Netflix streams the new series “The Gentlemen,” created by director Guy Ritchie, and is a spin-off of his 2019 film of the same name. This version concerns the young Eddie Horniman (Theo James), the first Earl of Halstead, who inherits a vast estate from an aristocrat fallen on hard times.
He’s soon surprised to learn that the posh location comes with one serious stipulation — a huge illegal cannabis-growing lab in the basement and all the dangerous characters that come with it.
Ritchie has made his career making highly stylized films exploring class and criminality, sex, guns and balletic violence. Help yourself.
Another notable entry on Netflix’s vast heap of programming, the 2024 dramatic film “Spaceman” stars Adam Sandler.
He’s an astronaut six months into a solo journey and he’s not doing terribly well. Isolation has played with his mind, and separation from his wife (Carey Mulligan) has made him worry if she’ll be waiting for him when he returns.
Deep in the grips of these anxieties, he begins conversations with an ancient sentient creature (Paul Dano) said to be from the beginning of time who had stowed away on the space Station.
Directed by Johan Renck (“Chernobyl”) and adapted from the science fiction novel “The Spaceman of Bohemia” by Jaroslav Kalfar, it features an impressive cast including Lena Olin, Kunal Nayyar and Isabella Rossellini.
Along with Apple’s series “Constellation,” this is the second metaphysical drama set in and around deep space to arrive in the last month.
— Another stylized head-scratcher, “Poor Things” begins streaming today on Hulu. Nominated for 11 Oscars, the 2023 film stars Emma Stone as a Victorian-era pregnant woman who throws herself into the river in suicidal despair. An intrepid surgeon transplants the brain of her unborn child into her lifeless body, resulting in a childlike and naive woman open to a series of experiences.
An ensemble cast includes Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe. A highly stylized and eroticized meditation on the “Frankenstein” myth, “Poor Things” has been praised by others with words like “bonkers” and “steampunk.” Help yourself.
— Paramount+ will begin streaming the 2024 musical “Mean Girls,” adapted from the Broadway show itself based on the 2004 high school satire written by Tina Fey.
— Martha Plimpton, now appearing in the HBO series “The Regime,” was among the adolescent ensemble starring in the 1985 adventure “The Goonies” (6:30 E!, TV-14), co-starring Sean Astin, Josh Brolin and Jeff Cohen. Astin was cast in “Stranger Things,” a Netflix series that was inspired, at least in part, by the spirit of “The Goonies.”
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— Few lists of the five greatest movies fail to include the 1942 wartime romance “Casablanca” (8 p.m., TCM, TV-PG), starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
— A jilted chef meets a handsome surfing instructor in the 2022 romance “Groundswell” (8 p.m., Hallmark).
— The fine line between hate speech and free speech can be murder on “Law & Order” (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).
— President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union (9 p.m., CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS). Sen. Katie Britt (R., Alabama) is scheduled to follow the speech with the response from the Republican Party.
CULT CHOICE
Television producers create an all-encompassing artificial world to capture the daily life of an ordinary man (Jim Carrey) blissfully unaware of his screen role, in the prescient 1998 drama-comedy “The Truman Show” (7 p.m., MTV2, TV-PG), directed by Peter Weir. Produced some years before the dominance of reality television and the rise of the surveillance state, the film resonates to this day. In keeping with tonight’s State of the Union Address, it’s interesting to note that “Truman” was shot in the planned community of Seaside, located in the Florida Panhandle. The house used for Truman’s home was the childhood residence of Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman of some note.
SERIES NOTES
Disappointments are bigger in Texas on “Young Sheldon” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … Street food is chic food on “Next Level Chef” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune” (8 p.m., ABC, r, TV-PG) … A Halloween seance summons Flower on “Ghosts” (8:30 p.m., CBS, TV-PG).
LATE NIGHT
Jimmy Fallon welcomes Ricky Martin, Michael Imperioli and Manuel Turizo & Yandel on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh and Benson Boone appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (11:35 p.m., ABC, r).
Peter Dinklage and Rory Scovel visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC) … Taylor Tomlinson hosts Beth Stelling and Mo Welch on “After Midnight” (12:35 a.m., CBS).
