Watch or Washed: What's on TV This Week?

See it or skip it? This is what's worth watching on TV this week.

December 29, 2014

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"Watch or Washed" is a new weekly column in which Complex Pop editors highlight popular television shows that are either worth checking out or, sadly, totally washed. Here are this week's:

Mozart in the Jungle

Verdict: Watch

When: Whenever

Where: Amazon Prime

Why: Everything about Amazon Prime's classical music comedy Mozart in the Jungle is totally charming. Gael Garcia Bernal is electric as rock star maestro Rodrigo, who's brought in to revamp the The New York Philharmonic. Malcolm McDowell is wonderful as the aging conductor reduced to irrelevance by a younger man. And then there's excellent newcomer Lola Kirke (sister of Girls' Jemima), an aspiring oboist who is equal parts naive and determined even as she falls under Rodrigo's spell.

While the material is light and low-key, creators Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Alex Timbers capture a world few understand with an airy style that's both off-kilter and infectious. Amazon has another hit on their hands; you, meanwhile, have the perfect show to binge watch as you nurse that New Year's hangover. —Nathan Reese

Marco Polo

Verdict: Washed

When: Now (or never)

Where: Netflix

Why: Netflix was banking on its new historical new drama Marco Polo to be a hit, but the reviews are in and things are looking more like Olive Garden spaghetti than Chinese fireworks for the first season. Though I'd like to tell you the critics are wrong, that's just not the case—this is a misfire of epic proportions.

The budget and visuals are top-notch, but the writing and story are far from it. A sexy young Marco Polo (played by Italian actor Lorenzo Richelmy) is fine and all, but translating the merchant traveler's adventures in Asia into an action adventure just doesn't work. It's too bad, too, because the largely Asian cast is almost uniformly fun to watch and an example of the diversity that's lacking from TV both streaming and otherwise. (I'll try not to be cynical, but Netflix knows what a big market Asia will become in the coming years.)

Maybe next season will see more sparks, but for now Marco Polo looks like it will sputter and fizzle into obscurity. —Nathan Reese

The Missing

Verdict: Watch

When: Immediately

Where: Starz On Demand

Why: Are you someone who thinks last year's starry movie Prisoners had potential but was ultimately overwritten trash? You appreciated Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal's acting, but no so much Gyllenhaal's better-suited-for-Nic-Cage hairdo. If that describes your feelings towards Prisoners, here's the version of its story that won't waste your time.

We've already recommended this one, but now that its first season is a wrap, further praise is needed. Initially airing on England's BBC One, Starz's The Missing is 2014's best new TV show you've either never heard of or didn't bother to watch, perhaps due to the spoils of fellow small-screen freshmen True Detective and Fargo. The Missing, though, is arguably better than both of those series. It's also not unlike True Detective, in that its wholly directed by one person (Tom Shankland) and penned by the same co-writers (siblings Harry and Jack Williams).

A British husband (James Nesbitt) and wife (Frances O'Connor) are vacationing in France with their young son; one night, after a day out on the town with his dad, the little boy disappears. Daddy, in particular, obsesses over what happened to the boy for the next eight years, eventually learning what really went down with the help of a diligent detective (Tcheky Karyo) and more than a few red herrings. The answer, unsurprisingly, isn't good.

The Missing, on the other hand, is exceptional, bouncing around its 2006 and 2014 timelines over eight airtight, unpredictable, and tension-drenched hours of superb television. The final episode is especially remarkable—it makes the darkest moments in Prisoners seem Hugh-Jackman-on-the-Tony-Awards-stage soft. —Matt Barone

The Twilight Zone Marathon

Verdict: Watch

When: Wednesday, New Year's Eve through 5 a.m. on Friday, January 2nd

Where: SyFy

Why: As if I even have to explain why. Every other NYE marathon on every other channel is an impostor.

It doesn't matter that it's on Netflix now, or that, you know, we've all seen every episode five times over. The god Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone is to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day what Santa Claus is to Christmas. It's damn near un-American to not have William Shatner freaking out over fortune tellers and in-flight demons on in the background while you get ready to go have a good ol' anticlimactic evening.

The true holiday pastime isn't a ball-dropping, champagne corks flying at midnight, or any of that bullshit. It's waking up at a disgusting hour on the first afternoon of the year and turning on the TV just as the marathon for Serling's national treasure enters its brilliantly scheduled sweet spot, right when "To Serve Man," "Nothing in the Dark," "The Masks," and "The Howling Man" hit the air, followed by that one episode you inexplicably like more than everyone else. (I, for one, really fuck with "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?").

Hangover? What hangover? —Frazier Tharpe