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Month: March 2021

Watchable the week of March 29, 2021

March 29, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Staged (April 1, 9 p.m., Hollywood Suite)

David Tennant, left, and Michael Sheen play themselves in “Staged.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Hollywood Suite

We could all use a laugh right about now, couldn’t we? Then let me direct you to fine British actors David Tennant and Michael Sheen, who play exaggerated versions of themselves in this series set and filmed in lockdown.

Scottish thespian Tennant (“Doctor Who,” “Broadchurch”) and his Welsh counterpart Sheen (“Frost/Nixon,” “The Queen,” “Masters of Sex”) are among the best U.K. actors out there, with Shakespearean and other stage credits as well as film and TV under their belts, but they’re not too lofty to take the piss out of themselves.

In “Staged,” they communicate via Zoom calls from their respective homes, alternately squabbling and commiserating as they battle pandemic boredom and unruly hair. 

The premise is that they’re attempting to virtually rehearse the Pirandello play “Six Characters in Search of an Author” with director Simon Evans (the real-life director and creator of “Staged”), which proves to be an uphill battle — until they’re put in their places by Judi Dench.

Along the way, they display actorly egos and neuroses. There’s a running gag about who’ll get top billing on the play, with Tennant at one point reverting to his birth name of McDonald just so he can precede Sheen alphabetically. Sheen, worried about the evidence of all the extra wine he’s been drinking, tries to pawn off his recycling on his 80-year-old neighbour with unexpected results.

The guest stars include Tennant’s and Sheen’s real-life partners, Georgia Tennant and Anna Lundberg, as well as Evans’ sister, Lucy Eaton, and actors Nina Sosanya, Adrian Lester and Samuel L. Jackson.

It’s a more entertaining version of what the rest of us have experienced trying to transfer our lives online. Our Zoom calls would be far more amusing if Tennant or Sheen was on the other side of the screen.

The six-episode series went over so well in Britain that a second season was ordered and has already aired on BBC One, but it hasn’t been as well received by critics, so never mind that and just enjoy this one.

The Serpent (April 2, Netflix)

Jenna Coleman as Marie-Andree Leclerc and Tahar Rahim as Charles Sobhraj in “The Serpent.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Roland Neveu/Mammoth Screen Ltd

Evil doesn’t always look the part. It can wear a smile and a fancy shirt and extend a helping hand.

This eight-part limited series tells some of the story of Charles Sobhraj, a serial killer suspected of murdering at least 10 people in the mid-1970s. Many of them were young “hippie” tourists who were charmed into Sobhraj’s orbit while backpacking around Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, then drugged, robbed and killed.

Sobhraj, who posed as a jewel merchant named Alain Gautier, was aided by girlfriend Marie-Andree Leclerc, a Quebec woman who met and fell in love with Sobhraj on a vacation in India. French actor Tahar Rahim (“The Mauritanian,” “The Looming Tower”) plays Charles while British actor Jenna Coleman (“Victoria,” “Doctor Who”) portrays Marie-Andree, a.k.a. Monique.

The other real person who’s prominently featured in the series is Herman Knippenberg, a Dutch diplomat who independently investigated Sobhraj after tying him to the murders of a Dutch couple in Bangkok. He’s played by Billy Howle (“Outlaw King,” “MotherFatherSon”). 

The series is described as inspired by true events, so some liberties are taken with the facts; all the dialogue is imagined and some of the victims’ names have been changed.

I found the three episodes I watched quite engrossing, but note that the show requires close attention as it jumps back and forth in time, sometimes revisiting the same event from different points of view.

Rahim is suitably chilling as Sobhraj, like a dead-eyed spider in the midst of a web of hedonism that ensnared young victims keen to experience foreign lands. 

Also new to Netflix this week is “Worn Stories” (March 25), a docuseries from Jenji Kohan (“Orange Is the New Black”) and Morgan Neville (“Ugly Delicious”) about the meaning that people attach to clothing — or lack of clothing, seeing as the first episode features several nudists.

My Grandparents’ War and Atlantic Crossing (April 4, 8 and 9 p.m., PBS)

Eduardo Propper de Callejon, grandfather of Helena Bonham Carter.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Family Archive

Both these series concern themselves with the Second World War, the bloodiest and largest conflict in global history but one that seems largely abstract today, given that it started more than 81 years ago.

Even for someone like me, whose grandfather fought in World War II (my other grandpa fought in World War I), it’s uncharted territory. My grandfather never talked about it and, as a child and then a self-absorbed teenager and young adult, I never thought to ask. So “My Grandparents’ War,” in which four British actors explore what their grandparents did during WWII, hit home for me as someone who would love to know more about her own family’s war history.

Helena Bonham Carter is first up. Her paternal grandmother, Lady Violet Bonham Carter, was a Liberal politician and renowned public speaker, so outspoken against anti-Semitism that she was on the Gestapo’s black list, and an air raid warden during the Blitz. Her maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejon, was a Spanish diplomat who personally helped perhaps thousands of French Jews escape the Holocaust by giving them visas for passage through Spain, against the direct orders of the Spanish government. 

So it’s a particularly heroic history that Bonham Carter is revisiting. She even gets to meet descendants of people who were spared death by the efforts of her grandparents.

Future episodes feature Mark Rylance, Kristin Scott Thomas and Carey Mulligan.

I felt less of a direct emotional connection with “Atlantic Crossing.” It’s a period drama whose main character is Norwegian Crown Princess Martha (Swedish actor Sofia Helin). The early episodes portray her happy marriage to Prince Olav (Tobias Santelmann) and the flight of the couple and their three children from Norway when the Nazis invaded in 1940. 

The family was divided, with Olav and his father, King Haakon (Soren Pilmark), fleeing to London, and Martha and the children to Sweden, under the protection of her uncle, King Gustav V, who had uncomfortably close ties with the Germans. After Gustav tried to broker a deal with the Nazis that would see Martha return to Norway and her very young son Harald made king, she went instead to the United States, where she stayed for the rest of the war. 

“Atlantic Crossing” then pivots to the relationship between Martha and U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, played by Kyle MacLachlan of “Twin Peaks,” a friendship that was rumoured to be romantic, at least on FDR’s part. 

American actor Harriet Sansom Harris co-stars as Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Whether viewers take to a story about people and events that are little known on this side of the Atlantic remains to be seen. It’s certainly a beautifully made series, but based on the two episodes I had time to watch I found it strangely unaffecting.

Short Takes

Evie Macdonald, second from left, as Hannah Bradford in “First Day.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Ian Routledge/Courtesy of CBC Gem

First Day (March 31, CBC Gem)

There’s a good chance you will find your heart going out to Hannah, the transgender lead character of this Australian miniseries, played by trans actor Evie Macdonald. She’s about to start high school and the jitters that transition would normally arouse are compounded by her fear that her classmates will find out she was born a boy. It’s a valid fear given that a bully from her old school, who insists on calling Hannah Thomas, has followed her to the new one. And the principal refuses to let her use the girls’ washroom despite boasting about his school’s openness to trans students, an infuriating example of the type of obstacles thrown in the path of people like Hannah. Only one episode was provided for review, but it was touching and very relatable.

CBC Gem also has Season 2 of “Farm Crime” (April 1), which concerns, yes, criminal activity of an agricultural nature. Mind you, there’s nothing in Episode 1, about an invasion of murder hornets in Nanaimo, B.C., that would stand up in a court of law, which doesn’t make it any less interesting.

New to CBC and CBC Gem is “Miss Scarlet & the Duke” (March 29, 8 p.m.), starring Kate Phillips (“Peaky Blinders”) as a Victorian-era female detective. The public broadcaster also has “Us” (April 4, 9 p.m.) about a British man (Tom Hollander, “The Night Manager”) trying to win back his wife (Saskia Reeves, “Belgravia”) during a European vacation.

