2. Got to Get Out
Stars: Simu Liu, Cynthia Bailey, Demi Burnett, Val Chmerkovskiy, Clare Crawley, Rashad Jennings, Susan Nole, Omarosa, Spencer Pratt, and Kim Zolciak-Biermann
Premiere Date: All eight episodes premiere April 11 on Hulu
Shows that premiere in April are always a little tricky because so many of them sound like they could be an April Fool’s joke. But I assure you this is 100% real. Simu Liu (Barbie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) hosts this reality series that finds 20 people vying for a $1 million dollar prize. Nine of them are reality show veterans like The Hills’ Spencer Pratt (who never met a reality show he didn’t like) and The Apprentice’s Omarosa (ditto) and 11 contestants are brand new to the reality show oeuvre. All of them live together Big Brother style in a mansion. But, of course, there’s a the twist! The longer they stay in the house, the more the prize money increases. But if someone successfully escapes from the house, they win all the accumulated money to date and the remaining contestants start back at zero. What could possibly go wrong?
3. Agatha Christie’s Toward Zero
Stars: Anjelica Huston, Matthew Rhys, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Ella Lily Hyland, Anjana Vasan, Mimi Keene, and Clarke Peters
Premiere Date: April 16, 17 and 18 on Britbox
Britox is turning this BBC hit into a three-night event. British tennis star Nevile Strange (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and Audrey (Ella Lily Hyland) were childhood sweethearts. Now divorced, the pair still decide to spend the summer at the coastal home of Nevile’s aunt, Lady Tressilian (Anjelica Huston). Neville’s new wife Kay (Mimi Keene) comes along too because what could go wrong with having your current wife and your ex-wife in the same vacation home? Add in Clark Peters as Lady Tressillian’s family lawyer Mr. Treves and, of course, a murder occurs. Would you have it any other way? Enter Inspector Leach (Matthew Rhys) who may find his own personal redemption by solving the crime.
4. Secrets of the Penguins
Stars: Bertie Gregory and Blake Lively
Premiere Date: All three episodes premiere April 20 at 8/7c on National Geographic and will be available April 21 on Disney+ and Hulu
“65 million years ago, when the world was a different place, one brave bird gave up wings for flippers and has never looked back,” narrator Blake Lively intones as this three-part series begins. Just in time for Earth Day, National Geographic explorer Bertie Gregory takes viewers up close into the lives of penguins. First up, a three-person crew spent 274 days in the Antartica (brrrrr!) to study a colony of 20,000 emperor penguins. Although they are the largest and the strongest penguins, the series heartbreakeningly reveals how climate change is affecting newborn emperor penguins. Future episodes study the rockhoppers, gentoos and macaronis, all penguins found in the Southern Hemisphere. In a series highlight, Gregory captures how a fearless rockhopper takes on a sea lion many times its size.
5. Carême
Stars: Benjamin Voisin, Jérémie Renier, Lyna Khoudri and Alice Da Luz
Premiere Date: The first two episodes premiere April 30 on Apple TV+. Followed by one episode every Wednesday until the finale on June 11
“Chef. Spy. Lover.” The tagline kind of says it all. Benjamin Voisin stars as Antonin Carême, who is known as the world’s first celebrity chef. Carême rose to fame in 1800s Paris. Based on the book Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Carême, the First Celebrity Chef by Ian Kelly, this eight episode series is in French with English subtitles. Directed by Martin Bourboulon, the drama follows Carême as he rose in prominence in the culinary world while he simultaneously wooed the women of France and was exploited by politicians who wanted to use him as a spy. Mon dieu!
Amy Amatangelo, the TV Gal®, is a Boston-based freelance writer and a member of the Television Critics Association. She wasn’t allowed to watch much TV as a child and now her parents have to live with this as her career. You can follow her on Twitter (@AmyTVGal).
For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.
