Chris Carter’s Director’s Cut, Netflix’s ‘Good Luck’ Dramedy, an ‘Anna Pigeon’ Mystery

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

When Chris Carter’s signature series The X-Files expanded to the big screen, the writer-director envisioned an even scarier version of his spooky TV hit. But some of the more nightmarish material in the series’ second film spinoff, 2008’s I Want to Believe, was softened to earn the film a PG-13 rating. Nearly two decades later, Carter has restored the movie’s most terrifying moments in a director’s cut, titled The X-Files: I Want to Believe — Vrach Frankenshteyn, revealing the Frankenstein-like motives of its villainous adversaries. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson return as Agents Mulder and Scully, reunited to investigate the disappearance of a federal agent and get tips from a defrocked pedophile priest (Billy Connolly) with psychic visions. For comparison’s sake, the original 2008 film is also available for streaming.

Don’t Say Good Luck

Any self-respecting theater kid knows the superstition that saying “good luck” before a show could bring the opposite. In a poignant coming-of-age dramedy, Sunny Sandler plays Sophie Birenbaum, who’s more than ready to “break a leg” when she gets cast as the lead in her high school production of Waitress. Real life, however, has a way of upstaging even the most hopeful of theater dreams, and when family tragedy intervenes, Sophie must decide whether it’s worth it for the show to go on. Yellowjackets‘ Melanie Lynskey and The Neighborhood‘s Max Greenfield costar as her parents.

Anna Pigeon

Now that we know park ranger and law enforcement officer Anna Pigeon (Tracy Spiridakos) is staying put at Glacier National — as if there was ever any doubt — a new mystery presents itself when Anna helps find a missing little girl and decides there’s “something weird” about the rest of her family, who have been living off the grid. Her suspicions bear fruit when a grave is discovered at their campsite. In other park news, patrons are up in arms over a malfunctioning webcam trained on an eagle family’s nest.

Whitmer Thomas: Terminal Crew of Dudes

With music and humor, versatile comedian Whitmer Thomas engages an audience in his second HBO comedy special, reflecting on his small-town Alabama roots. “I’m not a smart guy, but I have a lot of thoughts,” he quips. He’s also got a lot of songs, enough to put out a Terminal Crew of Dudes album to coincide with his special’s release. He brings on stage some of his closest friends and collaborators — Clay Tatum (guitar), Budd Diaz (drums), Jeremy Ritchie (bass) and his brother Johnny McCann (guitar) — for a tuneful account of his woeful adolescence. His set gets personal, with home videos and photos illustrating Thomas and his friends back in the day.

Normal

Bob Odenkirk‘s evolution from Better Call Saul antihero to unlikely action hero continues in this film from the writer-producers of his hit movie Nobody. Making its streaming debut (with a linear HBO debut Saturday at 8/7c), Normal is the name of a not-so-normal Midwestern town where an interim sheriff named Ulysses (Odenkirk) tangles with bank thieves and violent Japanese yakuza mobsters.

INSIDE FRIDAY TV:

• This Is UFC (8/7c, CBS): Kate Scott hosts a preview of Saturday’s marquee match (streaming on Paramount+) of UFC welterweight Islam Makhachev defending his title against Ian Machado Garry.
• Fightland (9/8c, Starz): Mixing business with pleasure could be dangerous for Duke (Howard Charles), whose covert crusade against the Marshalls brings him too close for comfort to Joy (Deborah Ayorinde), his former lover and wife of his nemesis, Kingsley (Nicholas Pinnock).

ON THE STREAM:

• Silo (streaming on Apple TV): Revelations await in two different time frames, as rebels Lukas (Avi Nash) and Kennedy (Rick Gomez) are sent out on a risky mission to Silo 17, while centuries earlier in the present day, Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) and journalist Helen Drew (Jessica Henwick) meet the billionaire (Colin Hanks) behind “the world’s most important secret.”
• Honest Renovations (streaming on The Roku Channel): Jessica Alba and Lizzy Mathis return for a fourth season of problem-solving home renovations for frustrated families.
• Girls Like Girls (streaming on Peacock): Singer-turned-director Hayley Kiyoko‘s directorial debut makes its streaming debut. A coming-of-age drama based on Kiyoko’s hit song, music video, and YA novel, the film stars Maya da Costa as teenage Coley, who falls for Sonya (Myra Molloy) while grieving her mother’s death.
• Hellcat (streaming on Shudder): Director Brock Bodell’s debut horror feature stars Dakota Gorman as Lena, who wakes up in a nightmare aboard a moving camper with a ghastly wound that, if left untreated, could turn into something far worse.