The United States of Al (April 1, 8:30 p.m., Global)

The latest sitcom from Chuck Lorre’s laugh factory, created by “Big Bang Theory” scribes Maria Ferrari and Dave Goetsch, is about the relationship between a Marine who fought in Afghanistan (Parker Young) and his Afghan interpreter, Awalmir or Al (Adhir Kalyan), whom he helped bring to the U.S. and away from the reach of the Taliban. It undoubtedly means well, but the episode I watched traded in stereotypes about masculinity (Young’s stoic, heavy drinking Riley) and being Muslim. Perhaps it will improve as the series go on, but nothing in the pilot made me so much as chuckle out loud.

Gangs of London (April 4, 10 p.m., AMC)

I’m no prude when it comes to violence — I have eagerly consumed “Peaky Blinders,” for instance, through every bloody twist and turn — but this ultra-violent series about criminal organizations jostling for power in England’s biggest city left me cold. Despite a good cast  — including Joe Cole (“Peaky Blinders”), Colm Meaney (“Star Trek”), Michelle Fairley (“Game of Thrones”), Lucian Msamati (“His Dark Materials”) and Paapa Essiedu (“I Will Destroy You”) — I didn’t feel invested enough in the characters to care who they were brutalizing and why.

Watchable the week of March 22, 2021

March 22, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: TINA (March 27, 10 p.m., HBO, Crave)

Tina Turner performing in 1990 in Versailles, France, when she was 50.
PHOTO CREDIT: ARNAL/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

I confess I haven’t paid a lot of attention to Tina Turner over the years, but I came out of this documentary about her life and career with a new appreciation for the 81-year-old entertainer.

Most people are likely at least nominally familiar with her troubled relationship with former husband Ike Turner, who died in 2007. Although it’s a part of her life that Tina has repeatedly said she wants to move past, it’s covered in depth in the doc, mainly through tape recordings made for her blockbuster 1981 People magazine interview about the abuse she suffered.

The doc traces that history from 1957 when 17-year old Anna Mae Bullock moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and began performing on weekends with Ike’s band. Their relationship was at first platonic, but they became romantically involved in 1960, the same year the single “A Fool in Love” was released. Ike changed her name to Tina and created the Ike and Tina Turner Review.

Tina told People that was also around the time Ike first hit her, beating her with a shoe stretcher because she didn’t want to tour while pregnant.

She stayed for 16 years in what she called “a life of death,” blaming it on fear and also guilt about what would happen to Ike’s career if she left.

Katori Hall, who wrote the book for “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” notes that Tina grew up seeing violence between her father and mother. She was also abandoned as a child by both parents, first her mother, then her father. That’s got to have a devastating impact on a kid.

Tina also recounts on tape a suicide attempt, which came after the success of “Proud Mary” in 1971.

Surviving that kind of trauma is one thing — Tina finally ran from Ike in 1976 after he left her bloody on the drive from the Dallas airport to their hotel, literally fleeing across a freeway and almost getting hit by a truck — what impressed me most was what came after Ike. That Turner, pushing 40, supporting four children and with debt from the dissolution of the Ike and Tina Review, hustled and toiled and sweated (literally) her way into a new career.

Turner says in the doc she didn’t view her ascendancy as a solo artist in the 1980s as a comeback; it was “Tina’s debut.”

Whatever you call it, it was phenomenally successful: over 100 million records sold; 12 Grammys; the first Black artist and first woman to front Rolling Stone; a record-breaking 1990 tour when she was 50 years old.

Tina says this documentary (directed by Oscar winners Daniel Lindsay and TJ. Martin) is her goodbye to her American fans, along with the Broadway musical about her, which she is seen attending in 2019 in the doc. She has retired to Switzerland with her German husband Erwin Bach, and I hope she has finally found the peace and happiness missing in the early part of her life.

UFO Town (March 26, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem)

The road to Carp, Ont., a.k.a. “UFO Town.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Blue Ant Media

Did alien aircraft visit the Ontario township of West Carleton in the late 1980s and early 1990s? As with anything involving unidentified flying objects there’s no such thing as a definitive answer.

This documentary from Toronto producer Saloon Media focuses in particular on the “Guardian case.”

In 1989, someone using that name mailed documents and photos to UFO investigators purporting to show evidence of a UFO landing in the area, including blurry pictures of an alleged alien. In 1991, more material was mailed, including a video of an alleged flying saucer in a swamp in Carp, Ont.

The case put this part of Ontario on the map in the early ‘90s, with the TV shows “Unsolved Mysteries” and “Encounters” doing segments on it.

No one has ever figured out whether “Guardian” was someone with genuine knowledge or a crackpot. But the doc includes interviews with locals who saw unexplained phenomena around that time: bright lights shining directly into second-floor windows or above a road; a craft with spinning lights rising silently out of the trees before taking off in a blink; military-type helicopters landing in the vicinity of sightings.

One woman, the late Susan Gill, even claimed to have seen beings with glowing skin disembarking from a UFO.

As author Ian Rogers says, a UFO case is never really closed. No one has definitively proved or disproved the existence of extraterrestrial life, but it’s a subject that continues to fascinate us.

If you’re in the mood for more TV with creepy undertones, CBC Gem has the web series “Something Undone” (March 26). Jo (Madison Walsh) is alone in her mother’s old house after her mother, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, has committed suicide. As she cleans out her mother’s belongings and records sounds for the podcast she’s making with her boyfriend Farid (Michael Musi) — which is about the gruesome murder of a family in Newfoundland — she hears odd noises, and things just get spookier from there. Although it presents on the surface as a haunted house drama, the press materials say “Something Undone” is about isolation and mental health struggles. Directed by Nicole Dorsey and shot in and around Harriston, Ont., it was created through CBC’s Creative Relief Fund, which supports artists in the pandemic. 

CBC Gem also has “The Slowest Show” on March 26, which is described as an “experimental comedy series” from Pat Kelly, known for the CBC Radio show “This Is That.” I would describe it as extremely subtle comedy. A single, stationary camera records actors in a mundane situation, for instance, attending an exhibit at an art gallery.

Finally, the period drama “Victoria,” starring Jenna Coleman (“Doctor Who”) as England’s longest-serving monarch before Queen Elizabeth II came along, makes its CBC and CBC Gem debut on March 22 at 8 p.m.

Short Takes

Model Richie Shazam and musician Lucas Silveira are the hosts of “Shine True.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Fuse and OUTtv

Shine True (March 22, 10 p.m., OUTtv)

There’s a “Queer Eye” vibe to this reality series, with each episode focused on an American or Canadian transgender or gender non-conforming individual being guided to express their authentic self. Trans Toronto musician Lucas Silveira and nonbinary New York model Richie Shazam are the ones doing the guiding, which includes makeovers but also frank, sometimes painful but also rewarding conversations. In Episode 1, nonbinary Mexican-American artist Azul is still mourning the death of their father and navigating a strained relationship with their mother while trying to feel more comfortable in their own skin. With a new suit, a new haircut and dye job, and support from people who’ve been in their shoes, Azul gets a boost of confidence that’s heartening to see.

For Real: The Story of Reality TV (March 25, E!)

This series surveys the history of reality TV with clips, interviews and even cast reunions. Hosted by “Real Housewives” host and executive producer Andy Cohen, it’s more admiring than critical, although it does touch on the scandals. The first episode profiles “The Osbournes” (2002), precursor to shows like “Gene Simmons: Family Jewels” and “Run’s House”; the tragic “Anna Nicole Show” (2002); “The Simple Life” (2003), which made Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie “hot”; “The Girls Next Door” (2005), which begat reality star Kendra Wilkinson; trainwreck TV “Breaking Bonaduce” (2005); and reality behemoth “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which just began its 20th season (and is available in its entirety on Hayu in Canada). If all that hasn’t turned you off, Episode 2 promises a “Real World” reunion.

