obviously missing. The stakes feel a little low as, despite being trapped in an endless train station tunnel, there is no threat of death or disaster for the characters, just “try again” if you mess up. And also maybe a pro-life theme? This was fun, but, taking from another review I read: this likely could have been a short, very effectively told in 30 minutes or less.
🍷 You, Me & Tuscany – Listen, it takes a big leap to put a romantic comedy in theaters nowadays, instead of dumping it onto a streaming platform to cause a slight uptick in reactions then fade forever. It’s a dying genre that needs to be revived! So in that sense, I will support it. But… this had no business being the one romcom this year to get a theatrical release. Straight out of 2003 (usually complimentary), the lead actors had no chemistry, many bits without payoffs, and too many logistical questions to take me out of my suspension of disbelief. Similar to my negative thoughts on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, I must reiterate that I love fun, I love whimsy, I love simplicity, but this was not it!
🎤 Mother Mary – Should’ve been a play! A dramatic yet subdued two-hander that has Michaela Coel and Anne Hathaway serving face and metaphors for over 90 minutes. However, I did keep waiting for a twist or a thriller escalation that I don’t feel ever materialized fully, and/or perhaps I needed a bit more explanation to feel like the story wrapped up! Absolutely great costumes and production design!
Plus: I caught up on various comedy specials including ⭐️Julio Torres, ⭐️Caleb Hearon, Sarah Sherman, and Chris Fleming. See you in May when I posit that “The Devil Wears Prada 2” is a bad movie title, despite the movie’s potential quality. And finishing up some April releases like Beef S2.
Always so much fun to read these, Ryan. Love you.
The Devil Still Wears Prada? The Devil Is Wearing Prada Again?