Watch List Weekly Recap 2/3/23

Farewell to a cult rock deity and a look at Peacock's "Poker Face."

Watch List Weekly Recap 2/3/23

This is the Friday recap of Ty Burr’s Watch List postings for the week. If you’d like to receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “Weekly Digest.” If you’d prefer to not receive it at all, uncheck just “Weekly Digest.”


Tom Verlaine died last week, a protean guitarist and New York rocker whose influence far outmeasured his record sales. If you’d heard of him at all, you knew he occupied a unique and very special place in the music’s history, and he sounded like no one else. There is no school of Tom; there was just him. A fan’s appreciation:

Tom Verlaine 1949-2023
To this week’s new subscribers: I usually write about movies and streaming options but occasionally about other cultural pursuits, including music. It’s a quiet week on the new film release front, I’m a little burned out after the Sundance Film Festival, and one of my heroes just died. So you’re hearing about him today. Later this week: A review of TV’s…

If you’re looking for a light-hearted throwback to 1970s mystery-of-the-week shows like “Columbo” and “McMillan & Wife,” Rian Johnson’s “Poker Face,” on Peacock, should warm your frozen TV-dinner heart. Plus, drive-by reviews of “80 for Brady” and “Skinamarink.”

What To Watch: "Poker Face"
Maybe it’s the pandemic and maybe it’s streaming video – the totality of our lifetime of TV habits, available at the press of a finger – but I know a lot of people these days who watch old “Columbo” episodes as comfort food. A film critic of my acquaintance has copped to a ritual end-of-week cool down with Peter Falk’s sham…

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