So you signed up for HBO Max to watch Wonder Woman 1984, and now you've got a couple more weeks left in your first month. Don't worry — we've selected the very best of what the newish service has to offer.
Our picks range from HBO Max's terrific original series starring Kaley Cuoco, the best animated superhero program that's been released in ages and one of the most peculiar HBO series ever.
- Finally, the best streaming device has HBO Max
- Here's how to watch HBO Max from any country
Oh, and don't worry: unlike WW1984, these shows are not the subject of ridicule and bemusement.
The Flight Attendant
I did not have huge hopes for this HBO Max series starring Kaley Cuoco, primarily known for her role on The Big Bang Theory.
I was wrong. The Flight Attendant, an HBO Max original, stars Cuoco as the hard-partying Cassie, one of the many stewards of the skies, who just happens to get too close to the wrong frequent flier.
When she wakes up one morning to discover her one-night stand is fit for the morgue, she freaks out and makes practically every mistake in the book.
Fortunately for Cassie, her best friend Annie (Zosia Mamet of HBO's Girls, who kills it) is a lawyer and there to help her through this grisly situation. Unfortunately, Cassie doesn't really follow anyone's advice all that often.
Beautifully shot and hilariously written, The Flight Attendant is the first excellent original series on HBO Max and worthy of your first month's fee on its own. Plus, Rosie Perez plays one of Cassie's colleagues and adds a lot to the series.
Harley Quinn
Stop me if you've heard this one before: Kaley Cuoco is the lead on one of the best shows on HBO Max. This time, Cuoco is only supplying her voice, as Harley Quinn. Fans of the Batman: The Animated Series and Birds of Prey alike should flock to watch this hilarious take on Gotham City's criminals.
Quinn starts the series in a similar situation as Birds of Prey found her: post-breakup with the Joker, and trying to make a name for herself in the criminal underground scene.
To that end, she recruits a hodge-podge team of C-level super villains, including the misogynistic Dr. Psycho (Tony Hale), Clayface (Alan Tudyk) and King Shark (Ron Funches).
But since top-shelf voice acting isn't enough to actually join the League of Doom, the gang occasionally gets help from Harley's best friend, Poison Ivy (Lake Bell).
Throughout the two seasons we've seen of Harley Quinn, Cuoco and Bell explore the duo's friendship in fantastic form, all the while dealing with the idiocy of the men of Gotham. That includes not just the all-too-grim Batman, but a version of Commissioner Gordon (Christopher Meloni) who is incredibly depressed and lonely.
Throughout, Harley Quinn hits the excellent comic-book adaptation notes that Wonder Woman 1984 wishes it could have.
Watchmen (TV series)
If you missed it the first time, now is the right time to catch the best TV series of 2019. Don't expect another adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel — the Zack Snyder film proved how difficult that can be. This is an extension of the original story, showing how the world has — or could have — changed in the 34 years since 1985.
Show-runner Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers) took the job of working with the Watchmen intellectual property for one reason: He wanted to explore the issues of race relations and reparations after reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me.
This is why the series opens with the 1921 Black Wall Street Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma — an event many people would later admit learning about because of the TV show. Then we jump to 2019 to see a murder of a police officer and a reveal that (unsurprisingly) things are still not right in America.
At the core of the series, Regina King holds everything together as Angela Abar, aka Sister Night, a police detective in modern Tulsa. Abar is one of many masked police officer tasked with stopping the Seventh Kavalry, a white supremacist group.
Naturally, this story is much more superpowered than its historical roots would suggest. We soon learn of Dr. Manhattan's continued existence as well as the exile of Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias, who is living a very peculiar life.
Through flashbacks and massive surprises — as well as an amazing supporting cast featuring Tim Blake Nelson, Jean Smart and Jeremy Irons — Watchmen twists and turns and leaves you wanting more.
We won't be getting more, though, as Lindelof declined the option to make more seasons, and HBO agreed to let this excellent series stand on its own without a sequel.
Succession
Which Roy boy — or will it be sister Shiv — will rise to take over their aging father's position at the helm of his massive media empire?
That is the story of Succession, where Brian Cox stars as Logan Roy, whose children are all screwing up in different ways and preventing him from seeing an easy path for who deserves the keys to his proverbial castle.
His family, which is primarily based on the Murdoch clan, may have the power to brainwash the nation, but it doesn't have a brain trust that can keep itself afloat.
Since the perspective of the show rarely stays on one Roy sibling for long, it's hard to find a favorite or get any idea of who will take over.
Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) was supposed to be the future of the company, but his drug habit and failure to actually take over get in his way. Then there's Shiv (short for Siobhan), a fan favorite thanks to the work Sarah Snook does in the role, who has struggled to be taken seriously in this boys' club.
Rounding out the rest of the Roy family is the mischievous Roman (Kieran Culkin) and the highly ambitious (and not too smart) Connor (Alan Ruck). All of these fractious family members rarely align for each other's benefit as they're constantly playing three-dimensional chess to try to gain the throne.
The funniest members of the show, though, are less immediate relatives: cousin Greg "the egg" (Nicholas Braun) and Shiv's husband Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfayden). The two wind up working together in the amusement-parks division of the family empire, where they stumble onto a scandal that could ruin them all.
How To with John Wilson
While it might seem like a mockumentary at first, the comedic docuseries How To with John Wilson — the brain child of Nathan Fielder — is as real as it gets. And all the while, it feels like the line is increasingly blurry.
The series' name is so mundane that you might look past it without thinking. That's arguably the story of its namesake, a documentary film-maker who seems awkward and lonely.
The first episode, "How To Make Small Talk," gives you a good sense of whether you'll enjoy the series' sense of humor or die of cringe.
In it, Wilson is trying to explore the art of socializing, of which he's completely incapable. Hidden behind the camera for most of the time, Wilson's voice does a lot of the heavy lifting, as do the cast of weirdos he meets along the way.