City on a Hill (March 28, 10 p.m., Crave)

If you like complex, character-driven drama with a lot of moving parts, then “City on a Hill” is worth a look. Set in early 1990s Boston — Boston buddies Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are executive producers — it tackles crime, drugs, politics, police corruption and race relations through a sizable ensemble cast. Kevin Bacon stars as FBI agent Jackie Rohr, prolific womanizer, boozehound and dirty cop. His main foil is idealistic assistant district attorney Decourcy Ward (Aldis Hodge, who played Jim Brown in “One Night in Miami”). Reluctant allies in Season 1, they seem to be back to adversaries as the second season begins. It’s not as riveting as “The Wire,” but the acting is top notch. Be warned that you’d best catch up on Season 1, also on Crave, before diving into Season 2.

Odds and Ends

There are a couple of shows I wasn’t able to review due to embargoes. “The Irregulars,” a YA drama that posits that a group of impoverished adolescents in Victorian London were the ones solving Sherlock Holmes’ cases, debuts March 26 on Netflix. (Netflix also has “Who Killed Sara?” on March 24, a Mexican series that’s part revenge drama and part murder mystery about a brother trying to find out who was behind his sister’s death 18 years ago.)

Disney Plus has The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (March 26), the series sequel to the 1990s films about a hapless pee-wee hockey team and their coach, with Emilio Estevez returning to the role of Gordon Bombay.

FX has Season 2 of “Breeders” (March 22, 10 p.m.), starring Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard as frazzled parents.

NOTE: The dates and times listed here reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible against broadcast and streaming schedules, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of series reviewed here reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.

Finally, we get a real conversation about race on ‘The Bachelor’

March 16, 2021 /
Host Emmanuel Acho and Bachelor Matt James on “After the Final Rose.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW HOW “THE BACHELOR” SEASON ENDED DEFINITELY DO NOT READ THIS YET.

Remember all those times we were told a “Bachelor” or “Bachelorette” season finale was the most dramatic ever? Or those “After the Final Rose” episodes that seemed really tense because the couple had broken up or weren’t getting along?

Those seem trifling now compared to what we saw Monday, which at times was searing, gut-wrenching and heartbreaking — and I’m not talking about Matt James and Rachael Kirkconnell breaking up.

With one question — “How much pressure was it being the first Black Bachelor?” — Emmanuel Acho started a conversation on “After the Final Rose” that laid bare the unfair burden placed on Black men, of “making people comfortable with your blackness, and going above and beyond to show that in stature and in personality you’re not as threatening as you come off as,” as Matt put it.

Whereas any other Bachelor (i.e. white, though Matt didn’t use that word) would have to worry only about finding love on the show, Matt said he felt like he carried the weight “of everything that was going on in the country at that time frame regarding social justice, everything going on in the franchise surrounding diversity and inclusion.”

Add to that he had to be on his best behaviour, he said, because “for a lot of people that was the first time having someone like that in their home,” by which he meant having a Black man on their TV.

All that was sobering enough, but things got really raw when it came to Rachael. She and Matt didn’t get engaged at the end of filming, but they were in a relationship and Matt told Emmanuel that when allegations first started going around about racist social media activity on her part he dismissed them as “rumours.”

When Rachael acknowledged the activity and apologized for it, Matt said he realized that “Rachael might not understand what it means to be Black in America.”

As tough as it was to break up with her, “if you don’t understand that something like that is problematic in 2018 there’s a lot of me that you won’t understand,” he said, noting that he grew up in the South, with memories of events, people and places that weren’t welcoming to him.

Host Emmanuel Acho with Rachael Kirkconnell on “After the Final Rose.”

2018 was, of course, the year that Rachael posed for a photo at an antebellum-themed party. As Emmanuel told Rachael when she had her time in the hot seat, antebellum in Latin means “before the war,” as in the U.S. Civil War, which means it’s about honouring the South at a time when slavery was still practised.

A contrite Rachael said she was living in ignorance when the photo was taken without thinking about who her actions might hurt, and she seemed sincere in her desire to rectify that ignorance, but it also seemed clear that whatever she does isn’t going to win back Matt, not that I’m suggesting that should be a priority for him.

Rachael and Matt had an uncomfortable reunion.

When Matt joined Rachael onstage, she apologized for hurting him and for not understanding at first how hurt he had been by her actions, and he just nodded. When Emmanuel asked Matt what he wanted to share with Rachael there was an uncomfortable almost minute-long silence during which he seemed to be struggling with some painful emotions.

Finally, after Emmanuel urged him again to share what was on his mind, Matt told Rachael, “The most disappointing thing for me was having to explain to you why what I saw was problematic and why I was so upset . . . when I questioned our relationship it was on the context of you not fully understanding my blackness and what it means to be a Black man in America, and what it would mean for our kids when I saw those things that were floating around the internet, and it broke my heart.”

Heartbroken or not, Matt said he couldn’t be “emotionally responsible” for Rachael’s tears even though it hurt to see her shed them — she was crying after having told Matt she’d never love anyone the way she loved him — and that he could play no part in the work of reconciliation that she was doing.

Emmanuel invited them to share one last embrace and Matt made no move toward her side of the couch.

Now that we know how it ends, and since this is technically a recap, I should probably say something about what came before “ATFR.”

The episode began with the usual business of the final two meeting Matt’s family. His mother Patty and brother John were charmed by both Rachael and Michelle Young, and vice versa. But Patty went from being ready to welcome one of them into the family to telling Matt that “people fall in and out of love, and love is not the end-all, be-all,” nor did it automatically have to mean an engagement.

That in turn sent Matt to “a very dark place,” thinking about his father not being ready for marriage and destroying his family, which led to Matt thinking he himself wasn’t ready to get engaged.

This being “The Bachelor,” it was hard to tell if Matt was genuinely having second thoughts or this was just a finale fakeout.

Matt and Michelle rappelled down the hotel, which was the easy part of the date.

He seemed attentive enough during his final date with Michelle, which involved rappelling down the front of the Nemacolin. Little did Michelle know walking down a building on a rope would be the easy part of her time with Matt.

Later, in her suite — after she gave Matt matching Mr. and Mrs. James basketball jerseys, signifying their status as life “teammates” — Matt delivered the very bad news that he was having doubts and he didn’t think he could “get there” with Michelle.

They parted with tears on both sides. When then host Chris Harrison showed up to commiserate, Matt reiterated that he wasn’t going to put any woman through what his mother had gone through by rushing into marriage and that he needed time to think things over.

What that meant in practice is that Rachael’s final date was cancelled, but it didn’t stop jeweller Neil Lane from visiting or Matt from picking out an engagement ring.

The pear-shaped beauty, however, stayed in his pocket when Rachael arrived at the lake the next day to learn her fate. There was a certain irony, given the “ATFR” conversation, to hear Rachael talk about knowing Matt had been hurting the day before and how “when you’re hurting I’m hurting.”

Rachael and Matt during the finale non-proposal. There was still a final rose.

Matt told Rachael that he couldn’t propose to her, but he also said he loved her and could see her as his wife and the mother of his children. So it seemed about as idyllic as an ending could get, with Rachael and Matt exchanging giddy “I love you’s,” oblivious to the reality that everyone watching already knew was coming.

As for Michelle, she is indeed, as was reported last week, one of two new Bachelorettes. Katie Thurston is the other one. Her season will air first this summer, with Michelle’s in the fall.

A not so secret Bachelorette reveal: there are two of them, Michelle and Katie Thurston.

Michelle had one bit of unfinished business with Matt on “After the Final Rose.” She told Emmanuel that after their breakup she’d asked production for two minutes to speak to Matt, but Matt refused.

When Matt joined her onstage, Michelle told him she hadn’t been trying to change his mind or to fight for him, but just to find some inner peace before she left Pennsylvania.

Matt apologized for not talking to her. He also praised her both for the way she carried herself through the show and for the “emotional weight” she had carried as a Black woman. Michelle told Matt, “I hope you find your happiness; I hope you move on, kissing with your eyes closed, and I hope you come up with more phrases than just ‘thanks for sharing.'”

I hope that sense of humour is on full display in Michelle’s “Bachelorette” season. I expecting I’ll be recapping that one too.

