What To Watch On Netflix That’s New This Week (July 14-20)

The new "Queer Eye" season may be the best yet.
In "Queer Eye" Season 4, the crew heads to host Jonathan Van Ness’ former high school to make over a beloved teacher who works long hours.
Christopher Smith/Netflix
In "Queer Eye" Season 4, the crew heads to host Jonathan Van Ness’ former high school to make over a beloved teacher who works long hours.

The Netflix highlight: “Queer Eye” Season 4.

What’s up: Days after earning two Emmy nominations, the Fab Five return to make over more lives throughout America. The last season debuted just four months ago, so calling this a new season is a bit of a marketing ploy, but these new episodes do have a tonal shift from the last season.

Sum-up: Given that Netflix debuted two other strong Originals this week, with the return of Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” and David Harbour’s “Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein,” I thought this might be the first time I don’t recommend new “Queer Eye” episodes as the show to watch in a given week. But when I started tearing up less than 10 minutes into the first episode of Season 4, I knew “Queer Eye” still deserved the spotlight.

The fourth season gets meta and reckons with the stardom of the Fab Five. The crew heads to host Jonathan Van Ness’ former high school to make over a beloved teacher who works long hours. The students are starstruck by the hosts, but instead of wallowing in this aspect, the show uses the attention to stress the importance of celebrating the many undervalued public schoolteachers in America.

The season then goes on to support various community leaders, creating a much more rewarding enterprise than simply making schlubs look better, like the crew did in the earlier episodes.

Heads-up: Although I love the show, I took issue with “Queer Eye” around the time Season 3 debuted for implicitly shaming poor people for not being rich. Much of the show has revolved around criticizing the makeover subjects for not buying nicer things. Although this conceit has not been entirely dropped, Season 4 begins with the aforementioned much more rewarding episode. This show has reckoned with its influence and continues to innovate on how it transforms its subjects’ lives. As the theme song’s chorus states, “Things keep getting better.”

Bonus: I have enjoyed host Tan France’s YouTube series, “Dressing Funny,” which Netflix releases on its YouTube channel. In the series, France gives fashion makeovers to famous comedians, including Tina Fey, John Mulaney and most recently, Pete Davidson ― a follow-up to a super-viral video that “Saturday Night Live” made of France and Davidson shopping.

Read on for more recommendations and news from the week.

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Here’s the trailer:

What Else Is New This Week On Netflix

“Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein” ― David Harbour stars in a 30-minute, weirdo comedy project that also features the wonderful Kate Berlant.

“Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” (Season 11) ― Jerry Seinfeld continues interviewing other comedians in fancy cars and coffee shops. This season’s big guest is Eddie Murphy.

A Couple Of Netflix News Stories From This Week

1. Netflix lost U.S. subscribers for the first time since 2011 and failed to reach its goal for adding new international subscribers. This caused Netflix’s stock price to fall more than 10% after the company’s announcement. As I wrote earlier this week, Netflix now faces stronger competition from other streaming services, so this lackluster growth might not just be a blip.

2. After a study linked the popularity of “13 Reasons Why” to an increase in suicide rates, Netflix removed a graphic suicide scene from the first season of the show.

And here are the shows and movies that joined Netflix throughout the week:

July 16

  • “The Break-Up”
  • “Disney’s The Princess and the Frog”
  • “Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein” (Netflix Original)
  • “Wynonna Earp” (Season 3)

July 17

  • “Pinky Malinky” (Part 3, Netflix Family)

July 18

  • “Secret Obsession” (Netflix Film)

July 19

  • “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” (Season 11, Netflix Original)
  • “The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants” (Season 3, Netflix Family)
  • “La casa de papel” (Part 3, Netflix Original)
  • “Last Chance U: INDY” (Part 2, Netflix Original)
  • “Queer Eye” (Season 4, Netflix Original)
  • “SAINT SEIYA: Knights of the Zodiac” (Netflix Anime)
  • “Typewriter” (Netflix Original)
Ji Sub Jeong/HuffPost

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