Lovesick (Thursday, Nov. 17, Netflix), season premiere: The British series formerly known as Scrotal Recall returns for a second season as Lovesick. Admittedly, that’s not as catchy of a name, but how could one ever top Scrotal Recall? Dicks for the Memories? Poundtown Abbey? Doctor Strange? Anyway: Lovesick is still a romantic-ish comedy about sexually prolific Dylan (Johnny Flynn) contacting his former bedmates episode-by-episode to inform them that he has an STD; perhaps he will come across … let’s rephrase that … happen upon a Miss Right whom he may have blindly overlooked before. It’s charming-enough fluff, worth binging over the holidays after you’ve torn through Gilmore Girls, and you won’t have to explain the (new) title to the parental units.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Fridays, The CW), new season: We’ve recently learned a hard, orange lesson about trusting polls and ratings, but the numbers show that no one is watching the second season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a musical rom-com oddity that struggled even before The CW banished it to Fridays. Too bad, because even though the songs aren’t as strong this time around—call it Flight of the Conchords syndrome—creator/producer/star Rachel Bloom is funnier and more confident than ever in the title role. In the first season, Rebecca (Bloom) left her career—and her meds—in New York City to chase old flame Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III) in strip-malled SoCal; now that she’s sorta-landed him, things are getting even weirder and more unpredictable in Season 2. Put Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in the catch-up cue before Lovesick.
The Affair (Sunday, Nov. 20, Showtime), season premiere: Still on? Really? The Affair ran out of story in its first season, and now Showtime is tossing out a third installment of The Sulking Whiteys. It all started with frustrated writer—aren’t they all?—Noah (Dominic West) boning waitress Alison (Ruth Wilson), much to the meh-smay of their respective, equally boring spouses (Maura Tierney and Joshua Jackson). For annoying measure, there are also alternate perspectives, split timelines and a whodunit murder subplot in play, all designed to excuse The Affair’s self-absorbed vanilla dullness with an “It’s Artsy!” defense. Nope. Shameless (still killing it in Season 7, BTW) deserves a better lead-out, Showtime.
Squidbillies (Sunday, Nov. 20, Adult Swim), Thanksgiving episode: Now more than ever, we need the redneck wisdom of Squidbillies. In Season 10 (!), the animated series about land-locked Deep South squids (just go with it) has been extended to include Halloween (grave-robbin’!) and Thanksgiving (dinner-fightin’!) episodes, but, sadly, there is no Christmas special—you haven’t earned it, ’Merica; maybe next year. On one hand (tentacle?), perhaps we should set aside such broad stereotypes and reach out to the conservative side of the nation to foster a new sense of unity and understanding. On the other … this shit is just too funny. Make America Squids Again!
Search Party (Monday, Nov. 21, TBS), series debut: Sometimes “dark” comedy is just code for “not necessarily funny” comedy, and there’s probably a reason TBS is blowing out Search Party over five days instead of running it for 10 weeks. When Dory (Alia Shawkat) and her insufferably shallow Brooklynite friends become caught up in the mystery of a missing college acquaintance they vaguely remember … barely anything happens. It quickly becomes apparent that these idiots wouldn’t even be able find their own asses without Google Maps, and that Search Party is a not-so-subtle commentary on directionless millennials who are armed with too much information and zero real-world experience. Edited down to a 90-minute indie-flick, this could work; the friends’ run-ins with harsh reality are hilarious, if too few and far-between. As a five-hour series, not so much.