Until then, you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Watchable the week of March 15, 2021

March 15, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Bloodlands (March 15, Acorn)

James Nesbitt, front, as Tom Brannick, with Charlene McKenna as Niamh McGovern in “Bloodlands.” PHOTO CREDIT: Steffan Hill/AcornTV

I love British detective dramas, but there are so many of them that they can seem to blend together until something like a “Broadchurch” comes along.

“Bloodlands,” from producer Jed Mercurio, known for the enormously popular “Line of Duty” and “Bodyguard,” distinguishes itself both with its strong sense of place and its surprising plot twists.

It’s set and filmed in Northern Ireland (coincidentally, also where some of “Line of Duty” shoots, filling in for the British Midlands), which is where lead actor James Nesbitt (“Murphy’s Law,” “Jekyll,” “The Missing”) is from.

Here he’s Belfast detective and widowed father Tom Brannick and his personal past is intertwined with his investigation.

The drama turns on the apparent kidnapping of a former senior IRA member. That case is already sensitive enough — a firebomb outside the police station makes the point that the Troubles may be over, but they’re not forgotten — but the fact it might be connected to a two-decades-old cold case makes it even more of a hot potato.

The older case involves the kidnapping and possible assassination of four people by a killer nicknamed “Goliath.” The case was never fully investigated since the crimes happened at a particularly volatile time, just before the signing of the Good Friday peace agreement in 1998, but Tom is as determined to dig it back up as his boss (Lorcan Cranitch) is to keep it buried. Tom is backed in this by partner Niamh McGovern (Charlene McKenna, “Ripper Street”).

Part of the enjoyment of “Bloodlands” is that it doesn’t go where you think it’s going to, at least in the two episodes I was given to review. And there’s something to be said for keeping viewers guessing.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League (March 18, Crave)

Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) prepare
to do battle in “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” PHOTO CREDIT: HBO Max/Bell Media

I can’t believe I watched a four-hour superhero movie. I don’t even particularly like superheroes — unless you’re talking about the gloriously campy 1960s TV “Batman” —  but because of all the talk about the “Snyder cut” I devoted most of my Saturday afternoon to this film. And my verdict? It was . . . a four-hour superhero movie.

If you like CGI smash-’em-up action, superhero mythology and the oeuvre of Zack Snyder (“300,” “Wonder Woman,” “Batman v Superman”) then this is the movie for you.

I never saw the 2017 version of “Justice League,” the one Joss Whedon finished directing after Snyder had to step away due to the tragedy of his daughter’s suicide, so I can’t compare the two. But it’s my understanding the story is basically the same: after the death of Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck) gathers a group of superheroes, including Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and the Flash (Ezra Miller) to defeat an otherworldly villain named Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds). The evil one has come with his band of parademons (which remind me a bit of scarier, high-tech versions of the flying monkeys from “The Wizard of Oz”) to destroy Earth.

This involves finding and reuniting three “mother boxes” containing alien technology that have been hidden for centuries by the Amazons (Wonder Woman’s tribe), the Atlanteans (Aquaman’s people) and humans, specifically scientist Silas Stone (Joe Morton), father of Cyborg, a.k.a. Victor Stone. 

We also glimpse Martian Manhunter (Barry Lennix), Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello), Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), the Joker (Jared Leto) and Darkseid (Ray Porter) among other characters, superpowered and not. The movie is seriously packed with serious actors, including a high ratio of Oscar winners and nominees: Jeremy Irons (Alfred), J.K. Simmons (Commissioner Gordon), Willem Dafoe (Vulko), Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Diane Lane (Superman’s mother Martha).

It’s also packed with back stories, exposition and tangents that have nothing to do with the plot. And did I mention the action scenes? The Amazons fight Steppenwolf, the Atlanteans fight Steppenwolf, the Justice League fights Steppenwolf more than once and at great length. There are also action sequences that have nothing to do with the plot, like Wonder Woman saving a building full of schoolchildren that’s about to be blown up.

And just when you think the movie has reached the end — world saved, job done — there’s another sequence and another sequence and another sequence and a dream sequence and a final sequence that seems to be setting us up for the sequel.

The one useful message we can take from all this is that working together is better than going it alone, an apt lesson in these COVID times, but you don’t need four hours to get that across.

Q: Into the Storm (March 21, 11 p.m., HBO, Crave)

8Chan founder Fredrick Brennan, who says he’s definitely not Q, prop notwithstanding.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

You’re going to need time and focus for this docuseries, accurately described in the press materials as “labyrinthine.”

It documents the three-year quest of filmmaker Cullen Hoback to unmask the person or persons behind QAnon, the internet movement connected to extremist conspiracy theories and the riot at the U.S. Capitol building. Is it a high ranking former Trump aide? A member of the military? A troll who’s just messing with people?

I’m not sure what Hoback concluded because I had time to screen only two of the six episodes, in which Hoback interviewed Q true believers, some of the Qtubers who interpret Q’s cryptic “drops,” members of the mainstream media (considered the enemies of Q); and the people behind internet boards like 4chan and 8chan where Q spread his message, including Paul Furber, Fredrick Brennan, Jim Watkins and Ron Watkins, a.k.a. Codemonkey.

If the foregoing paragraph leaves you saying “What? Who?” — yeah, it’s a lot to take in and, like I said, that’s just two episodes.

What I saw left me alternately depressed, alarmed, fascinated, perplexed and wondering what the hell to make of a world in which people seriously believe that U.S. political institutions were run by a cabal of child-eating pedophiles until Trump came along.

Short Takes

Matthew Modine as William “Rick” Singer in “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal.” PHOTO CREDIT: Adam Rose/Netflix

The rich are different from you and me, F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously wrote. That’s abundantly clear in “Operation Varsity Blues” (March 17, Netflix) about the American college admissions scandal, in which 33 well-to-do parents were charged with using bribery to get their children into elite colleges. The focus here is mainly on Rick Singer, the mastermind of the scheme. His “side door” into the institutions involved giving the offspring false athletic credentials in exchange for donations to his “foundation,” which then found their way to the school officials who put the “athletes” up for admission. The film is a combination of documentary and drama, with actors, including Matthew Modine as Singer, portraying the people who were part of the scheme. Singer’s “side door” was a bargain for the parents, who would pay much more to get their kids in through the “back door,” i.e. steep donations to the schools of their choice. Singer’s plot may have been shut down, but the film makes clear that the back door remains wide open.

Also coming to Netflix this week is “Waffles + Mochi” (March 16), in which a pair of puppets teach kids about food and culture with the help of former first lady Michelle Obama. “Country Comfort” (March 19) has Katharine McPhee of “American Idol” fame starring as an aspiring country singer who becomes nanny to a hunky widower (Eddie Cibrian) with five kids. So “The Sound of Music” with a twang?

Ryan McMahon interviews Casey Oster at the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre
in “Stories From the Land.” PHOTO CREDIT: CBC Gem

These days my appreciation of nature is mostly limited to looking out the window at the handful of trees in my backyard, so the beautiful landscapes featured in “Stories From the Land” (March 19, CBC Gem) are a welcome sight. The series is a continuation of the “Stories From the Land” podcast by Anishinaabe comedian Ryan McMahon. Its four episodes take us to various parts of Ontario and explore the connection between its subjects and nature, and how it nurtures their sense of identity as Indigenous people. It may also spark curiosity about things you’ve never considered, like the burial mounds at Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre in northwestern Ontario or the traditional importance of the birch tree to the people of Fort William First Nation as a source of shelter, transportation, medicine and art.

