What to Watch This Week: February 13 to 18

From football’s big day to a classic romance, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week

1. Dollface – Crave (Stream)

The adventures of Jules (Kat Dennings, 2 Broke Girls) and her trio of female friends (played by Brenda Song, Shay Mitchell and Esther Povitsky) continue as Dollface returns with a second season. The new outing finds Jules struggling to maintain the right balance that will keep the friend group together as these young women navigate their own respective love lives and busy careers, all while gaining an even deeper appreciation for each other.

2. Super Bowl LVI – Sunday, February 13, 3 p.m., CTV, TSN1 & NBC

If the world’s biggest single-afternoon sporting event seems like it’s taking place a little later this year, that’s because it is! When the Cincinnati Bengals and L.A. Rams take to the field at SoFi Stadium in California, it’s a week off from the first Sunday in February that the game-to-end-all-games is traditionally staged on.

The reason? Before the year kicked off (so to speak), the NFL’s powers-that-be decided to extend the season for the first time since 1978, upping the play from a 17-week, 16-game regular season to an 18-week, 17-game regular season. Although many players were against it, the change seems to have been a hit with fans, who not only got another week of rooting for their favourite teams, but also got to see some players break records as a result of the extra play.

Of course, none of that technically matters as we approach the final match of the year. Households around North America are stocking up on all their favourite snacks and placing their bets on everything from who will win the game to how long the national anthem will drag out. Aside from the usual over-the-top commercials, this year a big part of the non-football fun will be in seeing how musical potpourri Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J. Blige come together to entertain audiences at halftime, especially since it’s their first time sharing a stage.

“The opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime Show, and to do it in my own backyard, will be one of the biggest thrills of my career,” Dr. Dre said. “Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar [are] joining me in what will be an unforgettable cultural moment.”

3. Luda Can’t Cook – Tuesday, February 15, discovery+ (Stream)

About a year ago, rapper, actor and, yes, restaurateur Chris “Ludacris” Bridges proved that there is indeed one thing he can’t do: cook. Thus, a special was born. In it, the man they call “Luda” learned how to tackle Indian cuisine with the help of James Beard Award-nominated chef Meherwan Irani. It was so popular that the streaming service ordered up a few more courses, which debut this week.

“I had an amazing experience the first time around and went from being clueless in the kitchen to making some delicious dishes,” the titular star said in a release. “I’m excited to team up again with discovery+ and [executive producer] Will Packer to master all different kinds of cuisine so I can impress my wife, mom and kids with my new skills.”

In the three new episodes, those cuisines include a taste of Haiti from chef Alain Lemaire, Korean fare with Seung Hee Lee and Cuban offerings from Beard-nominated Michael Beltran.

Ludacris added: “I’m excited for viewers to experience Haitian, Korean and Cuban food with me—and see how I put my own style into each dish.”

4. Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy – Wednesday, February 16, Netflix | Series Premiere

It’s arguable that there isn’t a more complex figure in the world of rap music than Kanye West. As this three-part, seven-hour documentary makes clear, the rapper behind such classic tracks as “Stronger” and “Gold Digger” has also been a magnet for controversy, whether it’s for his very public mental health struggles, his turbulent marriage to reality TV queen Kim Kardashian, his bonkers 2020 presidential bid or various other antics too numerous to mention. Yet through it all, West has always displayed the type of canny business acumen that’s made him a billionaire, thanks to a side hustle in fashion that resulted in his Yeezy shoe line and a multi-year deal to design shoes for Adidas.

Directed by Chike Ozah and Clarence “Coodie” Simmons, this film has been decades in the making, with Simmons chronicling West’s life for the past 20 years or so. As a result, the three 90-minute “acts”—titled “Vision,” “Purpose” and “Awakening”—offer an almost unprecedented level of insight into West’s journey from hungry young aspiring rapper in his native Chicago, desperate for a record deal, to the height of his fame.

Not surprisingly, West is a compelling subject, whose proclamations of his own genius began long before he was famous—an almost superhuman level of confidence that’s stayed remarkably consistent over the years.

5. Moonstruck – Thursday, February 17, 9 p.m., Vision

The film section of Cher’s multihyphenate résumé hit its peak with an Oscar-winning turn in this 1987 romantic comedy. She plays Loretta, a Brooklyn bookkeeper who gets caught in a messy love triangle with her fiancé (Danny Aiello) and his one-handed, black-sheep brother (Nicolas Cage).

6. The King’s Man – Friday, February 18, Disney+

This prequel to the Kingsman movies stars Ralph Fiennes, delving into the early days of the Kingsman agency at the start of the 20th century, formed to battle an evil cabal plotting a war that will result in the deaths of millions. Also starring Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Djimon Hounsou and Matthew Goode.

7. Love is Blind – Friday, February 18, Netflix

Now that you’ve downed some wine and gotten to know this year’s contestants, it’s time to see how your fave couples fare in a real-world setting. The next four episodes of this wacky dating competition drop today, setting the table for a sure-to-be-unmissable finale next Friday.

