John Powers

Midnight Diner" is a Japanese TV series about a diner located on a quiet side street in one of Tokyo's busiest districts. Although the show has been running on Netflix for several years, our critic-at-large, John Powers, keeps rewatching old episodes. He says the show creates a mood that keeps calling the viewer back.

In Naomi Hirahara's new novel a Japanese American family that had been interned during World War II returns home to a Los Angeles that isn't what they remembered.

The TV series "Dark Winds" is a cop show about the Navajo tribal police based on the bestselling novels by Tony Hillerman. The series begins its second season streaming on AMC+ today and then on Sunday on AMC. Our critic-at-large John Powers says that what makes the show work is less its crime story than its memorable characters.