Despite the pollen, spring days have been calling me outside—and perhaps the rest of the streaming world, too, if the paltry number of April releases says anything about the lack of attention TV execs expect to face this month. Below, though, are a few nuggets to tempt us otherwise, along with two regional favorites returning for new seasons: The Big Door Prize, based on G&G Good Dog contributor and Baton Rouge native M. O. Walsh’s novel of the same name, and the consistently great PBS docuseries Reel South.
Sunday-Afternoon Special
The Masters, Paramount+
Of course you can watch the run for the green jacket live on CBS, but Paramount+ will be streaming the third and final rounds on April 13 and 14, respectively, along with various highlights. I myself am greatly looking forward to my annual best nap of the year that Sunday, but regardless of your own Masters tradition, may I suggest you first read G&G contributing editor Latria Graham’s terrific feature in the magazine’s latest issue, on the undersung Black caddies of Augusta National? It will definitely make you consider more deeply all the elements—and people—that go into conquering those particular greens.
Agog at Goggins
Fallout, Amazon Prime Video
My husband has been on the edge of his beanbag for this TV adaptation of the Fallout video game series, considered by many (including him) to be one of the best of all time. I’m joining in the anticipation for the postapocalyptic adventure, which lands April 11, largely because one of the main characters will be played by another “best of all time,” the Georgia native, superb actor, and G&G Interview subject Walton Goggins. To bring you up to speed: The year is 2296, and the pampered richies who hid away in “the Vault” for two hundred years after a nuclear war are forced to file out into the mutant-filled, violent world that emerged in the meantime. Okay, then!
X’s and O’s
CMT Music Awards, Paramount+
Once, on a road trip through Georgia, I turned the radio to three different stations, each one of them playing Trisha Yearwood’s “She’s in Love with the Boy.” And who could blame them. Does anyone else tear up at the line “Katie looks at Tommy like I still look at you”? No? Just me? Wahhhhh! As it turns out, Yearwood is just as good at doing good as she is at singing unforgettable songs: At the CMT Music Awards, live on CBS and streaming on Paramount+ on April 7, she will receive the inaugural June Carter Cash Humanitarian Award. In a press release, June’s daughter Carlene said, “Mama would have loved this. Like Trisha, she had a huge heart and her greatest pride was in service that she committed to the community.”
Civics Lessons
Citizen Better, PBS Voices
Every month, KJ Kearney—the South Carolina–based founder of Black Food Fridays—hosts an episode of the new PBS digital series Citizen Better, which aims to examine the unexpected ways people are engaging in the democratic process. That includes looking at answers to such questions as episode one’s “Can Food Be Political?” (spoiler alert: always!). In his April 16 outing, he’ll take on the topic of environmental justice with the help of some Palmetto State advocates.
Bachelor(ette) Builder
Going Home with Tyler Cameron, Amazon Prime Video
Though I have moved on from the often-mind-numbing Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise to the best reality dating show ever, Love Island (UK), I did really enjoy Alabama native Hannah Brown’s season, in which she romanced but ultimately jilted the likable Jupiter, Florida, homebuilder Tyler Cameron. So likable, I guess, that Amazon has given him his own reality series, which follows him starting April 18 as he returns to his hometown to start his own construction and renovation business and will feature cameos by Bachelor/-ette Nation favorites, including his ex Brown.
Oklahoma City Lament
An American Bombing: The Road to April 19th, Max
In what also could have been titled An American Tragedy, this HBO Original documentary, out April 16, not only takes viewers inside the lead-up, day of, and aftereffects of Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City but also examines the broader issue of anti-government sentiment at the root of the attack—the deadliest act of American terrorism ever, which killed 168 people.
Dulé Noted
The Express Way with Dulé Hill, PBS
The prolific actor Dulé Hill (The West Wing, The Wonder Years) jaunts through America in this new four-part PBS series out April 23. The second episode, on April 30, will take him to Appalachia, with stops to visit musicians improving their communities, including Amythyst Kiah, in Johnson City, Tennessee, and Doug Naselroad—a 2020 G&G Southern Hero—in Hindman, Kentucky.
