Each week, NPR TV critic Eric Deggans writes about what he's watching. Read last week's column here.
It's the first question anyone asks me when they find out what I do for a living: What are you watching right now? (With an unspoken follow up: Should I be watching it, too?)
Well, these days, I'm in the middle of an extensive rewatch of the most-excellent period mob drama Peaky Blinders, which last debuted a new season in 2022. (Let's just say, I learned my love for star Cillian Murphy didn't come from his turns in Batman Begins or Oppenheimer, but by watching him play damaged Great War survivor/gangster Tommy Shelby.)
Why would a busy TV critic spend time watching a series he really had no plans to talk about professionally? (Until now!) Because YouTube told me to.
These days, when I'm looking to watch something interesting for a moment, I use my Apple TV streaming unit to call up YouTube on my living room television set. The algorithm serves up links to a wide range of material I might find compelling, from videos about drumming – yes, I've been playing for more than 40 years — to clips from interview shows by Neal Brennan and Conan O'Brien.
And one afternoon, it suggested I watch the coolest storylines from Season 3 of Peaky Blinders, edited together by the show's official YouTube channel. Which led me to watch the best moments from the first season and then to head for Netflix, where I dived into the series from its very beginning and devoured it like a classic book pulled off the shelf.
I suspect it's this kind of behavior that's partly reflected in the latest media consumption figures released by Nielsen last week. According to their analysis, YouTube was the most-watched media distributor in February — garnering 11.6% of viewership while beating organizations like The Walt Disney Company (bundling together Disney-owned platforms like Hulu and Disney+), Fox (boosted by the Super Bowl) and Netflix.
Nielsen also says YouTube's strong showing was boosted by increases among older viewers like me – YouTube viewing among people aged 50 to 64 is up 62% since Feb. 2023, while it's risen 96% among those over age 65 during the same time frame. Who says old folks can't handle going online?
Some might fret over the implication that YouTube, which stopped making original programming years ago, has viewership beating all these companies that are spending billions to make new things. But, as my somewhat fitful example shows, YouTube viewership can also lead audiences to material on other platforms. (As more proof, I also dove into rewatches of The Wire, The Sopranos, The West Wing and ER after seeing expertly assembled clips on YouTube).
This week, I'm going to be catching up with clips of a show I have only ever watched on YouTube, CBS' comedic/fake late night game show After Midnight. The network announced last week they were ending the show following host Taylor Tomlinson's decision to leave the program – which features comics giving funny answers to questions about social media – declining to create new original programming for its 12:37 a.m. time slot.
Tomlinson released a statement saying it was a "tough decision," but she knew she had to return to stand-up comedy touring full time – where, according to data from Billboard's Boxscore, she generated $17.5 million in ticket sales in 2023, the year before she began hosting After Midnight. But I wouldn't be surprised if another factor for CBS — which had already approved a third season of the show but shut it down following Tomlinson's decision – was a lack of viewership on the network. (Tomlinson placed third in average viewers during the 12:37 a.m. time slot in 2024, behind Late Night with Seth Meyers and Nightline, according to this story by the website LateNighter citing Nielsen data).
Makes you wonder if one reason Tomlinson's show struggled in broadcast ratings is because of viewers like me, especially younger people, who may never have watched it on CBS.
It's a challenge that has emerged for all the legacy late night TV shows: they depend on social media virality to remain relevant and reach younger viewers, but make their money via old-fashioned commercials on cable and broadcast TV channels.
That's especially true when the YouTube clips don't inspire a deeper dive on a different, monetized platform, as it has for me with Peaky Blinders on Netflix and The Wire on Max. Watching shows like After Midnight on YouTube satisfies viewers immediately and completely – making a better argument against the future of late-night shows on conventional TV than anything a snarky critic like me can say.
What else I'm watching this week
Debuts Thursday on Prime Video
This is the closest thing to another Tremors sequel or TV show that we will likely ever see. Kevin Bacon plays another working class screw up caught in outrageous circumstances – this time, he's Hub Halloran, a morally questionable bounty hunter who gets killed while on a job and brought back from the dead to hunt demons in human form for the Devil. I love TV shows willing to poke fun at some of the absurdities of Southern, rural culture without treating every character like they've eaten a box of stupid pills. But none of this would be tolerable without an ace cast – including Justified alum Damon Herriman as the guy romancing Hub's ex-wife – and a finely tuned sense of absurdist humor that makes working for the Devil look like participating in the universe's worst-ever multilevel marketing scheme.
Note: Amazon is among NPR's financial supporters and pays to distribute NPR content.
Debuts Thursday on Netflix
No What I'm Watching column would be complete without a note on something I viewed so you don't have to. Feel free to give a wide berth to this new series from Netflix, which tries cashing in on the medical drama trend revived by programs like The Pitt and Doc to provide a labored, implausible show about a Miami hospital facing a hurricane that is nearly blown away by its own overdrawn machinations. Willa Fitzgerald unfortunately follows up her standout work in the first season of Prime Video's Reacher series with this dud, playing a third-year resident who accuses her boss of sexual harassment though they are secretly living and sleeping together. Regrettably, the rest of the show isn't compelling enough to justify sticking around to figure any of it out.
Debuts Friday on FX and Hulu
This is a cheeky, bold look at many things in life we'd rather overlook — but I wish I liked the actual TV show more. Based on a true story featured in a Wondery podcast, this limited series stars Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning actress Michelle Williams as Molly, a woman with stage IV breast cancer who decides to leave her caring, but overbearing husband to try having a more adventurous sex life before she dies. The result is a funny, embarrassing, tragic tale touching on a middle aged woman's drive to live as a sexy, vital person as long as possible. But so many of the situations felt so predictable and labored, I was stuck yearning for the series to be as subversive and entertaining as it was attempting.
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