This week’s TV: Diane Kruger in ‘Little Disasters,’ a Taylor Swift miniseries, and a Dick Van Dyke doc
Your TV GPS, a look at the week ahead in television, appears every Monday morning on BostonGlobe.com. Today’s column covers Dec. 8-14.
It’s a quiet time of year for big TV premieres, but we’ve searched around for a couple of things worth watching in this “between-the-holidays” span. Here’s what to watch.
Diane Kruger, the onetime Helen of Troy in “Troy,” has two new shows right now. She’s in the “Dangerous Liaisons” prequel “The Seduction,” on HBO Max, but also has “Little Disasters,” premiering Dec. 11 on Paramount+. The series is about a woman, played by Kruger, who rushes her baby to the ER, only to have a friend who works there (Jo Joyner) report her to child services.
Sarah Sherman is currently a “Saturday Night Live” cast member (you might have seen her popping up on “Weekend Update” segments where she reads off incriminating headlines about Colin Jost), but her latest standup special, “Sarah Squirm: Live + in the Flesh” premieres Dec. 12 on HBO. “SNL” may be relatively mainstream in its humor, but in her off-hours, Sherman is a creator of “body-horror comedy” — the “squirm” in the title isn’t really a joke. If you’ve always enjoyed David Cronenberg movies, but wish they had a few more laugh lines, give it a watch.
Dick van Dyke turns 100 on Dec. 13, and gets the documentary treatment from “American Masters” on PBS at 9 p.m. on Dec. 12 with “Starring Dick Van Dyke.” The actor, a gifted physical comedian, made his name with his own TV show and endeared himself to generations of children with his roles in “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” It takes a certain level of charisma to earn decades of popularity for your …let’s say “unique” spin on the Cockney accent.
Taylor Swift offers fans a glimpse of her time on the massively popular Eras tour in “Taylor Swift: End of an Era,” out Dec. 12 on Disney+. The six episodes go behind the scenes of the tour, but you can also just take in a concert from the tour itself with “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour | The Final Show,” a concert film shot at her final stop on the tour in Vancouver. No word yet on whether any of the episodes focus on the notorious rain show at Gillette, but presumably fans took enough footage of that one to produce their own episode.
Lisa Weidenfeld can be reached at lisa.weidenfeld@globe.com. Follow her on X @LisaWeidenfeld and Instagram @lisaweidenfeld.
