The Best Shows and Movies to Watch This Week: The Expanse Season 5 Finale, Studio Ghibli's Earwig and the Witch

With all this talk about the stock market recently, I have a hot inside tip for you: Invest in TV Guide's Best New Shows and Movies to Watch This Week, because I really believe in it. Just send me the money, and I'll make sure the trade goes through. Give me enough money, and I will even let you pick a show to recommend. This week, we have the latest movie from Studio Ghibli that doesn't look like a Studio Ghibli movie at all, and a chilling true crime dramatization from Scandinavia that fans of procedurals will love.

Our list of editors' picks for the week of Jan. 31-Feb. 6 is below, but if this isn't enough and you're looking for even more hand-picked recommendations, sign up for our free, spam-free Watch This Now newsletter that delivers the best TV show picks straight to your inbox. You can also look at our massive collection of recommendations, or our list of suggestions of what to watch next based on shows you already like. 

The Investigation

Series premiere Monday at 10/9c on HBO
The 2018 murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall by entrepreneur Peter Madsen on a submarine made international headlines and is the basis for this true-crime series that isn't like other true-crime series. The six-episode Scandinavian miniseries is a dramatic retelling of the investigation of the crime rather than a recount of the crime itself, and follows the head of Copenhagen police as he sorts through the details and trawls the ocean for clues. What this means is the killer isn't the centerpiece of the series, and more of the focus is on the victim and her family, tapering the sensationalism typical in recent true crime shows. That won't sit well with everyone, especially those who watch the genre to get inside the minds of killers, but if you're a fan of detailed procedurals, this will be warmly welcomed. [TRAILER]

Fake Famous

Tuesday at 9/8c on HBO
Social media influencer sounds like a pretty good job. People pay you to have fun and use their facial scrubs, and hopefully, you make enough money off that so you can retire at 26. But guess what? Influencers may not be everything they're portraying themselves to be. In Fake Famous, journalist Nick Bilton conducts an experiment to create three new influencers -- who are in on the experiment -- by flooding their Instagram pages with bots and paid accounts that engage with them, creating new overnight social media sensations. But with all the new attention comes the realization that the whole concept of influencers is entirely stupid. [TRAILER]

Firefly Lane

Series premiere Wednesday on Netflix
I am going to be very upfront about this: I watched the whole first season in an embarrassing binge last month. I couldn't stop myself. Is it good? No. But between the multiple timelines, soapy storylines, peculiar fashion choices, and aging makeup, I couldn't get enough. Sarah Chalke and Katherine Heigl star as lifelong friends who go through myriad professional and romantic entanglements, (almost) always by each other's sides to lend love and support. It's gal pal time that's as addictive for its questionable choices as it is its delicious drama. [TRAILER]

The Expanse

Season 5 finale Wednesday on Amazon Prime Video 
After Wednesday, there will be just one season left of Amazon's excellent science-fiction series The Expanse, but before we can worry about what we'll watch after The Expanse, we have one whopper of an episode to finish. Like previous seasons, everything climaxes in the finale, with Amos trying to reconnect with his crew, Naomi still in grave danger, and Avasarala back in power and immediately saddled with some huge decisions. Who knows? Maybe we'll get an incredible action sequence like the one that ended the last episode, too. [SEASON 5 TRAILER]

30 for 30: Al Davis vs. The NFL

Thursday at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on ESPN
ESPN's 30 for 30 series goes deep (fake) into the battle of NFL titans Al Davis, former owner of the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders, and former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle. Both men passed away many years ago, but Al Davis vs. The NFL shows both of them walking around the recently opened Raiders stadium in Las Vegas, despite both being buried underground before ground was broken on construction of the stadium. How? Deep fake technology, which uses computers to overlay their faces on actors. It's super weird to see them strolling around today and talking to each other -- impersonators were hired to provide their voices -- but filmmaker Ken Rodgers wanted them to tell their story. The rest of the film is loaded with archived footage and old interviews that re-open the battle between Rozelle and Davis, whose "Just win, baby!" mantra extended off the field and into the courtroom. [TRAILER]

Bliss

Friday on Amazon Prime Video
Here's a far-out concept that might just make Owen Wilson say "wow." Wilson stars in Bliss as Greg, a down-on-his-luck dad who meets the mysterious Isabel (Salma Hayek), a woman who's convinced their broken world is just a computer simulation. And Greg is starting to believe her. "It's all a simulation" is quickly becoming the new "it was all a dream," but the movie looks like a trippy good time. And it's got Bill Nye! -Kelly Connolly [TRAILER]

Earwig and the Witch

Friday on HBO Max
It's been almost five years since the last Studio Ghibli film was released (2016's The Red Turtle), and with the increasing popularity of the Japanese animated movie studio worldwide for films like My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Ponyo, the latest release should be cause for celebration. But there's some trepidation. Earwig and the Witch -- about a young orphan girl who doesn't know she's a witch -- is Studio Ghibli's first film that's entirely CG, a step away from the gorgeous slightly imperfect hand-drawn animation that made its films so different in the face of other studios bombarding kids with perfect 3D models of mammoths and such. Will it be just another computer-animated kids movie? Or will it be a new generation of Ghibli? [TRAILER]

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