Sofia Banzhaf with Nadine Bhabha in “The Communist’s Daughter.”
PHOTO CREDIT: LoCo Motion Pictures

Take the classic high school preoccupations of romance and popularity, add the pressure of trying to stay true to your proletarian roots while fitting in with your capitalist school mates, and you’ve got “The Communist’s Daughter” (March 19, CBC Gem). Sofia Banzhaf (“Bitten”) is Dunyasha, the daughter of devoted, Lada-driving communists Ian (Aaron Poole) and Carol (Jessica Holmes). Ryan Taerk is brother Boris and Oleg (Vieslav Krystyan), who might be a former Soviet hitman, lives in the basement. It’s 1989, TV and any other forms of “American imperialism” are banned in the McDougald home and Dunyasha can’t even get support from the family council for a haircut so she can compete with her rival, Moscow transplant Tatiana (Zoe Cleland). The web series was created by Leah Cameron (“Coroner”) and is produced by LoCo Motion Pictures, the company behind “How to Buy a Baby” and “My 90-Year-Old Roommate.”

3 fantasy suites minus 1 tent equals 2 Bachelor finalists

March 9, 2021 /
Matt James ended up with a final two on Monday night and I’m sure you can guess who one of them was. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Here’s a “Bachelor” pop quiz for you about “fantasy suite” week. One woman got a spa day and then a night in a huge luxury suite; another woman got to make pottery with Matt James a la “Ghost” and enjoy a fireworks display from a tastefully appointed room; the other woman got to hike through the chilly woods, pitch a tent, roast marshmallows then spend the night in a small wood-panelled space.

Which one do you think got the short end of the stick . . . with burnt marshmallow attached?

Yes, Bri Springs’ misgivings about being the last one to get a rose two weeks ago proved to be prescient. Matt sent her home, keeping Michelle Young and Rachael Kirkconnell as his final two.

I’ll be honest: I was hoping he’d get rid of Rachael, as unlikely as that seemed.

I mean she whinged, moped and cried throughout much of the episode over the fact Matt was spending “intimate” time with the other two women, so I was hoping she’d melt down and send herself home. It’s what the producers encouraged us to think by showing promo footage two weeks ago of a teary Rachael saying she “can’t do this anymore” and a teary Matt telling Chris Harrison he didn’t know if he could do it anymore either. But guess what? We didn’t see either of those scenes in this episode.

Rachael goes into next week’s finale as the clear favourite to get engaged to Matt and as Matt very eloquently said after Serena Pitt dumped him: “It sucks to hear that.”

Maybe Rachael is a lovely human being; maybe she and Matt are perfectly matched, but she’s tainted as a contestant for many of us because of the controversy over her social media posts, the one that has, for now, cost Harrison his job (although he vows he’ll be back).

There’s also the fact she just seems so young to me, even though at 24 she’s the same age as Bri.

Before Monday’s dates kicked off, there was someone else Matt had to see: his father. In an emotional conversation, Matt and dad Manny both aired their hurts: the fact that Manny hadn’t been there for Matt as a child; the fact Manny’s own father was killed when he was 5; the fact Matt’s mom walked out on Manny over his cheating when Matt and his brother were 2 and 3.

“I remember growing up he’d come around every now and then, drop off some shoes . . . pizza. I didn’t need any shoes, I didn’t need pizza, I needed a dad,” said Matt with tears running down his face in a heart-wrenching confessional.

In the end, Matt and Manny seemed to make their peace, exchanging hugs and I love you’s and saying they wanted to be in each other’s lives.

Matt framed the conversation as one he needed to have to convince himself he wasn’t like his father and could commit to getting married, so I’ll take his word for it. He brought it up on each of his three dates.

Matt and Michelle check out the milk bath, part of their spa day.

Michelle, 27, was first up. She got a “traditional Pennsylvania Dutch spa day,” which involved she and Matt soaking their feet in oatmeal, slathering each other with butter and taking a milk bath. Hey, supposedly it worked for Cleopatra.

Michelle is my favourite — if not to end up with Matt, at least to be the next Bachelorette — because she just seems so worthy: fun-loving but mature, warm and wise.

Take the conversation with Matt in which she talked about the importance not just of falling in love and being in love but of “staying” in love and how you had to plan ways to keep showing your love as life changed it. So smart.

Michelle told Matt she was in love with him. He did not say it back and when she repeated it in the morning his response was “Thank you for sharing that,” which did not inspire confidence considering he’d already told Rachael he was falling for her way before the fantasy suite.

On the other hand, Michelle didn’t have to strap on a heavy backpack and hike through the woods, then put up a tent and sit around a campfire, which is what Bri did. If you thought that tent was going to be Bri’s fantasy suite you’re not alone, but luckily she did get to sleep indoors albeit in a room that was more rustic than swanky.

Why did Bri and Matt have to put up a tent if they weren’t sleeping in it?

Nonetheless, Bri was ecstatic after spending the night with Matt. Like Michelle, she told Matt she loved him and was ready to get engaged. But Matt foreshadowed what was to come in his confessional when he said he could see a life with Bri but also that it was going to be hard sending someone home.

By the time Rachael’s date came around she’d convinced herself she was the one getting dumped. She was supposed to be throwing pottery on a wheel, but instead she was spinning herself into a funk.

I’m going to guess that, given how happy Rachael looks, this was taken after her talk with Matt.

She and Matt left the studio for a chat during which Rachael expressed her fear that Matt’s feelings for her had changed after his dates with Michelle and Bri. Not only did Matt bring up Rachael’s parachute mishap again and how much the thought of losing her had scared him, he said he had fallen in love with her. “I’m completely in love with you,” Rachael responded.

At dinner, Matt was practically bursting with excitement as Rachael told him she was “100 per cent completely ready” to have a life with him.

“Tonight, I’m just thinking about what life would look like with Rachael,” enthused Matt in his voice-over. “She’s smart, beautiful; she’s articulate, she’s sexy and everything she embodies, it’s incredible.”

It sure sounds like a done deal to me. The fireworks outside their window as they passionately kissed were like an exclamation point.

So it was obvious Rachael was getting a rose at the next day’s ceremony. And when Matt handed the first one to Michelle it was clear that Bri was done.

(Rachael is also Harrison’s favourite, it seems. He greeted her before the rose ceremony as Rach and told her it was “so good to see you.”)

Bri left tearfully but told Matt she couldn’t be upset or angry with him. At least we know that Bri’s mother, who promised to help mend her broken heart if things didn’t work out, will have her back. And she’s now free to join the Bachelorette race.

Next week we’ll go through the motions of seeing Matt pretend to choose between Rachael and Michelle. It looks like there’ll be tears all around.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

CLARIFICATION: I edited this Tuesday afternoon after reading a couple of other recaps that said Matt told Rachael he had “fallen” in love with her. I swear I heard him say “falling.” I even played that bit over again to double check, but when I listened again today with the volume cranked way up I did hear the word “fallen,” so yeah, sorry Michelle.

Watchable the week of March 8, 2021

March 8, 2021 /

SHOWS OF THE WEEK: Pandora’s Box (March 8, Vimeo, iTunes, GooglePlay and more); Underplayed (March 8, Crave)

Christine Okili Khatıma, right, in Nairobi, Kenya, and some of the women who work for her,
sewing menstrual kits for girls. PHOTO CREDIT: IR Films

If you’re female, female-identifying or just have a well developed sense of fairness, these two documentaries may enrage you. But, for me, there was also exhilaration — that women are taking steps to right historic wrongs, not sitting around waiting for someone, i.e. men, to do it for them.

Did you know that in the state of Texas you won’t have to pay tax on a cowboy hat, but you’ll be taxed on menstrual projects? How bloody ridiculous is that?

That kind of dissonance — and the general shame and stigmatization heaped on half the world’s population for something that’s part of their biology — is the subject of “Pandora’s Box: Lifting the Lid on Menstruation,” written and directed by Canadian Rebecca Snow.

It makes the case that “period poverty,” the inability of women and girls (or anyone of any gender identity who bleeds) to access menstrual products, is a question of human rights, not just an inconvenience. And it’s something that can have serious consequences, keeping girls out of school — not just in developing countries like Kenya and India but in poor parts of so-called first world nations.

