Stop Calling Every Grim Prestige Drama “Brilliant”

We need to have a serious conversation about “prestige television,” a phrase now used to describe any show where a rich person whispers in a dim room while someone named Tobias makes a terrible decision. Grim does not equal good. Beige cinematography is not a personality. And if your entire series can be summarized as “everyone is haunted,” congratulations: you have made a screensaver.

Benny’s Picks

Hacks — Max. Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder remain television’s best odd couple because their characters love each other in the least emotionally healthy way possible: through professional sabotage. The show is funny, sharp, and surprisingly tender without turning into inspirational oatmeal. It understands that ambition is ridiculous, aging is terrifying, and every workplace is one passive-aggressive email away from war.

Ripley — Netflix. Yes, it is slow. It is also gorgeous enough to make you forgive it for taking nine episodes to cross a hallway. Andrew Scott plays Tom Ripley like a man whose soul has been replaced by a locked jewelry box, while the black-and-white photography turns every staircase into a threat. This is not background TV unless your background is a museum where someone is quietly committing fraud.

Challengers — streaming rental. A tennis movie, technically. In practice, it is a three-way romantic hostage situation scored by techno thunderclaps. Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist weaponize eye contact until the furniture starts sweating. It is slick, horny, funny, and completely uninterested in giving you a morally reasonable person to root for. Finally, cinema for people who have ever said, “I can fix them,” and immediately made things worse.

The Guest by Emma Cline — bookshelves everywhere. This novel follows a young woman drifting through the summer homes of wealthy strangers, which is a polite literary way of saying she is a human-shaped bad decision. Cline makes entitlement feel both monstrous and weirdly familiar. It is not a beach read unless your beach has a strong chance of producing an identity crisis.

Skip It: The Idol. It promised dangerous, decadent pop-music satire and delivered the dramatic equivalent of a wet napkin wearing sunglasses. The show’s biggest twist is that it mistakes provocation for writing. It is not scandalous; it is simply exhausting.

Sleeper Pick: Colin From Accounts — Paramount+ with Showtime. A messy Australian romantic comedy about two people brought together by an injured dog, it has the rare courage to let its characters be genuinely embarrassing. The romance is sweet without being sterilized, and the jokes land like somebody accidentally dropped a plate in a quiet restaurant. Give it one episode. Then prepare to become emotionally attached to a dog with terrible luck.