Winter TV Watch List: Helen Mirren Goes High on the Hogwarts

Winter TV Watch List: Helen Mirren goes high on the Hogwarts No images? [Click here]( ID=167008;size=600x111;setID=491988;uid={EMAIL}5715874; [- - -] [TheWrap - SUMMER TV WATCH LIST] Week of November 27 – December 3 If you’ve made it through Thanksgiving and have successfully emerged from your food coma but still aren’t that crazy about getting off the couch, you’re in luck! We’ve got tons of terrific options for you to watch this week, from a documentary on a musician you might have exclusively heard in the waiting room for your dentist, to a rough-and-tumble western getting gobs of Oscar buzz, it’s all here. Make yourself a pile of leftovers and get ready to binge.  On with the television! [Premiere of the week] “Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses”Sunday, November 28, 8pm on Cartoon Network and TBS [Hogwarts Tournament] Photo: Warner Bros./Wizarding World It’s the first “Harry Potter” TV series! Sort of! “Harry Potter: Tournament of Houses” is (incredibly) hosted by Helen Mirren, who has described the four-episode show s “a head-to-head trivia match about all things Potter.” Of course, this being “Harry Potter,” it isn’t merely a trivia game, but a magical slug-fest, pitting teams from different Hogwarts houses from the book and film series against each other for sorcerer supremacy. (The first night’s match is between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, so you can bet that whatever the outcome there will probably be a lot of hugging.) Sounds positively spellbinding, no? [[TEASER TRAILER](] ID=167008;size=300x250;setID=492280;uid={EMAIL}5715874; [- - -] [Premiere of the week] “La Brea”Tuesday, November 30, NBC [La Brea - Season 1] Photo: NBC This season’s surprise hit, about a sinkhole that opens up in Los Angeles and swallows up a bunch of people, sending them to some weird primordial dimension, feels like a sophisticated, primetime remake of “Land of the Lost.” But the series, led by the typically charismatic Natalie Zea and stuffed with “Lost”-like mythology and world building, has proven to be more than its undeniably silly premise suggests. The finale, dubbed “Topanga,” sees the situation in the netherworld and back in real life Los Angeles getting very heated (wait, did he say he wants to evacuate the city?!?) If you’re busy on Tuesday, remember that you can catch the “La Brea” finale the following day on Peacock. We love second chances! [[FINALE TRAILER](] [Premiere of the week] “The Power of the Dog”Wednesday, December 1, Netflix [the-power-of-the-dog-kirsten-dunst] Photo: Netflix This gritty Western marks the first new film from New Zealand director Jane Campion in 13 (!) years. (Her last film was 2008’s beautiful, weirdly overlooked “Bright Star.”) “The Power of the Dog” stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee and traces the simmering emotions between two brothers on a Montana farm in 1928. (New Zealand stood in for Montana.) Based on the 1967 Thomas Savage novel of the same name, the movie has been garnering major awards buzz since it premiered at the Venice Film Festival and Campion took home the Silver Lion Award for Best Direction. Any new Campion movie is a reason to celebrate, but the first new Campion movie in over a decade feels like it should warrant a national holiday or at the very least a ticker-tape parade. [[REVIEW](] [- - -] [Premiere of the week] “Listening to Kenny G”Thursday, December 2, HBO [Listening to Kenny G] Photo: HBO So far, the HBO “Music Box” documentaries, in which Bill Simmons attempts to recapture the magic of his “30 for 30” ESPN series only this time for music, have been hit or miss. But with a subject as fascinating as Kenny G and some of the best reviews of the series (it’s holding down an [85 on Metacritic](, mostly after a terrific response at the Toronto International Film Festival), “Listening to Kenny G” is definitely something worth putting on, perhaps with a candle burning, while wearing a rabbit-skin robe … Uh, where were we? Oh, yes. Penny Lane, who directed 2019’s hilarious “Hail Satan?,” investigates the gulf between mainstream popularity and critical appraisal. (Kenny G himself had nothing to do with the project.) Sounds like a hoot. ID=167008;size=300x250;setID=492280;uid={EMAIL}5715874; [- - -] [Premiere of the week] “Justified”Hulu [Justified] Photo: FX If the finale of “La Brea” has left you wanting more Natalie Zea in your life, think