Part of the battle is getting menstruation talked about openly and not treated as something dirty that women have to hide — a tall order when there are still places where women are required to shut themselves away when they are menstruating and when 60 per cent of girls, as per UNICEF, don’t even know what a period is before they get one. One of the saddest parts of the doc for me concerned Hellen, a bright Kenyan teen who wanted to be a teacher but stopped going to school because her family could only afford pads for one daughter and she was too embarrassed about the possibility of bleeding in class.

There are good parts, too. Thanks to the work of the Period Equity project, 20 American states have stopped taxing period products. Britain abolished the “tampon tax” in January (in Canada, the GST was removed from menstrual products in 2015). Organizations like Days for Girls, Safe N’ Happy Periods, the Myna Mahila Foundation, the Red Box Project and Ladies of Hope Ministries, to name ones highlighted in the doc, are getting period products directly to women and girls and/or educating them about menstruation. But as the doc states, “The fight for menstrual equity continues.”

Canadian DJ Rezz, a.k.a. Isabelle Rezazadeh, in “Underplayed.” PHOTO CREDIT:

The subject matter of “Underplayed” is not as universal but no less stirring. It concerns the dearth of women in the electronic music industry.

Female pioneers (think Delia Derbyshire, Clara Rockmore, Wendy Carlos or Daphne Oram) are not well known; women comprised just 8 per cent of the solo acts at EDM festivals in 2019; women who do break through, like Canada’s Rezz, Australia’s Nervo and Alison Wonderland, and American Tokimonsta, get paid less than men and have to endure implicit and overt sexism, including vicious social media posts.

And yet the impulse to create endures, despite the obstacles.

I was cheered by vignettes like Rezz performing at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre; the twin sisters of Nervo cheerfully bringing along their babies to gigs; Alison Wonderland sharing the stage with an all-female group of musicians; and queer Jamaican-American DJ TYGAPAW defying poverty and the patriarchal attitudes they grew up with to make their music.

And all of these artists, along with others highlighted in the doc, are teaching and inspiring young girls and women.

Electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani says she thought that women in the industry were “done, gone, finished, lost,” but with this new crop of women, “we’re on the crest of a big wave.” Long may it roll on.

I have one more program to draw your attention to, also debuting on March 8, International Women’s Day. “Secret of the Missing Princess” (BBC Select) examines the disturbing case of Princess Latifa, daughter of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and vice-president of the United Arab Emirates. Latifa hasn’t been seen since February 2018 when she was captured during an escape attempt, on a boat in international waters, and taken back to Dubai. In a video she recorded before her flight, posted seven days after she was taken, Latifa described both the escape and recapture of her sister Shamsa in 2000 in England, an offence against British law for which the UAE was never held accountable, and her own first attempt to flee in 2002, after which Latifa said she was held in solitary confinement and tortured for more than three years. Her disappearance has raised grave concerns for her welfare in a place where women have no rights and are essentially considered the property of men. “If you are watching this video either I’m dead or I’m in a very, very bad situation,” Latifa says.

63 Up (March 9, BritBox)

Cab driver Tony, one of 14 people whose lives have been documented from the age of 7 up,
in the documentary “63 Up.” PHOTO CREDIT: BritBox

There’s an added poignancy to this instalment in the “Up” series, which has followed its 14 subjects since 1964, beginning at the age of 7 and every seven years after. The death of filmmaker Michael Apted in January means this is the final chapter.

The 12 people who participated in “63 Up” — one woman, Suzy, declined; another, Lynn, died — will go on, or not, but we’ll no longer have a window into the twists and turns of their lives.

They’ve been ordinary lives on the evidence of the films, which seem to be the most extraordinary thing that’s happened to them, turning them into minor celebrities according to cab driver Tony, who wanted to be a jockey when he was 7.

Only two of the 14 ended up with the careers they envisioned as kids: upper crust lads Andrew and John, who became a solicitor and barrister, respectively.

Yet, overall they’ve lived lives of satisfaction despite the disappointments. All 14 married, some more than once; many take great pride in children and grandchildren. Others have found ways to compensate for career shortcomings: Tony with occasional acting jobs; Jackie in late-life closeness with her sister; Paul as a foster parent; Peter in his rock band and the novel he’s writing.

Even Neil, who seems to have had the roughest time, battling homelessness as a young man and ongoing depression, has found peace in his work as a municipal politician and in his church.

Apted began the project as a commentary on Britain’s class system but ended up with a treatise on the human condition. In their paths to futures that they never imagined at 7, the “Up” participants are individual but also universal. They are all of us.

100 Years From Home/What Will Become of Us (March 9, 8 and 9:30 p.m., PBS)

Lilit Pilikian at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenia, in “100 Years From Home.” PHOTO CREDIT: Squared Pictures/WNED

If you’re not clear what the Armenian Genocide is or why it’s still a topic of conversation nearly 106 years after it began, these two documentaries will give you an understanding.

It was the extermination between 1915 and ’23 of as many as 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children by the Ottoman Empire in an area that is now part of Turkey. Those who weren’t killed outright were subject to rape, starvation, torture and displacement.

Obviously it had enormous psychic repercussions not just for those who were there but for their descendants.

In “100 Years From Home,” production designer Lilit Pilikian, whose parents were born in what remains of Armenia, becomes the first member of her family to return to Kars, Turkey — which was part of Western Armenia before the genocide — since her great-grandparents fled the city in 1920.

The journey is fraught, not just with the emotion stirred up by the genocide but with fear, since Lilit is an Armenian in Turkey (which continues to deny the genocide happened) searching for her family’s former home.

“I didn’t expect to be so angry,” says Lilit, who at the beginning of the doc (directed by her non-Armenian husband, Jared White) describes herself as not feeling Armenian enough.

I won’t tell you whether she found the house, the blueprints of which have been passed down through her family since 1897, but she definitely found a sense of identity.

“What Will Become of Us” is concerned not just with the repercussions of the genocide but with future generations moving out of its shadow while also retaining a sense of Armenian identity.

Among those we meet is survivor Asdghig Tetezian Alemian, who was 108 at the time of the interview. Her father was among the first group of men killed in 1915. Asdghig recalls her mother digging graves with her hands for her two brothers, who were 2 and 6 when they died, and says sorrowfully, “I don’t know what happened to my mother.”

Her granddaughter, Karine Shamlian, says descendants of Asdghig and others like her have a responsibility to “not let it have been in vain.”

The rest of the doc explores how those descendants are trying to keep their culture alive in America, including people like musician Sebu Simonian of the band Capital Cities; comedian and actor Lory Tatoulian; Andrew Hagopian, who is learning traditional music from his grandfather, oud master Richard Hagopian; and designer Michael Aram Wolohojian, who created a New York City sculpture to honour Armenians who migrated after the genocide.

Meanwhile, we see Aram Hamparian of the Armenian National Committee of America working to have the United States recognize the genocide, something that finally happened in 2019, after the doc was made.

As long as Turkey refuses to acknowledge the genocide, however, it will remain an open wound for Armenians.

Genera+ion (March 11, Crave)

Justice Smith as Chester in “Genera+ion.” PHOTO CREDIT: HBO Max/Bell Media

Your appreciation of this HBO Max drama might depend on what side of the generational divide you stand. Like other teen-focused dramas — I’m thinking “Euphoria” and “We Are Who We Are” as examples — it portrays youth as intelligent and self-aware but also cynical and sometimes behaving against their own best interests.

In the series, created by gay writer-director Daniel Barnz and his bisexual teenage daughter Zelda, and executive-produced by Lena Dunham (“Girls”), a diverse group of kids are fumbling their way through life and love while the adults around them, even kind-of-cool guidance counsellor Sam (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), come off as clueless and ineffectual.

Chester, played by out gay actor Justice Smith, is the most compelling of the group. He’s clearly smart as hell but pretends not to care about anything, including whether the repeated dress code violations spurred by his gender-non-conforming outfits will get him kicked out of school.

Nathan (Uly Schlesinger) is coming to terms with his bisexuality, which his Christian mother (Martha Plimpton) is doing her best to ignore, while his twin Naomi (Chloe East) is eager to gain heterosexual experience. Then there’s her friend Arianna (Nathanya Alexander), who’s attracted to Nathan but has experimented with girls, and who likes to shock people with her homophobic jokes even though she has two gay dads.

