The It List: Reality TV staples 'AGT and 'Bachelor' return, Selena Gomez drops new album, 'Jeopardy!' finds its GOAT and the best in pop culture the week of Jan. 6, 2020
The It List is Yahoo’s weekly look at the best in pop culture, including movies, music, TV, streaming, games, books, podcasts and more. Here are our picks for Jan. 6-12, including the best deals we could find for each. (Yahoo Entertainment may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page.)
WATCH IT: America's Got Talent: The Champions premieres after Gabrielle Union drama
Simon Cowell and Howie Mandel return as judges for the second season of the spinoff show. Singer Alesha Dixon, who has been a judge on Britain’s Got Talent, will also get a seat at the table along with fan-favorite Heidi Klum. Terry Crews returns as host. Klum and Mel B exited the franchise last year after Champions and were replaced by Gabrielle Union and Julianne Hough for Season 14 of America's Got Talent. Union's departure captured headlines as she apparently complained of toxic behavior on set before she was fired, so it will be interesting to see if the controversy is acknowledged at all. — Taryn Ryder
America's Got Talent: Champions debuts Monday, Jan. 6 at 8 p.m. on NBC.
HEAR IT: Selena Gomez returns in Rare form
Gomez’s comeback album, her first full-length release since 2015, finds her once again working with the hit songwriting team of Justin Tranter and Julia Michaels, as well as with Finneas, Bebe Rexha, 6lack and Kid Cudi. Rare empowerment anthems like “Look at Her Now” and “Lose You to Love Me” demonstrate the 27-year-old former Disney star’s resilient mindset after a battle with lupus, a kidney transplant and high-profile relationships (and breakups) with Justin Bieber and The Weeknd. — Lyndsey Parker
Download on iTunes starting Friday, Jan. 10; preorder on CD/vinyl at Amazon.
WATCH IT: Joker menaces its way onto home entertainment
After premiering at festivals Venice (where it won the prestigious Golden Lion) and Toronto in early September, the divisiveness it saw from critics and (largely unwarranted) pre-release labels of being "controversial," it looked like we'd be debating this DC Comics spinoff until the end of time. But the dust finally settled, and now most of us can agree that this exceedingly dark thriller from former comedy director Todd Phillips (Old School) holds a singular and distinguished slot in the canon of comic-book movies. Imagining how and why Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) would've turned out the way he did in "the real world" is an inspired approach, and the film lands punches galore. But it's still most worth seeing for the transcendent performance of Phoenix, who could be taking home his first Oscar come February. — Kevin Polowy
Buy Joker on 4K UHD, Blu-ray or digital on Amazon.
WATCH IT: Ew, David! Return to Schitt’s Creek for the sixth and (sob) final time
Created by and starring Canadian comic royalty, Dan and Eugene Levy, Schitt’s Creek quietly premiered stateside in 2015 on Pop TV, but became a bonafide U.S. hit when the first few seasons arrived on Netflix. Fresh from their binge, those fans proceeded to make Schitt’s Creek one of the most popular — and meme-able — cable comedies around. That burst in popularity got the show’s fifth season on the radar of Emmy voters and inspired a pop-up experience that sold out almost immediately. Long story short, the series is heading into its sixth year more popular than its ever been... so naturally the Levys are choosing this moment to hang a “Closed” sign on the Rosebud Motel. The 14-episode final season launches on Jan. 7, and early trailers have teased a joyous wedding between the show’s OTP, David and Patrick; more oddball career choices from our favorite oddball, Alexis; and lots of tearful goodbyes between characters we’ve grown to know and love. (Oh yeah, and plenty of Moira Rose #stylegoals.) While it makes sense that Levy Sr. and Levy Jr. want to go out on a high note, we can’t help but greet the end of Schitt’s Creek with one of David’s favorite words: DON’T! — Ethan Alter
Schitt’s Creek premieres Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 9 p.m. on Pop TV.
WATCH IT: Stephen King’s world dominance continues with HBO’s The Outsider
Still looking for something to fill that Sunday night void left by The Watchmen? Keep the TV tuned to HBO for this chilling adaptation of Stephen King’s 2018 novel about a seemingly wholesome Little League coach who stands accused of brutally murdering a young boy. Leaning into the darkness he crafted in Ozark, Jason Bateman plays the accused man, while the always engaging Ben Mendelsohn co-stars as a detective who soon realizes that the evidence doesn’t quite add up. — Erin Donnelly
The Outsider premieres Sunday, Jan. 12 at 9 p.m. on HBO.
WATCH IT: Powerful death row drama Just Mercy opens wide
You know 2019 was good for moviegoers when a potent, star-studded drama like Just Mercy (which opened in limited release in December) can barely crack through the clutter when it comes to year-end accolades. The film, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12), follows the true-life story of Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan), a civil rights attorney from Delaware who relocates to Alabama to defend inmates on death row. Jamie Foxx is phenomenal as Walter McMillian, a falsely convicted man Stevenson works tirelessly to free, while Brie Larson, Tim Blake Nelson and, especially, Rob Morgan, all shine in supporting roles. If you like old-school courtroom procedurals and/or inspirational social justice stories, this one will be just your cup of tea. — K.P.
Get tickets for Just Mercy on Fandango.
WATCH IT: Smarties James Holzhauer, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter faceoff on Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time
Cue the western duel music, because this primetime tournament between the three highest money winners in the show’s history promises to be a real showdown. The first person to win three matches wins the title of GOAT, $1 million and the respect of the show’s longtime host, Alex Trebek. The others will walk away with $250,000 and, well, possibly a reprimand. — Raechal Shewfelt
Jeopardy!: The Greatest of All Time airs at 8 p.m. on Jan 7, 8 and 9 (with shows on Jan. 10, 14, 15 and 16 if needed) on ABC.