8. LOL: Last One Laughing: Canada – Friday, February 18, Prime Video

What happens when 10 of Canada’s top comedians are trapped together in a single room like contestants in Big Brother, each tasked with making their fellow funny folks laugh?

Viewers will find out with the launch of LOL: Last One Laughing, a new Prime Video reality competition hosted by actor Jay Baruchel (Man Seeking Woman).

There is, of course, a twist: if any of the comics breaks down and chuckles at the hilarity of one of the others, they are immediately eliminated from the competition during the course of this six-hour series. The comedian who can manage to avoid cracking a smile will win a grand prize of $100,000 for the charity of their choice.

So who are the 10 cut-ups attempting to amuse their comrades? The impressive list is: Tom Green of The Tom Green Show and Road Trip fame; Whose Line Is It Anyway? veteran Colin Mochrie; Kim’s Convenience scene-stealer Andrew Phung; Brandon Ash-Mohammed of CBC sketch series TallBoyz; Debra DiGiovanni of The Debaters and Humour Resources; Dave Foley of Canada’s legendary The Kids in the Hall; Jonathan Lajoie, best known from wacky comedy music videos and his role as Taco in The League; Mae Martin, creator and star of Netflix’s Feel Good; Caroline Rhea of Sabrina the Teenage Witch; and K. Trevor Wilson, a.k.a. Letterkenny‘s Squirrely Dan.

“With local comedy legends trying to crack each other up, Canadians of all ages will be talking about the antics from some of Canada’s funniest people!” states a press release for the series, which drops two new episodes each week until the grand finale on March 4. “See Mae Martin crack a bottle over Andrew Phung’s head, Caroline Rhea talk about Tom Green’s hotness and the cast bond over delicious cheese sandwiches.”

9. Space Force – Friday, February 18, Netflix | Season Premiere

When word broke that Steve Carell would be teaming up again with Greg Daniels (creator of the American version of The Office) in a new series satirizing then-president Donald Trump’s proposed Space Force, people were understandably excited… until the show actually premiered, that is, at which point there was more than a little disappointment.

That’s not to say that season one of Space Force was without its merits, but for those who came in with an expectation that things would be as drop-dead hilarious as the previous Carell-Daniels collaboration… yeah, not so much. And both Carell and Daniels seemed to realize that…

“Steve and I were very much in the mind of not making it like The Office in the beginning. We were trying to make it very cinematic,” Daniels told Collider in January. “And what happened when we stopped the first season was, we sat down and he was like, ‘Well, that wasn’t that much fun to make it that cinematic.’” In an effort to solve the problem, they did several things, starting with the addition of Norm Hiscock (late of Parks and Recreation) as co-showrunner alongside Daniels, followed by the decision to have Ken Kwapis, longtime director of The Office, helm every single episode in season two. There’s also a new president of the United States, of course, along with a new secretary of defense—the latter played by Saturday Night Live and Office alum Tim Meadows.

“I think the big picture is that we are concentrating on the gags more,” Daniels continued in his conversation with Collider. “It’s more about the comedy scenes between the cast. I think the stories are more personal and they’re interesting. It’s like each episode is a fun adventure with this cast and there’s a loose structure to it.”

10. Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Friday, February 18, Netflix

Sure, it may be the week of romance and football, but if horror is your real passion, then you’ll be tickled pink by the debut of this sequel to the iconic 1973 slasher. The flick is directed by David Blue Garcia and produced by Fede Álvarez (the guy who revived Evil Dead and also gave us Don’t Breathe). It ignores all other sequels and remakes (and sequels of remakes) in this long and winding franchise to craft a direct followup to the first film.

The story picks up 50 years after the goried events of that first movie, which ended with Sally Hardesty escaping Leatherface and the Sawyer clan. Now, in modern times, we follow a new group of youngsters who stumble into the clutches of the famed serial killer in Harlow, Texas.

Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Jacob Latimore and Nell Hudson star as the soon-to-be-victims, who arrive in the Lone Star State to launch a business venture. But when they accidentally disturb Leatherface’s homestead, the power tools rev back up and the limbs start flyin’.

“It’s basically the same character, who is still alive,” Álvarez previewed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Our take on it was this guy probably disappeared after everything he’s done . . . He’s been in hiding for a long, long time, trying to be a good person. These people arriving in this town are going to awaken the giant.”

Unfortunately though, while the fictional characters are still alive in this sequel, the actors who played them are not. Marilyn Burns, who portrayed Sally, passed away in August of 2014, while Leatherface, Gunnar Hansen, died in November 2015. Olwen Fouéré and Mark Burnham replace them for this take.

“If Gunnar had been alive, I’m pretty sure he would have played [the part], so we were trying to find someone that could have been Gunnar today,” Álvarez explained to EW. “We tried to find the best next thing.”