TV to Watch This Week: Michael Mann Hits Tokyo and Ken Burns Is All About the Benjamin

thewrap.com:

“Tokyo Vice”Thursday, April 7, HBO MaxMichael Mann, the visionary filmmaker behind “Heat” and “The Insider,” returns to television for “Tokyo Vice.” (Yes, Mann was also one of the people behind “Miami Vice.” But there is no connection between the two beyond the title.) Based on the 2009 book of the same name by Jake Adelstein (played in the show by, um, Ansel Elgort), who in 1993 was hired by one of Japan’s largest newspapers to be its first non-Japanese reporter.

Adelstein is soon taken under the wing of a veteran vice cop (Ken Watanabe) and exposed to Tokyo’s dangerous underbelly. This series has been in the works for a very long time and considering how infrequent Mann’s output is these days (his last feature was 2015’s underrated “Blackhat”), it’s very much worth getting excited about, even if Elgort is a bummer. (You can Google why!) Hopefully we’ll be very happy to be on this beat. [TRAILER]“Severance”Friday, April 8, Apple TV+One of this year’s most odd and intoxicating new series, “Severance” follows Mark (Adam Scott), who works for a mysterious company called Lumon, which has the sinister practice of “severing” their employees once they leave the building, so they can’t remember anything that goes on inside. (Outside, they refer to their “innies,” when they’re inside, they refer to their “outies.”) With the retirement of one of the members of his team (Yul Vazquez) and the addition of a new team member named Helly (Britt Lower), the equilibrium starts to get upended and life changes for just about everybody.