http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/arts/television/high-maintenance-what-to-watch-emmys.html 2016-09-16 19:14:31 What You Should Watch This Weekend: ‘High Maintenance’ and ‘Fleabag’ From the Watching team, expert TV and movie recommendations for the next few days. === Welcome to Watching, The New York Times’s what-to-watch guide. We comb through releases big and small to email readers twice a week with our timely recommendations. You can browse previous guides Dear Watchers, Em-mys week-end [clap, clap, clap clap clap]. As with all award-distributing endeavors, the Emmys are deeply flawed, and we must not confuse Emmy-worthiness with goodness nor its opposite with badness. But I love a spectacle, and rituals are the way we consecrate behavior to foster magical experiences within ordinary acts. Plus look at how nice everyone looks! Before the Emmys on Sunday night, though, there are two fabulous shows premiering this weekend, and Watching’s movie writer, Monica Castillo, has two great movie recommendations for you. Let’s all really make a go of things this weekend. Wheee. I can’t remember the last show I liked this much. “Fleabag” is only six episodes ( Phoebe Waller-Bridge created and stars in this British series that starts out as dark, filthy fun and deepens into a stunningly rich portrait of a complex, complicated woman. On the one hand, she has perfect British sweaters and alluring pink lipstick and a haircut that I swear will inspire 10,000 curly bobs, and she’s funny and smart and seemingly irresistible to men. On the other hand, she’s a wreck — and not in that “tee-hee, I’m just a lil girl with all this whiskey!” way women are “wrecks” in TV shows. She’s a profoundly self-sabotaging monster. The show breaks the fourth wall just often enough for cheekiness without devolving into commentary on itself, and it captures some of the unresolvable tension of adult-sibling relationships and the intoxicating thrall of intimate friendships. To my huge delight, Waller-Bridge’s other six-episode British comedy series “Crashing,” about a group of people living as “property guardians” in an abandoned hospital, is now on I wrote about “High Maintenance” The more “High Maintenance” you watch, the more you’ll like it, and I strongly encourage you to watch the web episodes (available on HBO streaming platforms) before watching the cable version. Lots of familiar faces reappear, and while context isn’t essential, it never hurts. “High” follows a bicycle-riding weed dealer only identified as “the Guy” (the show’s co-creator Ben Sinclair) and his various clients — most episodes are heavier on the clients than on the Guy, but there are a few exceptions. Most of the webisodes were under 10 minutes, so this leap to HBO does push the format a little; the show compensates by having most episodes cover two clients’ stories. More important than exact story structure, though, is the show’s, well, vibes: It can be nakedly and straightforwardly hilarious, but it tends more to the gimlet eye — though only toward the characters who can take it. The wounded, vulnerable and downtrodden are handled with gentle care, with the encouraging gaze of a hopeful kindergarten teacher. Ever since “Revenge,” “Ringer” and “Gossip Girl” (such guilty pleasures!) ended, I’ve been looking for a show that has rich people with ridiculous dramas and money problems, but haven’t quite found the right one for me. Everyone tells me to watch “Quantico,” “Grey’s Anatomy” or “How to Get Away With Murder,” but those are pretty “eh” (and I don’t like medical shows). Could you please help me out? — John Oh, I love a good rich-person soap. I encourage you, though, to disabuse yourself of the concept of “guilty pleasures.” Pleasure is just pleasure; if no one’s getting hurt, there’s nothing to feel guilty about. (If someone is getting hurt, find a different outlet. That’s not cool.) The show you seek is I’m surprised that in the list of ABC shows you’ve rejected, you haven’t tried Digging into the vault a little, I guess ABC has a real brand thing going here. Try If you want sumptuous misery, 2003’s What about British shows? Finally, there’s a golden age of this kind of show, and it’s the 1980s: Jumping from 1999 to 2014 to 2025, the expansive drama ( On Aug. 10, Lonnie David Franklin Jr. In Nick Broomfield’s (“Biggie and Tupac,” “Kurt & Courtney”)