Between streaming and cable, viewers have a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are airing or streaming this week, Oct. 13-19. Details and times are subject to change.
‘You Talkin’ to Me?’
For years, the canonical filmmaker Martin Scorsese has made cameos in his own films. Whether as a venomous passenger in “Taxi Driver” (1976) or a wedding photographer in “Age of Innocence” (1993), Scorsese has left traces of himself, like Easter eggs, for knowing viewers to discover and enjoy. Now, in the new five-part documentary series “Mr. Scorsese,” he takes center stage as himself. It’s an intimate portrait that includes conversations with longtime collaborators such as Robert De Niro, Paul Schrader and Leonardo DiCaprio. The documentary’s director, Rebecca Miller, is married to Daniel Day-Lewis, another Scorsese leading man. Tune in to hear the director in his own words. Streaming Friday on Apple TV+.
A Florida crime sparks national outcry
A new Netflix documentary revisits the harrowing 2023 killing of Ajike Owens, a Black mother of four, who was shot by her white neighbor Susan Lorincz. Owens, who was unarmed, had come to Lorincz’s door after she repeatedly called the police on neighborhood children, including Owens’s, for playing in a nearby field. (The doc’s title, “The Perfect Neighbor,” is a quote from Lorincz as she described herself.) The case and subsequent trial ignited a national debate about “stand your ground” laws and underlying racial prejudice. In 2024, a Florida court convicted Lorincz of manslaughter. “The Perfect Neighbor” offers a window into events as they unfolded — and escalated — in real time, featuring telephone recordings and the distended, fish-eye-like footage of official police body cams. Streaming Friday on Neftlix.
Il Duce
Breaking the fourth wall has been used to great effect in series like “Fleabag” (2019) and films like “High Fidelity” (2000), where flawed leads address the audience directly. But it hits differently, in this case, when the person staring back at you is one of the 20th century’s foremost fascists. Filmed in Italian with English subtitles, the new series “Mussolini: Son of the Century” offers a propulsive tour of one of the darker chapters of modern Italian history. “Mapping Mussolini’s meteoric rise from leader of a ragtag movement of disaffected young men to total control of the state in a mere six years, the series comes across as a primer for authoritarianism,” wrote Elisabetta Povoledo in The New York Times. The show is directed by Joe Wright, who is deviating from his adaptations of literary masterpieces like “Pride and Prejudice” (2005) and “Anna Karenina” (2012) to create this eight-part series. The electronic music underscores the showrunner’s desire to put the 1920s in conversation with the present day. New episode streaming Wednesday on Mubi.
A Marriage Story
The third season of Netflix’s political thriller “The Diplomat” premiers this week, serving up a domestic drama unfolding on the international stage. Set in an alternative present, the show takes real-life foreign affairs — like the 2020 assassination of Qassim Suleimani — as a given. Keri Russell, who starred in the hot-blooded Cold War drama “The Americans,” plays in this series Kate Wyler, the get-the-job-done U.S. ambassador to Britain. Earlier seasons showed Kate thrust into the political limelight, along with an opportunistic husband, Hal, played with swagger and sleaze by Rufus Sewell. Some of the show’s fast-paced, polysyllabic repartee recalls the dialogue of “The West Wing,” as characters stride about the halls of power discussing politics. Season 2 of “The Diplomat” ended on a cliffhanger involving “The West Wing” alumna Allison Janney as the U.S. Vice President with a steely blond bob (think Anna Wintour without sunglasses). Log on for more high-octane political intrigue. Streaming Thursday on Netflix.
Train Dreams
As anyone who has ventured to New York City’s the High Line can attest, a discontinued train route is hardly the end of the line for its tracks. In fact, their afterlife is the subject of a new TV documentary airing this week: per “From Rails to Trails,” there are roughly 26,000 miles of rail-trails in the United States. Adapted from a 2021 book of the same name, “From Rails to Trails” is a testament to the imagination and opportunity that come from transforming a defunct railway into part of a community’s social landscape. The actor Edward Norton narrates the production, which includes interviews with the former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg. Streaming Wednesday on PBS.
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