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The Best Shows and Movies to Watch This Week: Lucifer, Love in the Time of Corona

August 18, 2020

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The country is collectively sitting in front of fans because August has decided to drop us onto the sun in a summer heatwave, so unless you have an igloo to hunker down in, we suggest you fill up a trashcan with ice water, hop in, and watch some TV. And in this edition of the week’s best shows and movies to watch, we’re skipping the hot, hot, hot picks for some cool, cool, cool recommendations.

HBO’s Lovecraft Country got the week off to a great start, but if a different kind of love is more your thing, Freeform’s Love in the Time of Corona is a refreshing quarantine experiment about how we’re all dealing with our lockdowns. Lucifer also returns for its newest season, with the Devil seeing double! And of course, the Democrats are comin’, the Democrats are comin’! The Democratic National Convention will be airing almost all week.

<span data-shortcode="link" data-asset-type="article" data-uuid="7a97b12e-1dd8-489c-bd48-c433d4d88ebc" data-slug="best-new-shows-and-movies-on-netflix-this-week-project-power-teenage-bounty-hunters" data-link-text="Best New Shows and Movies on Netflix This Week: Project Power, Teenage Bounty Hunters” data-href=”https://cms.tvguide.com/content/article/7a97b12e-1dd8-489c-bd48-c433d4d88ebc/version/us” data-edition=”us”>Best New Shows and Movies on Netflix This Week: Project Power, Teenage Bounty Hunters

If this isn’t enough and you’re looking for even more hand-picked recommendations, sign up for our free, daily, spam-free Watch This Now newsletter that delivers the best TV show picks straight to your inbox, or check out the best shows and movies this month on http://www.tvguide.com/news/the-best-movies-and-tv-shows-to-watch-on-netflix-in-august-2020/?ftag=, http://www.tvguide.com/news/the-best-tv-shows-and-movies-to-stream-on-hulu-in-august-2020/?ftag=, and http://www.tvguide.com/news/the-best-movies-and-tv-shows-to-watch-on-amazon-prime-in-august-2020/?ftag=.

Lovecraft Country

Series premiere Sunday at 9/8c on HBO
HBO is going full-on, hair-raising, blood-spurting horror in this new series from showrunner Misha Green based on a book by author Matt Ruff. It follows Korean war veteran Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors), his photographer friend Letitia Lewis (Jurnee Smollett), and his uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) as they head out from Chicago in search of Atticus’ missing father Montrose (Michael K. Williams) across 1950s Jim Crow America. There are plenty of monsters, but none of them are as frightening and disturbing as the racism the characters face. It draws inspiration from horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, who infected his stories with hideous racism, but from the opposite direction, reclaiming horror for Black gorehounds. -Liam Mathews

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver‘s 200th Episode

Sunday at 10/9c on HBO
Television’s closest successor to Jon Stewart’s version of The Daily Show hits a milestone this weekend when it airs its 200th episode. John Oliver has previously celebrated landmark episodes with grand musical numbers and other jubilees, but given that he’s doing the show in front of a grey wall now because of quarantine protocols, we probably won’t get anything that extravagant. But even without anything special, Last Week Tonight is always an easy recommendation.

Democratic National Convention

Monday – Thursday, various networks including PBS, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN (How to Watch)
You still have a Mondale/Ferraro bumper sticker on your Volvo wagon, so you may as well tune in to see what the Democratic party looks like today. This year’s Democratic National Convention is going to look very different from past donkey parties because of the coronavirus pandemic, as Democratic figureheads rally votes for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over teleconferenced speeches. Biden is expected to accept the nomination live from the DNC headquarters in Milwaukee, but the real question is… can Bernie Sanders, who is scheduled to speak Monday, figure out Zoom? I kid, I kid!

High Score

Wednesday on Netflix
The history of video games gets the docuseries treatment in this six-episode look at an industry that has moved from Space Invaders to modern games that require the digit dexterity of a ragtime pianist. The presentation is the biggest draw here; stories are told through the help of colorful 8-bit animation, and the tone of the series is pure fun while not getting too academic. The nostalgia is heavy, too. Commercials from the ’80s are frequent and embarrassing, old footage of video game competitions will make you question what we were doing back then, and mint-condition classic consoles will leave you digging around you mom’s attic for hidden treasures. If there’s one knock on it, though, it’s with the choice of interviews and how they dictated the subject matter; do we really need an entire episode on Sega’s Genesis?