WATCH IT: Peter Weber is single and ready to mingle on The Bachelor premiere
If you only watch one episode of the reality TV staple this season, let it be the first. It’s the one where you meet all the Laurens (or Chrises) trying to win the star’s heart this season. You see some of their personalities when they introduce themselves by wearing a shark costume or riding a horse. Plus, they tease the season’s juiciest moments so much that you feel like you don’t really have to watch them again. This season, Peter Weber, who we first met on Hannah Brown’s season of The Bachelorette, stars. — R.S.
The season premiere of The Bachelor airs at Monday, Jan. 6 at 8 p.m on ABC.
WATCH IT: Celebrate the 15th anniversary of Rian Johnson’s breakthrough debut Brick with an all-new Blu-ray
With the back-to-back successes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Knives Out, Rian Johnson has officially joined Hollywood’s A-list of feature filmmakers. It’s a meteoric rise that began 15 years ago when the writer/director showed up at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival to premiere his low-budget debut, Brick. Made for less than $500,000, the film immediately gained attention for its smart, savvy mash-up of two distinct genres: teen high school picture and film noir, complete with stylized dialogue and an attractive young cast headed up by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. “Joseph and I clicked really, really quickly,” Johnson recently told Yahoo Entertainment about the actor, who he’s worked with several times since. “It was a really intense and deeply-formed relationship. We had to work like that to make this complicated, strange thing as quickly as we did.” To commemorate the anniversary of the film that launched his career, Johnson partnered with Kino Lorber to oversee a new Blu-ray edition that includes a 4K restoration of the film, a new audio commentary, a collection of deleted and extended scenes and a featurette about casting two key roles. — E.A.
The 15th anniversary Blu-ray of Brick is available on Amazon and Target.
HEAR IT: ‘Nsync’s “Bye Bye Bye” turns 20
Can you even remember a time when you didn’t know ‘Nsync’s iconic song? Do you even want to? No, and that’s because the song, part of their monster No Strings Attached album, and the video for it, which casts them as puppets on strings, are pure pop perfection. The song hit smack in the middle of the teen pop music boom that began in the late ’90s and also included the Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. In fact, “Bye Bye Bye” — the band’s most popular radio tune, according to Billboard — was featured in Spears’s 2002 movie Crossroads, another gem from the era. — R.S.
‘Nsync’s "Bye Bye Bye" is available on CD, vinyl or MP3 at Amazon. Stream it on Spotify, Pandora or wherever you get your music.
HEAR IT: Ronnie Dunn goes under the covers
Punny album title aside, the country star’s self-described “passion project,” Re-Dunn, is a serious affair, with Dunn ambitiously interpreting two dozen songs by his musical heroes. Among the classics in this Dunn deal are George Strait's "The Cowboy Rides Away” and "Amarillo by Morning,” Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down," the Hollies’s "Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)," Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl,” the Eagles’s "Peaceful Easy Feeling,” Eric Clapton’s "Wonderful Tonight,” Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’s “If You Don't Know Me by Now,” Buck Owens’s "Together Again” and Lee Ann Womack’s Rodney Crowell-penned "Ashes by Now.” — L.P.
Download on iTunes starting Friday, Jan. 10; preorder on CD at Amazon.
READ IT: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest is Alan Moore’s final word on this long-running series, and his comic book career.
Alan Moore has been threatening... uh, promising to retire from writing comic books for years now, and the release of the final volume in his League of Extraordinary Gentleman series makes that official. Launched 20 years ago as a Justice League-esque team-up book that united classic Victorian Era literary creations like Mina Murray, Allan Quartermain and Captain Nemo, the comic later ventured into far bolder — and stranger — territory, as Moore used it as a vehicle to explore his own historical obsessions and frustrations with modern culture. Named (not coincidentally) after Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest spans multiple centuries and a myriad of worlds as its creator attempts to put a period on a career that has included such seminal works as Miracleman: Olympus, From Hell, V for Vendetta and, of course, Watchmen. We’ll see if Moore’s retirement is permanent or if he’s tempted to pick up his pen again, but either way, The Tempest is a one-of-a-kind capstone to a one-of-a-kind career. — E.A.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest can be purchased on Amazon and Target.
WATCH IT: RuPaul leads new Netflix show AJ and the Queen
RuPaul Charles kicked off the last decade as the pioneering star of RuPaul's Drag Race, and now — three Outstanding Reality Host Emmy wins later — he has set his heavily mascara’d sights on scripted television. In AJ and the Queen, a Netflix series he created with Michael Patrick King (the director, writer and executive producer of Sex and the City), Ru takes on the role he was clearly born to play: down-on-her-luck but fabulous drag queen Ruby Red. — L.P.
AJ and the Queen premieres Friday, Jan. 10 on Netflix.
HEAR IT: Heartbreak City, here we come
Philly’s raggedy garage rockers Beach Slang pay homage to two beloved Tommys on their fourth LP, The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City, in one fell swoop: Lead single “Tommy in the ‘80s” is dedicated to the cult-figure powerpop legend Tommy Keene, who died in 2017, and features special guest Tommy Stinson, whose Replacements were a clear influence on band leader James Alex. The album’s title seemingly, perhaps unwittingly, also serves as a tribute to the Cars’s late Ric Ocasek. — L.P.
Download on iTunes starting Friday, Jan. 10; preorder on CD/vinyl at Amazon.
