What we would have spun in April 2023

Beef, The Diplomat, and a Bourne-shaped licensed pile. April 2023 was a good month to spin TV once, then stop shopping.

The old version of this page listed every April 2023 arrival from American Hustle to King of Collectibles, then every leaver from Forrest Gump to The IT Crowd. That is replicated catalog copy. It also misspelled Netflix in the heading.

April 2023 was actually a clean month for the wheel if you ignored the dump. U.S. coverage from TV Guide and IGN is what we checked.

Spin these, not the whole slate

Beef (April 6) is still the title we would have wanted the wheel to hit. Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, ten episodes, road rage as a full nervous breakdown. Set TV + high quality. Do not start it at 11 p.m. unless the group is ready for a mean comedy. It is the opposite of background TV.

The Diplomat (April 20) is the other original that justified a TV spin: Keri Russell as a U.S. ambassador who was supposed to go to a crisis zone and got London instead. High quality, TV, and a better “we need something grown-up” pick than whatever reality dating show landed the same month.

Transatlantic (April 7) only if someone specifically asked for a WWII drama. It is good. It is not a random-Friday title. Chupa (April 7) is a family movie about a chupacabra; use it when kids are in the room, not as a default.

Better Call Saul season 6 arriving on Netflix (April 18) was a catch-up window, not a premiere. If you had not finished it, type it into Netflix. Do not wait for the wheel to randomly land on the ending of Jimmy McGill.

Licensed films that were worth the quality toggle

April’s U.S. licensed drop included Inception, the first three Bourne films, Psycho (1960), Zombieland, How to Train Your Dragon, and A League of Their Own. That is a strong movies + high quality pool — stronger, for a mixed group, than most of the month’s originals after Beef.

The trap is leaving genre on All and getting Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat in the same band as The Bourne Identity. If you wanted thrillers, set thriller. If you wanted a crowd movie, set comedy or family. The wheel cannot infer “not a kids’ film” from vibes.

What left, including the obvious ones

U.S. leavers that month included The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Top Gun (1986), Forrest Gump, Grease, New Girl, and The IT Crowd. Those were real deadlines for people who still needed them. They were not a reason to paste sixty rows of titles this site does not own.

If you were outside the U.S., some of those films had not left — or had never been there. Region first, mourning a U.S. calendar second.

A one-night plan for April 2023

Agree on TV or movies. If TV, spin after the 6th and accept Beef or The Diplomat as a yes. If movies, high quality, and take Bourne / Inception / Zombieland if they come up. Two nos means change genre, not country.

More on that process: What to spin when you cannot decide and How TV Roulette works.