Running with the devil
"Helstrom" may be part of the Marvel canon, but the series owes more to "The Exorcism" than to Stan Lee. Tom Austen and Sydney Lemmon play siblings battling the possessed, a demographic that happens to include their parents. Those who enjoy a good satanic scare won't be disappointed, but I kept wishing Spider-Man would swing by to break the tension.
Now streaming on Hulu
It's bananas
If you can't convince your kids to join the Three Stooges fan club, show them "Meet the Chimps," a docuseries in which great apes fill in for slapstick legends. The protagonists, residents of a Louisiana reserve, play up to the camera as they battle for breakfast scraps and engage in bromances while narrator Jane Lynch delivers the punchlines.
Now streaming on Disney+
The write stuff
For "Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip," Stanley Tucci reprises his Emmy-winning role, spitting out excerpts from the legend's radio broadcasts throughout this "American Masters" documentary. In less than an hour, filmmaker Ben Loeterman manages to build up Winchell as an architect of modern journalism — then tears him down, showing how America grew tired of the ego-driven tactics.
8 p.m. Tuesday, TPT, Ch. 2
Braced for impact
If any family were built to endure the pandemic, it's "The Conners." In the season premiere, the blue-collar brood deals with eviction, deportation, unemployment and the fact that the mom from "Married ... With Children" has moved into the house. There are some nice throwbacks to early "Roseanne," with the daughters applying for jobs at Roseanne's old factory and Jackie daydreaming about a former boyfriend who just happened to be played by George Clooney.
8 p.m. Wednesday, KSTP, Ch. 5
The good fight
Billy Porter hosts "Equal," a tribute to pre-Stonewall leaders in the LGBT movement who have largely been overlooked. The three-part docuseries flies by too fast to get to know any of these pioneers very well, but perhaps it will inspire viewers to take a deeper dive into history on their own.
Starts streaming Thursday on HBO Max