Riley (Chase Sui Wonders) seems to be straight, but there’s an undercurrent to her connection with Greta (Haley Sanchez), who’s lesbian and smitten with Riley.

In the four episodes I saw, the kids drank, smoked weed, made out, and shared many, many texts and Instagram posts, including a full-frontal dick pic.

The question for me was whether the series was building toward anything in particular aside from who might end up sleeping with whom. But perhaps, as the character of Delilah (Lukita Maxwell) complains about the school’s teaching materials, that’s too binary a way to look at it.

“Genera+ion” may not speak to me personally but, with its focus on racially and sexually diverse characters it still has something to say.

Odds and Ends

CBC’s “Nature of Things” has “The Last Walrus” (March 12, 9 p.m., also CBC Gem) as its season finale. The doc by Nathalie Bibeau examines the debate around keeping marine mammals in captivity in places like Niagara Falls’ Marineland and the Vancouver Aquarium. The title comes from the last adult walrus remaining at Marineland.

CBC Gem has the Canadian debut of “Bad Banks” (March 12), a German-Luxembourg drama about a woman thrust into the corrupt world of high finance at an investment bank.

Netflix has “Marriage or Mortgage” (March 10), a series that blends wedding and real estate reality TV in a “Love It or List It”-type structure. But instead of deciding whether to sell or renovate a house, young couples have to decide whether to spend their cash on a wedding bash or a down payment on a home. Real estate agent Nichole Holmes and wedding planner Sarah Miller are the ones doing the convincing. Netflix also has “Yes Day” (March 12), a comedy film produced by and starring Jennifer Garner in which a couple decides to say yes to whatever their kids want to do for 24 hours.

A ‘toxic’ Bachelor season? Not according to ‘Women Tell All’

March 2, 2021 /
From left, Serena P, Anna, MJ, Mari, Pieper, Chelsea, Victoria and Serena C on the somewhat misleadingly named “Women Tell All” episode of “The Bachelor.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Oh the irony. There was erstwhile “Bachelor” host Chris Harrison Monday night talking about how there’s been more “explosive drama than any of us were prepared for” this season. Little did he know when that “Women Tell All” episode was taped, just five days before that fateful “Extra” interview with Rachel Lindsay (a fact noted with a disclaimer at the start of the program), that he’d be at the centre of the most explosive drama the franchise has ever seen.

As I write this, there’s still no word on how long Harrison’s hiatus from “The Bachelor” will last or whether it will be permanent (if you’re not sure what’s going on, go google Harrison and Extra and/or Rachel Lindsay and/or Rachael Kirkconnell). We now know that author and TV host Emmanuel Acho will replace Harrison on “After the Final Rose.”

Here’s another thing I know: it was maddening to watch Harrison soft-pedal the drama that did occur this season — the name-calling, the bullying, the gaslighting, the overall meanness — by not calling out the women behind the worst of it and basically just sitting and nodding along while some of them talked more crap.

I mean, come on, we’ve all seen Harrison ask tough questions in these types of situations before, but they were MIA here.

Victoria was still milking the “Queen” nonsense on “Women Tell All.”

So we had Victoria, the Queen of Mean, suggesting that the fact that contestant Ryan was upset about being called a “ho” and an idiot and a “shady bitch” on TV was down to Ryan being overly emotional.

“It’s hard to hear yourself being called a ho on national television,” Ryan said.

“Do you think you’re a super sensitive person?” asked Victoria. And then, noting that she herself had been subject to social media backlash, Victoria added, “I’m a little bit puzzled as to why you’re holding on to this emotional anger right now.”

At least Kit and Chelsea defended Ryan’s right to be angry over being called “horrible things” on TV.

From left, Katie, Jessenia, Ryan and Brittany on “The Women Tell All.”

And Victoria did apologize to Katie for calling her disgusting. But then several contestants piled on Katie for having the nerve to bring up the unpleasantness in the house to Bachelor Matt James.

Chelsea actually said, and I quote, “The house wasn’t toxic until you made it toxic by bringing it up to Matt and then causing the domino effect that led to every single drama in the house that you were involved in.” Hello, shoot the messenger much? It’s complete bullshit. Personally, I was writing about how nasty women like Victoria and Serena C and Anna were being several weeks before we saw Katie talk to Matt about it. She didn’t cause the drama; she just brought it to Matt’s attention.

After Serena C recycled her BS about how Katie “wanted to do it to light a flame and start a fire,” I was the one feeling “emotional anger.”

Katie did a great job of keeping her cool and later got to sit in the “hot seat” with Harrison, saying all the right things for a prospective future Bachelorette, for instance that she’s “embraced exactly who I am” in the past year, that she’s hopeful her “person’s still out there,” that she’s “the most confident I’ve ever been.”

But, as much as I like Katie, the women who brought the most grace and class to an otherwise disappointing episode were Brittany and Abigail.

Brittany was invited up to talk about the rumour that Anna spread about her (and that “Bachelor” producers chose to broadcast) that Brittany was a high-end escort.

“When you google my name now, the first 20 results say ‘Bachelor contestant Brittany Galvin accused of being an escort,'” Brittany told Harrison, adding that there’s nothing wrong with escort work, “but that’s not me.”

“I didn’t sign up to get bullied, I didn’t sign up to get slandered.”

Brittany added that Anna had not reached out to apologize to her despite having had weeks to do so. But gee, Anna was “so, so sorry” at “Women Tell All.” Yet, despite how “awful” Anna said she felt about letting her anger and insecurity get the better of her, she kind of doubled down by telling Brittany she’d heard the rumours about her from people who knew her ex-boyfriend and went to school with her, noting that “Chicago is a small town.”

Brittany very graciously accepted Anna’s apology, saying, “I don’t want people to destroy your life as well.” And if we’re talking about potential Bachelorettes, we could do way worse than someone with that kind of maturity and generosity of spirit.

Abigail was looking every inch a potential Bachelorette on “Women Tell All.”

And then there was Abigail. If anyone had a right to be bitter about how the season turned out it was her. Since when does a first impression rose winner not get a one-on-one date? Has that ever happened before? I’d have to do a little research to find out, but it certainly seems odd. Frankly, it seems like Matt led her on. Abigail said merely that she had “a big what if,” as in could she have been a frontrunner if she’d had a whole day with Matt.

She also focused on the positive feedback she’d had from the deaf community about the fact that a deaf person was shown in a romantic light, since “disability isn’t always romanticized.”

And she mentioned that she was now “a much better version of myself, to share with whoever wants to share that with me.”

Pieper, another hot seat occupant, had a similar sentiment about her time on the show, saying she’d grown as a person. Serena P was invited onstage as well, where she confirmed that, no, she wasn’t having second thoughts about dumping Matt, even though “I care about him still so much.”

(As an aside, I don’t think Serena P is in the running for Bachelorette, but perhaps she’ll pop up on the newly announced “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” coming to Citytv. You never know.)

No offence to Matt, but I am not a fan of the beard.

Finally, I hate to end on a negative note, but Matt’s time in the hot seat was aggravating for me.

Given the chance to comment on the toxicity among the women, all Matt could say was that he was “a little surprised.”

“I just tried to be empathetic to the women and what they were going through because I hadn’t gone through it, so I couldn’t say I (would) have acted differently in their position. There’s a million different factors you have to take into account, so I try not to hold them to an unrealistic standard.”

So not calling other women sluts and ho’s is an unrealistic standard? Good to know.

Matt basically apologized to MJ for sending her home on the two-on-one and then Serena C piped up, like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, about how she hoped Matt wouldn’t think the women were bad people or mean ones.

“I’ll be the first one to say I am not a perfect person so I’m no one to sit up here and judge how any of you all decided to handle yourselves and deal with that emotion in real time.”

