DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: This new Netflix documentary utilizes a rich treasure trove of formerly unseen footage, filmed for a proposed but unrealized documentary during the time in 1999 when Jim Carrey played performance-art comic Andy Kaufman in the biographical movie Man on the Moon. It also interviews, at length, present-day Carrey, with a rich, David Letterman-style beard, reflecting on his life and comedy, and Kaufman’s, and how they intersected, in and beyond the movie they made. Carrey is smart about what made Kaufman’s approach to comedy unique, and even insightful about his own comedy approach, and how his Jim Carrey “Dr. Jekyll,” in front of an audience or camera, turns into an improvising, not-caring “Mr. Hyde.” The behind-the-scenes footage from Man on the Moon, in which such co-stars as Danny De Vito, Judd Hirsch and Paul Giamatti react in amazement, and sometimes annoyance, to Carrey’s “living-the-role” approach to Kaufman – and to Kaufman’s occasional, ultra-abrasive alter ego, nightclub “performer” Tony Clifton. It’s all of a piece, and Jim & Andy shows how, in that 1999 movie and beyond, those two dissimilar comic approaches did indeed meet, and meld.

SERIES PREMIERE: The latest Marvel series to appear on Netflix has gotten a head-start: Jon Bernthal, who plays this particular brutal and haunted antihero, first portrayed the Punisher in a season of Netflix’s Daredevil, occupying the major story line as a former soldier seeking revenge for the mob-related deaths of his family. This new spinoff, therefore, doesn’t have to spend a lot of time establishing the superhero’s origin story – good thing, because the Punisher, technically, is not super, and arguably isn’t much of a hero, more of a heavily armed and driven vigilante. But Bernthal, who rose to stardom in The Walking Dead, is excellent at portraying both angst and strength, and lends a little depth to a comic-book title that, frankly, needs it. And Deborah Ann Woll, whose own ride to stardom came in another genre series, True Blood, continues her Daredevil role as Karen Page – one of the few people in that show’s story arc who believed in, or at least empathized with, the man known as the Punisher. So now, together, their story continues.

MOVIE PREMIERE: This new film by Dee Rees is based on the novel by Hillary Jordan, a period piece often, and fairly, described as Faulkneresque. It’s set in Mississippi, after WWII, and is about a family of tenant farmers, and all the tensions that the region’s unforgiving conditions and unrepentant racism threw at them. Rob Morgan, Mary J. Blige and Carey Mulligan star, with a strong supporting role provided by Jonathan Banks of Breaking Bad.

Last week, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend got lots of comedy out of Rebecca (Rachel Bloom) retreating from her woes by going home to mother – who, played by Tovah Feldshuh, was unusually supportive. Unusually and, as it turned out, deceptively, by slipping Rebecca mood-altering drugs without Rebecca’s knowledge. Rebecca found and stole the pills, left her mother, and, on the plane back home, swallowed them all in a suicide attempt before informing the flight attendant. Then, at episode’s end, came a public service message with a suicide hotline number, encouraging viewers who are depressed and potentially suicidal to seek help. It’s a much stronger tone than you’d expect from a CW musical comedy series – and this week’s episode will build on that, not avoid it.

I saw this on Broadway, and recommend it to anyone who has seen, or loves, a lot of Broadway history, especially musicals. Harold Prince did a lot of amazing work as the producer of some of Stephen Sondheim’s best musicals, including Company and Follies and Sweeney Todd – but also did a lot of other amazing work, too, and tastes of them are here, enacted by a small but talented cadre of performers, each of whom gets a chance to shine. And, briefly, to play Prince himself. Check local listings.

Hal Ashby directed this astounding 1979 film version of Jerzy Kosinki’s novella, a modern-day fable that took someone as great as Peter Sellers to embody the central role, and the slippery central concept. He plays a man upon whom everyone else projects what they wish, and interprets him accordingly. Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden and Richard Dysart co-star, and there’s a set piece, utilizing a Deodato instrumental, that is cinema perfection.

SEASON FINALE: Chelsea Handler. Max Brooks. Rebecca Traister. Bill McKibben. Carl Bernstein. This is Bill Maher’s last show of the season, and it sure sounds like he intends to go out not with a whimper… but with a bang. The week’s top headlines, from tax bills to Al Franken, should provide all the fuel he needs for a big verbal bonfire.