Prime to Premiere First Fruits of NBCUniversal Deal

Two of the new series secured under Sky’s deal with NBCUniversal will premiere free-to-air this month on Prime.

Young Rock and The Equalizer will screen back to back on Thursdays from April 22, ahead of the season two premiere of Forensics NZ.

Double-episodes of Young Rock will anchor the night at 7.30. It’s billed as a “larger than life” sitcom about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s youth, as he recalls it amid his 2032 presidential run.

It’s scarcely groundbreaking but got the thumbs up for its amiability.

As top US critic Alan Sepinwall wrote in Rolling Stone: “Like Fresh Off the Boat, Young Rock isn’t wildly funny in the early going but feels as if the laughs will get bigger the better we get to know the characters.”

It averaged an 88% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 66% on Metacritic.

The Equalizer (8.30) is a reboot of the ’80s series that starred Edward Woodward and later spawned two Denzel Washington movies (Variety thought it a mishmash of the original and the movies).

Queen Latifah plays a former CIA operative-turned-enigmatic vigilante who helps innocent people in desperate circumstances.

Reviews ranged from “extremely watchable” (Decider) to “forgettable and formulaic” (The Hollywood Reporter).

It averaged 56% on Metacritic and 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, which summed it up thus: “Queen Latifah returns to the small screen in full command of her craft – if only The Equalizer‘s overly-engineered early episodes were on her level.”