Out of the ‘Shadows,’ ‘Edge of the Earth,’ More Secrets in ‘Only Murders,’ Netflix’s ‘Mind’-Altering Doc

FX’s hilarious vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows is back for a fourth season of raucous slapstick horror. HBO goes to the Edge of the Earth in a harrowing docuseries about adventurers traveling to the planet’s most remote corners for extreme challenges. The mysterious building reveals more secrets in another rollicking episode of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. A four-part Netflix docuseries explores the potentials of mind-altering psychedelic drugs.

What We Do in the Shadows - Harvey Guillen as Guillermo
Pari Dukovic/FX

What We Do in the Shadows

Season Premiere

Pour yourself a bowl of Count Chocula (yes, they go there) and groove to a new season of the side-splitting supernatural comedy, launching a fourth season with back-to-back episodes. The opener jumps a year from last season’s finale, with hapless vampires Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and their eternally frustrated human slave/familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) returning from abroad to find the Staten Island mansion in an even more decrepit state than usual. (Turns out Matt Berry’s unrepentant Laszlo has become hooked on a parody of Property Brothers to little effect.) Freaking everyone out is the pint-sized (but growing) creature that emerged from the body of energy vampire Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), but the tyke soon shows unexpected gifts. The slapstick antics escalate when Nadja opens a vampire nightclub and Nandor enlists magical help to find his true love. It’s all so wonderfully, spellbindingly silly.

Edge of the Earth

Series Premiere

Armchair adventurers will thrill at the dazzling sights and harrowing exploits in a four-part nature docuseries that follows teams of risk-taking athletes as they head to remote regions of the planet where no sane person might venture. The opening hour travels through blizzards and treacherous whiteouts to the towering Mount Bertha in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, which three extreme snowboard-ski enthusiasts plan to scale and carefully descend. Getting there is half the battle, and once they reach the summit, it’s breathtaking—in the sense that you hold your breath watching these human specks traverse the mighty peak. Future destinations include a raging river in Ecuador, a dangerous free climb in Kyrgyzstan and massive waves on the West Coast of South Africa.

Selena Gomez as Mabel, Steve Martin as Charles in Only Murders in the Building
Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu

Only Murders in the Building

“It’s like I’m watching Squid Game with subtitles,” declares Charles (Steve Martin) when his teenage daughter Lucy (Zoe Colletti) pays a visit with her hip lingo that even leaves millennial Mabel (Selena Gomez) scratching her head. Lucy isn’t just eager to help solve the latest mystery, but seems to know an awful lot about the hidden passages and secrets of the Arconia, the better to help the Only Murders team learn even more about their sketchy neighbors. In other news, we learn that back in his Brazzos days, Charles enjoyed one-hit-wonder musical status in Germany. (David Hasselhoff would be so jealous).

Netflix

How to Change Your Mind

Series Premiere

Or maybe blow your mind? Based on Michael Pollan’s book, a four-part documentary from the prolific Alex Gibney, directed by Alison Ellwood and Lucy Walker, explores the potential of mind-altering psychedelics LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and mescaline by demystifying their use with human-interest stories. “What if mental health problems like OCD, PTSD, alcoholism and depression could all be helped?” Pollan queries in his study of psychedelic research and therapy, which he calls “the tool for understanding the mind.”

Inside Tuesday TV:

  • The Great Imposter and Me (7/6c, ESPN): Jeremy Schaap narrates an installment of E60 profiling prankster Barry Bremen, who was notorious for crashing major sports events, including impersonating an umpire (at the World Series), an NFL game official—even a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. In an unusual personal twist, after his death of cancer in 2010, it was discovered through genetic testing that Bremen fathered some three dozen people through sperm donation.
  • Parking Lot Payday (8/7c, AXS TV): Knowing music trivia can pay off in this game-show twist, when host Zach Selwyn finds fans in concert parking lots and asks them multiple-choice questions about the band they’ve come to see—in the opener, Metallica.
  • Icons Unearthed: Star Wars (10/9c, Vice): This six-part look at the most famous galaxy far, far away includes a rare on-camera interview with George Lucas’ ex-wife Marcia. She discusses her Oscar-winning editing of the 1977 film that launched the franchise as well as the origins of Darth Vadar’s family ties.
  • Kitchen Crash (10/9c, Food Network): Host Jeff Mauro and three professional chefs invade neighborhood block parties to cook up their best fare using only ingredients borrowed from neighbors’ kitchens. First stop: Harrington Park, N.J., where the challenges include a triple-stacked sandwich.
  • Bill Burr: Live at Red Rocks (streaming on Netflix): In his fifth stand-up special for the streamer, the comedian (F Is for Family) riffs on cancel culture, while revealing how his 4-year-old is helping him with anger management.
  • The Only (streaming on Paramount+): Pioneering U.S. women’s soccer goalkeeper Briana Scurry is the focus of a documentary profile, depicting her triumphs on the field at the Olympics and 1999 Women’s World Cup but also her exposure to racism and homophobia as her team’s only Black starter and openly gay player.
  • The Bob’s Burgers Movie (streaming on HBO Max and Hulu): In case you missed it on the big screen earlier this year, the theatrical spinoff of Fox’s animated hit can now be streamed.
  • Silent Witness (streaming on BritBox): Original series star Amanda Burton returns to the long-running British crime drama in its 25th season as Sam Ryan, seeking help from Dr. Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox) and the rest of the Lyell forensic pathology team after the Health Secretary is shot.