about binging “Justified,” the deeply satisfying crime drama that ran for six seasons on FX from 2010 to 2015. Centered around U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant, in a role that should have made him a bigger star), “Justified” follows the character as he faces off against Boyd Crowder (Walt Goggins), a small-time Kentucky hood looking to go big. The Givens character is from an Elmore Leonard short story (Leonard was so inspired by the television show that he changed the print version), and for six seasons the show crackled like a new pulp paperback, full of shootouts, morally nebulous figures and the kind of detail that comes from a single, punchy sentence (or in the case of the series, a short, punchy scene). Zea played Winona Hawkins, Givens’ put-upon ex-wife who, like everybody in “Justified,” goes through some serious transformations. [- - -] [Premiere of the week] “Nash Bridges” Saturday, November 27, USA 🎶The boys are back in town 🎶 That’s right, Don Johnson and Cheech Marin, who starred in the “Nash Bridges” series on CBS for over 100 episodes, are back. Johnson has only gotten better in the last few years thanks to performances in films like “Knives Out” and prestige series like “Watchmen,” and it will be interesting to see if that somewhat evolved version of his persona (still laid back, but with a little more texture underneath) will make its way into the new movie — which could be the [back-door pilot]( to a revival series. [[TRAILER](] “Elves” Sunday, November 28, NetflixThis is one for those who like their holiday spirit a little bit darker than normal. This Danish series follows a family that travels to a remote archipelago and encounters some very real creatures that folklore has made immortal. The series promises some “E.T.”-like nonhuman bonding (the daughter brings in a baby elf from the forest), mixed with some straight-up horror elements. “Elves” is flying under the radar during this busy Christmas season (so much programming!) but it looks like the kind of oddball delight that could become an offbeat Christmas favorite. [[TRAILER](] “The Summit of the Gods”Tuesday, November 30, NetflixA French-language animated film based on a Japanese comic book of the same name by Jiro Taniguchi, “The Summit of the Gods” is Netflix’s animated prestige play this year (the streamer’s animated populist play is the wonderful “The Mitchells vs. the Machines”). Co-written and directed by Patrick Imbert, it follows a young Japanese climber, Makoto Fukamachi, as he attempts to conquer Mount Everest, following in the footsteps of the very real George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, who tried to scale the mountain in 1924 and were never heard from again. The new film premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and has been accumulating a mountain of good buzz in the months since. [[REVIEW](] “Annie Live!”Thursday, December 2, NBC Not even COVID could completely kill the networks’ desire to air overly produced live presentations of popular Broadway musicals. The latest favorite to go live is “Annie.” Yes, this comes just seven years after a big-screen remake with Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz. The new production, based on the 1977 Broadway music that was itself based on the “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip, stars Taraji P. Henson, Tituss Burgess, Megan Hilty, Harry Connick Jr. (in a bald cap!) and Nicole Scherzinger. With any luck, there will be some unexpected off-the-wall moments like whatever Christopher Walken was doing in NBC’s live “Peter Pan” a few years ago. [[REPORT](] “PEN15” Friday, December 3, Hulu Just in case you need some more awkwardness (or turn-of-the-millennia nostalgia), “PEN15” is back to pick up the slack. The critically adored comedy series from Maya Erskine, Anna Konkle and Sam Zvibleman is back, with the lead actors even older and yet still playing middle schoolers. (Somehow the joke just keeps getting better.) Chances are, if you’re a fan of the series, then you have been chomping at the bit for new episodes (they technically are the second half of the second season, following a one-off episode in August) and if you haven’t watched “PEN15” at all yet, well, get to binging. [[TRAILER](] [- - -] That does it for this week’s edition of The Wrap’s Winter TV Watch List. If you aren’t a subscriber, you can fix that by [signing up here](. 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