What to Watch This Week: J.Lo’s New Rom-Com, Inventing Anna, and a Jeopardy! Championship

I’m assuming you’ve already binge-watched Sweet Magnolias season two (how about that cliffhanger?), caught up on This Is Us, and are in the thick of watching the Olympics. So now it’s time to put some new TV and movie options on your viewing list. 

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, there are plenty of solid rom-com options coming this Friday as well as the story of one woman who really only loves herself, which makes for great TV viewing too (I’m looking at you, Anna Delvey). Then there’s the return of the Jeopardy! National College Championship in primetime, which should prove to be a major ratings win considering how even the most casual viewer is now obsessed with watching the next young Matt Amodio or Amy Schneider. Plus, your new favorite pairing of Jenny Slate and Charlie Day in Prime Video’s I Want You Back.

With that said, welcome to the month where there’s no such thing as too much chocolate or too much TV, and I’ll see you back here next week.

Sunday, February 6

Winter Olympics: Team Figure Skating, Freestyle Skiing (NBC): The figure skating team event continues with the men and women’s free skate and the free dance. Meanwhile, it’s the women’s big air qualifying round for freestyle skiing, as well as the women’s giant slalom run. And for at least a few minutes, I’ll tell myself I’d like to try skiing again until I remember the time I nearly died on ski slope and it took me two hours to get down the mountain. 7 P.M. CT, but check your local NBC schedule. 

Monday, February 7

Winter Olympics: Men’s Figure Skating, Freestyle Skiing, and Curling (NBC): I still can’t quite explain what curling is, other than it’s similar to shuffleboard and has gained in popularity every time it airs during the Olympics. (But you’ll have to switch over to CNBC to watch it this evening.) Over at NBC, watch Nathan Chen do what Nathan Chen does best when he competes in the men’s singles short program in figure skating. And don’t miss the women’s big air final in freestyle skiing as well. 7 P.M. CT, but check your local NBC schedule; the Olympics will continue to air all week.

Tuesday, February 8

Jeopardy! National College Championship (ABC): The multi-consecutive night event (four nights this week, four nights next week, with the championship game on Tuesday, Feb. 22) kicks off with Mayim Bialik hosting 36 students from 36 colleges and universities to determine which collegiate sweatshirt will reign in the end. 8 P.M./7 P.M. ET/CT

Thursday, February 10

The Girl Before (HBOMax): Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars as Jane, a woman who gets an opportunity to live in a stunning, sleek house designed by an architect (David Oyelowo) who orders that his guests must abide by his rules. If you ask me, that’s the first red flag to get out, no matter how gorgeous the house is. Jane notices the house is changing her in ways she never expected, and it’s only when she learns about the woman who lived there before her does she start to suspect she might face the same fate. If you like psychological thrillers, this is for you. If not, might I suggest episode 22 of The Big Bang Theory‘s third season (titled “The Staircase Implementation,” also available on HBOMax) when we find out the origin story of Leonard moving in with Sheldon, and how he too was changed in ways he probably has never recovered from. Streaming; all episodes (four) available 

Friday, February 11

Inventing Anna (Netflix): Shonda Rhimes and the Shondaland team have done it again, with the highly-addictive, brilliantly-acted Inventing Anna, the true story of how a New York socialite scammed everyone she encountered in order to build her private arts club. Even if you weren’t aware of this story when it first unfolded, don’t worry; I didn’t know anything about Anna Delvey or what she did, and now I’m obsessed. Julia Garner is masterful as Delvey, and you’ll have fun counting all the Shondaland cameos and guest-starring roles in this nine-episode series. Also starring Anna Chlumsky (equally fantastic), Alexis Floyd, Laverne Cox, Katie Lowes, Anthony Edwards, Jeff Perry, and more. All episodes streaming now.

I Want You Back (Amazon Prime Video): Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger continue their reign of brilliance (their portfolio includes This Is Us, How I Met Your Father, Love, Victor, Love, Simon) with I Want You Back, a really fun, relatable rom-com starring Jenny Slate, Charlie Day, Gina Rodriguez, Scott Eastwood, Manny Jacinto, and more. In the film, Emma (Slate) and Peter (Day) think their respective relationships are moving…until their partners break up with them. To make it worse, their partners have already moved on with other people. So out of desperation and heartbreak, new friends Emma and Peter formulate a plan to break up their exes’ new relationships and get them back. 

“We made I Want You Back because we love the grounded romantic comedies of the 80s and 90s, like When Harry Met Sally,” Aptaker and Berger tell Glamour. “The kind of movie where it feels like you’re watching your two funniest friends struggle to find love and pretend they know how to be adults in a world that actually resembles our own. And in our completely impartial opinion, you can’t get any funnier or more relatable than Jenny Slate and Charlie Day who are absolutely dynamite together on screen. We’ve all been on a wild ride these last two years, and we think everyone deserves to take a couple of hours on Valentine’s Day weekend to laugh some good laughs, feel some good feelings and not think about how incredibly stressful the world is nowadays.” We agree.

Marry Me (Universal Studios): Charlie Gilbert is a math teacher and Kat Valdez is a mega pop superstar, and in a storyline better than any season of The Bachelor, the two somehow come into each other’s orbit and go on a journey neither one anticipated. Is it predictable? Yes. But it’s also super entertaining and fun. And if you’re looking for star power at its finest, it doesn’t getter better than J.Lo and Owen Wilson fighting their character’s feelings for one another. Also starring Maluma, Sarah Silverman, and a really adorable dog. In theaters and streaming on Peacock. 

Dollface season two (Hulu): Kat Dennings, Shay Mitchell, Brenda Song, and Esther Povitsky are back for their sophomore season as they try to grapple with everything that comes with just being a human being in 2022. Created by Jordan Weiss, who wrote this great essay for Glamour about her inspiration for the show, the new season also features the return of Matthew Gray Gubler, Malin Ackerman, and Beth Grant as the cat lady. All 10 episodes streaming.

Saturday, February 12

The Wedding Veil Unveiled (Hallmark Channel): The second installment in The Wedding Veil trilogy focuses on Emma as she travels to Italy in search of amazing pasta and decadent desserts. Actually, she’s there to teach and research a wedding veil which is supposed to bring its owner love, but I still like my first thought. She’s in luck though, because she meets Paolo (no, not the one from Friends), who is the son of a local lace-making family. And I’m sure he can cook, too. Starring Autumn Reeser, Paolo Bernardini, Lacey Chabert and Ali Sweeney. 8 P.M./7 P.M. ET/CT