What to stream this week: Sharehouse comedy returns better than ever, plus five more picks

This week’s picks include season two of Adults, the Spanish religious thriller La Mesias, a documentary about an 1980s icon and Kenneth Branagh as a Russian spy in the ridiculous Mayday.Adults (Disney+) ★★★★ Sitcoms take time to find their comedic groove – even all-timers Seinfeld, Sex and the City and Parks and Recreation had shaky first seasons, with major characters and narrative devices abandoned as the writers homed in on the magic of their show.As streamers order shorter seasons and are ready to cancel a show that’s not an immediate hit, we see fewer shows reach their potential – thankfully, Disney+ and FX gave Adults a chance, returning with a much-improved second season.Billed as Gen Z’s answer to Friends, Adults debuted last year alongside two other hyped comedies also attempting to reach younger audiences, HBO’s influencer-skewering I Love LA and Amazon Prime Video’s campus comedy Overcompensating.The Adults crew are back (from left): Owen Thiele as Anton, Lucy Freyer as Billie, Malik Elassal as Samir, Amita Rao as Issa and Jack Innanen as Paul Baker.Enjoyable but uneven, all three didn’t quite capture the zeitgeist as hoped – each trying too hard with nonsensical scenes, cameos and references all desperate to be clipped for TikTok. But Adults, to me, kept getting the most in its own way, more focused on gaining attention than making jokes.Take the pilot’s opening scene on the subway, where the hyper-confident Issa (Amita Rao) confronts a man masturbating on the subway by shoving her own hand down her pants. “Is this the world you want?” she screams.No, not really. And, seemingly, Adults’ creators Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold (former writers on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show) agree, releasing a prequel special a few months before season two that now retroactively sits on Disney+ as season one’s first episode. Focusing on how Adults’ ensemble of five 20-somethings came to live together rent-free in a Queens sharehouse, the new pilot re-centres the show on friendship, realising that’s the draw a Gen Z Friends needs.Largely unknown prior to Adults, the show’s core cast – comedians Amita Rao and Malik Elassal, Australian Lucy Freyer, TikTok heartthrob Jack Innanen and podcaster-actor Owen Thiele – are excellent comedic actors. Amita Rao as Issa, Jack Innanen as Paul Baker, Owen Thiele as Anton, Lucy Freyer as Billie, Malik Elassal as Samir.Season two gets out of the way to let each one shine, dialling back big stunts for heightened-but-relatable moments, such as Billie (Freyer) treating the club like a competition during a quarter-life crisis (“I’m unemployed. I’m not cool. If I’m not young any more, then what am I even?”). Meanwhile, the gang catch the sweet, sensitive Paul Baker (Innanen) code-switching into frat bro with other friends, and the bubbly Anton (Thiele) can’t help but revert to a demon whenever near his sister (Raven Symone, one of many well-utilised guest stars).No longer trying to prove how relevant, cool and unique it is, Adults is a much more assured, funny and charming comedy – a lesson we all learn at some point in our 20s.La Mesias ★★★★ (Mubi)A sensation in Spain in 2023, this gorgeous, eerie seven-hour miniseries is now available in Australia thanks to the hype surrounding creators Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s upcoming film, La Bola Negra, which picked up a best director award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is a strong contender at the next Oscars.La Mesias (The Messiah).A sweeping collision of genres including sci-fi, musicals, coming of age and religious thriller, La Mesias (The Messiah) opens on Enric (Roger Casamajor), a cameraman exhausted from a long shoot at the foot of a jagged mountain range near Barcelona.Skipping the crew dinner to dine alone at the hotel bar, his attention is grabbed by a local news clip of a viral Facebook video – a strange music video of a religious pop-rock group in which six girls sing about God, alongside crude web graphics of the Virgin Mary. Shocked to see his half-sisters, Enric pees his pants.Shifting back and forth between past and present, La Mesias slowly reveals Enric’s traumatic childhood with his enigmatic, enraged mother (Ana Rujas/Lola Dueñas) – a story told with tenderness and an eye for moments turned magical in a child’s imagination, from dappled light to the rustle of jewellery.Filmed over 25 weeks and featuring 170 characters, La Mesias is a clear precursor to La Bola Negra, deftly spanning a century of queer Spanish life. But the series stands on its own, unsettling, strange and enchanting.Rory Wilmot as Noah Marten and Gal Gadot as Maia Marten in The Runner. The Runner ★★ (Amazon Prime Video)Despite its blackmail plot unfolding (loosely) in real-time, this forgettable 84-minute thriller is devoid of any rising tension. London attorney Maia’s (Gal Gadot) morning jog becomes a marathon when an anonymous caller offers an ultimatum: sprint across the city and murder her own key witness within the hour, or her kidnapped son will die. Putting aside its nonsensical third-act twist, The Runner’s biggest misstep is relying on the robotic Gadot. Incapable of providing any emotional weight, she can’t even deliver a convincing “I love you” to her character’s son.Mr T in the documentary Untold Mr. T: I Pity The Fool.Untold Mr. T: I Pity the Fool ★★★ (Netflix)Following a headline-generating special on Raygun, Netflix’s Untold docuseries turns its focus to 1980s action star Mr T – a fascinating figure whose impact on pop-culture far outstrips his acting credits. Essentially a Wikipedia article with talking heads from Mr T, family, friends and colleagues, it’s a solid summary of how Laurence Tureaud became Mr T, a larger-than-life persona that demanded respect in a culture refusing it to black men. But you get the sense there’s much more story than this 48-minute special contains, seemingly unable to go deeper with its understandably guarded subject.Andrew Law voices Andrew, Stephanie Hsu is Ruthie and Poppy Liu is Eunice in Dang!Dang! ★★ (Netflix)Did Dang! fall behind the couch at Netflix HQ in 2016, only to be discovered by an intern this week? That’d explain the dated pop-culture references and random-sauce punchlines of this animated comedy, executive produced by Mike Schur (The Good Place). Focused on three Asian-American siblings in New York – an older conservative sister (voiced by Stephanie Hsu), a gay pushover (creator Andrew Law) and the zany, purple-haired baby (Poppy Liu) – Dang! promises a fresh perspective but offers none, repeatedly cribbing plots and punchlines from Broad City and BoJack Horseman.Kenneth Brannagh in Mayday.Mayday ★★★ (Apple TV)Ryan Reynolds’ perma-Deadpool edge of slick sarcasm isn’t for me, but it’s put to great use in this Cold War buddy comedy from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (Dungeons and Dragons). He plays Troy, an arrogant US navy pilot who teams up with friendly Russian Nikolai (Kenneth Brangah, a delight) after crash-landing in the USSR. As they evade the KGB in elaborate action sequences, Mayday is much more vibrant than its flat opening scenes in the US suggest. It’s a neat mirroring of how Troy’s jingoistic beliefs are challenged throughout.Want more TV? We’ve got you.Newsletter: Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.September streaming guide: All the exciting new shows to watch this month.Movie guide: More than 200 handpicked hits from all the major streamers.Binge: The streamer is banking on a black comedy starring Miranda Otto, as it unveils its 2027 line-up.SBS: More World Cup football and more Ray Martin: what’s coming to SBS in 2027.Watch: Deputy TV editor Meg Watson on what’s worth adding to your list right now.