I guess you could say Matt was being a good Christian, but just know, Serena C, that I am judging you and, yeah, definitely mean.

The distasteful icing on the cake was that Victoria, who up until then had maintained her sangfroid, got all weepy about her dramatic exit — you know, the one in which she loudly called Ryan “the shadiest bitch” and said she, Victoria, was the only one with “a brain” in the room — and blamed it on her “fear of rejection.”

And Matt actually apologized to Victoria if she felt offended. And he also said he “dropped the ball” on their relationship. Their relationship? They had a relationship?

I’m just going to leave it there.

Next week, it’s fantasy suite dates and, yes, more drama, but we’re in the home stretch, just two more episodes to go.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Watchable the week of March 1, 2021

March 1, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Raya and the Last Dragon (March 5, Disney Plus)

Raya, voiced by Kelly Marie Tran, with dragon Sisu, voiced by Awkwafina, in “Raya and the Last Dragon.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Disney

I’d love to say that I love this latest feature from Disney Animation Studios. It was co-written by a Vietnamese-American playwright, Qui Nguyen; it features a largely Asian cast voicing Asian characters; and it’s a female-led story. And yet . . .

I felt emotionally detached in the early going from the tale of teenaged Raya (Kelly Marie Tran), on a quest to find the last dragon (Awkwafina) and save the world from the Druun, amorphous purple blogs of smoke and light that turn people into stone.

The story rolls along — literally when Raya rides her pet part-armadillo Tuk Tuk (yes, you can already buy the toy) — with Raya and cuddly-looking dragon Sisu (yep, another toy) seeking the broken pieces of a powerful dragon gem, which are spread throughout the warring nations of the formerly peaceful land of Kumandra.

Those pieces prove relatively easy to obtain, even with Raya under attack from her arch-enemy, fellow teenage warrior Namaari (Gemma Chan), with whom she engages in some eye-catching martial arts battles. Raya has help from a motley crew of adversaries turned friends, including warrior Tong (Benedict Wong), “con baby” Noi (Thalia Tran) and her monkey-like companions, and “shrimporium” boat captain Boun (Izaac Wang). The addition of these teammates marks when the story began to resonate more with me, which is fitting since it’s all about trust and people working together to achieve mutually beneficial ends.

Will Raya learn to trust her fellow humans, defeat the Druun once and for all, and bring her beloved father (Daniel Dae Kim) and other lost loved ones back to life? Take a wild guess.

“Raya and the Last Dragon” is bright and colourful and has its heart in the right place, which is not nothing in these crazy times we live in.

For Heaven’s Sake (March 4, CBC Gem)

Comedians Mike Mildon and Jackson Rowe investigate the disappearance
of Mike’s great-great-uncle Harold in “For Heaven’s Sake.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC Gem

When a true crime series is produced in association with Funny or Die, you know it’s not going to be your typical murder documentary. In fact, it’s unclear whether murder is even involved in the disappearance of Harold Heaven in October 1934 from a cabin on Horseshoe Lake in Haliburton.

The unlikely investigators are Mike Mildon and Jackson Rowe, better known as the comedians behind the comedy sketch series “Trophy Husbands.” Whatever their day jobs, they seem to be genuinely interested in solving the disappearance of Harold, who was Mike’s great-great-uncle.

Mike describes the disappearance as an “open wound” within the family.

Almost as big a mystery as what happened to Harold — and it is a tantalizing case — is whether Mike and Jackson stand a chance in hell of solving it. Mike’s own family members, who are interviewed throughout, openly express their skepticism.

What the family does believe is that Harold didn’t kill himself, which was the police conclusion after a week-long search turned up no trace of Harold, described as a nature-loving loner. As his relatives rightly point out, if it was a suicide where’s the body?

Mike and Jackson consider murder a more likely scenario, but cases don’t get much colder than 86-year-old ones. Harold seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth, leaving his oil lamp still burning and his front door open, clad in just a suit, dress shoes and a fedora, and carrying a .22-calibre rifle. And the people who might have direct knowledge of his fate are all dead.

But Mike and Jackson persevere and, despite feeling their quest would ultimately prove a futile one, I found myself rooting for them and curious to know just how far they would get.

Short Takes

Rohan Campbell and Alexander Elliot as Frank and Joe Hardy in “The Hardy Boys.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Hulu/Corus Entertainment

Vikings (March 3, 9 p.m., History)

Another Ireland-shot saga of family and war comes to an end, albeit with much less fanfare than “Game of Thrones,” as “Vikings” concludes after six seasons. The spirit of Ragnar (former series lead Travis Fimmel) is very much present in this finale, not least because of the presence of Ragnar’s old friend Floki (Gustaf Skarsgard), who’s repented his former bloodthirsty ways and found relative peace among a group of North American Indigenous people. Having only dipped in and out of the series over the years, I can’t say how well this finale will satisfy fans, but it’s entertaining enough as an episode of television. It wraps up the stories of the remaining sons of Ragnar, Ivar (Alex Hogh Andersen) and Hvitserk (Marco Ilso) in England, and Ubbe (Jordan Patrick Smith) in the new land; gives us one last bloody battle and ends on a surprisingly gentle note.

Punky Brewster (March 4, 8 p.m. W; March 5, 8 p.m., YTV, STACKTV)

The pig-tailed tot who was the eponymous star of the 1980s comedy is all grown up and a divorced mother of three in this reboot. Punky (original star Soleil Moon Frye) is a photographer just like her late adopted father Henry and living in his old apartment. She maintains a cosy relationship with her ex, Travis (Freddie Prinze Jr.); has best friend Cherie (original star Cherie Johnson) for moral support; and her kids, a daughter and two adopted sons, seem well-adjusted if occasionally, triflingly annoying. When social worker Cherie asks Punky to foster Izzy (Quinn Copeland) who, like Punky, was abandoned by her mother, it seems obvious that sitcom history will repeat itself. What keeps the whole thing from tipping over into laugh-tracked shlock are the moments of sweetness between the characters.

The Hardy Boys (March 5, 9 p.m., YTV, STACKTV)

If you’re in the mood for something nostalgic, wholesome and that walks a line between adult and youth entertainment, this might fit the bill. The newest TV adaptation of the venerable Hardy Boys mystery novels sets the action in the 1980s. Frank (Rohan Campbell) and Joe Hardy (Alexander Elliot) end up in Bridgeport, the hometown of their father Fenton (James Tupper) and mother Laura (Janet Porter), after a family tragedy. There they become embroiled in a mystery involving a missing person, a car accident, a sunken boat and a strange artifact. The boys, backed by friends Chet (Adam Swain), Phil (Cristian Perri), Biff (Riley O’Donnell) and Callie (Keana Lyn), are smart, intuitive and capable, and Campbell and Elliot are likeable and believable in the roles.

Wynonna Earp (March 5, 10 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel, Crave)

It’s the beginning of the end for our favourite demon hunter unless producer Seven24 Films finds an American distributor for the Calgary-shot series. If that doesn’t happen these next six episodes will be the last we see of Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano), Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon) and the rest of the gang in Purgatory. As we begin, Wynonna and Doc are still at odds, while Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) and Nicole (Katherine Barrell) plan their engagement party. But there are complications thanks to a Cupid the ladies encounter when Wynonna throws the happy couple a bachelorette bash at a strip club, resulting in some of the loopy comedy that the show is good at. Jann Arden guest-stars.

Odds and Ends

CTV has a new docuseries debuting March 6 at 10 p.m. “This Is Pop” promises to dive into “pivotal moments in pop music history over the past seven decades.”

On the subject of documentaries, Netflix has a couple that sound worth checking out: “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell” (March 1), about late rapper Notorious B.I.G., and “Murder Among the Mormons” (March 3), about a series of pipe bombings among the LDS community in Salt Lake City in 1985.

Amazon Prime Video has the movie “Coming 2 America” (March 5), the sequel to the 1988 comedy starring Eddie Murphy as Prince Akeem, with Wesley Snipes, Arsenio Hall and John Amos all reprising their roles.

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