ith the Emmys eligibility deadline looming on the 31st, May tends to be a big month for TV. But 2024 has borne the brunt of 2023’s Hollywood strikes, so the number of prestige projects sliding in before the cutoff has been conspicuously low. Sure, this month’s highlights include Benedict Cumberbatch as a Jim Henson wannabe on the verge of a nervous breakdown and an action thriller whose hero is an icon of Black radical politics.
But, from a temporary talk show to a new twist on the fashion-competition format to a docuseries about an influential record label, most of May’s best new shows look nothing like . And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Huey P.
Newton would have been skeptical of , a miniseries that dramatizes his flight from the U.S. to Cuba in 1974—and the show is the first to admit it.
“The story I’m about to tell you is true,” says the co-founder (played by and star André Holland) in a voiceover that prefaces the electrifying, six-part series, which premieres May 17 on Apple TV+. “But it coming through the lens of Hollywood, so let’s see how much of they’re really willing to show.” That Newton’s wariness of mass culture frames the story from the very beginning is a sign that viewers are in for something much smarter, bolder, and more challenging than the entertainment industry’s typical, sanitized take on radical politics.
The morning after a particularly painful confrontation, busy bickering with his long-suffering wife (Gaby Hoffma.
