‘Couple Next Door’ Finale, Bare-Knuckled ‘Thousand Blows,’ TV Pioneer Hazel Scott, Inside Major League Soccer, Streaming ‘Nosferatu’

The Couple Next Door

The steamy psychosexual drama reaches its endpoint, and it’s a breaking point for the two couples whose neighborly ways crossed the line into sexual obsession—for the pregnant Evie (Eleanor Tomlinson) in particular. Her delusional fixation on Danny (Sam Heughan), who’s dealing with his own messy domestic life and a professional crisis, has caused her husband Pete (Alfred Enoch) to go off the deep end in a jealous rage. The conflict builds to a showdown in a cabin in the Yorkshire Dales, which was foreshadowed in the series’ opening scene. A reminder never to bring a gun to an overheated romantic triangle.

A Thousand Blows

Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight again demonstrates his mastery of the violent period piece in a bare-knuckled six-part drama set in the underworld of Victorian London’s squalid East End. That’s where two idealistic Jamaican chums, Hezekiah (Malachi Kirby) and Alec (Francis Lovehall), arrive to start new lives, only to be swept up in the bloody brawl of behind-closed-doors boxing matches. When fast-on-his-feet Ezekiel makes a mortal enemy of brutal champ Sugar Goodson (Stephen Graham), he forms a fateful alliance with Mary Carr (The Crown’s sensational Erin Doherty), “Queen of the Forty Elephants,” leader of a gang of female criminals who put Oliver Twist’s Fagin gang to shame.

American Masters

American Masters unearths a neglected chapter of entertainment history with a profile of jazz artist and groundbreaking early TV host Hazel Scott. Sheryl Lee Ralph reads from Scott’s unpublished autobiography as the special traces the trajectory of the Trinidadian musical prodigy who earned national fame as a jazz singer and pianist through the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, she became the first Black entertainer to host her own TV show: The Hazel Scott Show, which aired three times a week on the DuMont network—until her career and series were cut short when she was blacklisted after testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Onside: Major League Soccer

The latest immersive sports docuseries, from the trendsetting team behind Formula 1: Drive to Survive, takes a deep dive inside the 2024 Major League Soccer season. Over eight episodes, Onside profiles the players, coaches and clubs that made noise, including the Messi Mania engulfing Inter Miami and the signing of teenage prodigy Cavan Sullivan to the Philadelphia Union.

Nosferatu

Nominated for four Oscars, Robert Eggers’ atmospheric remake of the 1922 horror classic (a thinly veiled take on the Dracula myth) makes its streaming debut, starring Lily-Rose Depp as the Gothic heroine who becomes the obsession of ghoulish vampire Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), to the despair of her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult). Fans of the genre can compare and contrast with Werner Herzog’s 1979 version, Nosferatu the Vampyre, starring Klaus Kinski as the ghoul. (F.W. Murnau’s 1922 original is available on multiple platforms, including a colorized version on Prime Video.)

Severance

Now past the halfway point of the mind-teasing sci-fi drama’s second season, we couldn’t be more disoriented. Same goes for Mark S. (Adam Scott), whose secret reintegration project has him toggling alarmingly between Inner and Outie personas. Which could complicate his fraught office romance with Helly (Britt Lower), with whom he shared carnal knowledge, unknowingly with her Outie, during their eventful field trip. My favorite storylines of the moment involve co-worker Dylan (Zach Cherry) and his wife Gretchen (Merritt Wever), who arranges another poignant visit with his Innie; and the exiled Irving (John Turturro), who attends an emotionally charged dinner with Burt (Christopher Walken) and his partner, Fields (Fringe’s John Noble).

INSIDE FRIDAY TV:

• NCIS: Sydney (8/7c, CBS): The team calls on an old friend of Doc Roy (William McInnes) for help when a U.S. Naval engineer’s body is found buried in concrete. Followed by Fire Country (9/8c), where Bode (Max Thieriot) and Jake (Jordan Calloway) risk an avalanche during a rescue attempt in Trinity National Forest; and S.W.A.T. (10/9c), with Alfaro (Niko Pepaj) confronting his past while on a perilous undercover assignment.
• RuPaul’s Drag Race (8/7c, MTV): American Idol alum Adam Lambert is guest judge for this season’s “Rusical,” a mash-up of Wicked, The Wiz and The Wizard of Oz that’s perfect for all Friends of Dorothy.
• Fur Babies (9/8c, National Geographic WILD): Veterinarians James Greenwood and Bolu Eso help pet owners through their animals’ pregnancies and deliveries, with the opener welcoming new puppies, kitties and guinea pigs into the world.
• Happy’s Place (8/7c, NBC): Reba’s Christopher Rich guest-stars in an episode where the half-sisterly bonding of Bobbie (Reba McEntire) and Isabella (Belissa Escobedo) becomes complicated when the latter believes they’re getting matching tattoos.
• Dateline NBC (9/8c, NBC): Andrea Canning reports on the 2017 murders of teenagers Abby Williams and Libby German in Delphi, Indiana, a crime solved after images of the killer were found on Libby’s smartphone.

ON THE STREAM:

• Surface (streaming on Apple TV+): The stylish mystery returns for a second season, with Sophie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) moving to London for Season 2, following clues that lead her to a high-society family whose secrets she may have been planning to expose with a journalist. New co-stars include Ted Lasso’s Phil Dunster, Rupert Graves, Tara Fitzgerald and Joely Richardson.
• Elevation (streaming on Max): Captain America: Brave New World star Anthony Mackie headlines a 2024 post-apocalyptic thriller making its streaming debut, as a dad who descends into a world populated by monsters (which can’t survive above 8000 feet) to find medical supplies for his son.
• Chris Distefano: It’s Just Unfortunate (streaming on Hulu): The comedian riffs on fatherhood in a stand-up comedy special.
• Yellowjackets (streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime): Visions past and present make for the trippiest episode yet of the psychological thriller, with the stranded teens getting more than they bargained for when they go in search of Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) in the haunted wilderness.