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Month: May 2021

Watchable the week of May 31, 2021

May 31, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Sweet Tooth (June 4, Netflix)

Christian Convery as Gus in “Sweet Tooth.” PHOTO CREDIT: Kirsty Griffin/Netflix

Up until I watched “Sweet Tooth” I wouldn’t have thought a dystopian drama could be heartwarming, but this series based on the Jeff Lemire comic books is one of the most moving shows I’ve seen.

It’s not that there isn’t darkness here; the story is, after all, set 10 years after a virus has laid waste to the world as we know it, so there’s death and fear, cruelty and ignorance, but also goodness and innocence and, yes, sweetness and hope.

Most of that is down to the title character, a boy named Gus who’s part human and part deer, nicknamed Sweet Tooth for his love of candy. And he’s not the only hybrid, the term for children who began to be born with the physical features of animals at the same time the virus emerged. But Gus was raised in isolation so, when he finally emerges into what’s left of the world, he’s a naif: able to fend for himself in a practical sense but with no real idea of just how dangerous humans can be.

His protector and his teacher in that regard, reluctantly so, is a jaded ex-football player named Tommy Jepperd (Nonso Anozie) who has just enough humanity left in him not to turn his back on Gus.

There are others who seek to protect the hybrids, including an orphaned young woman who calls herself Bear (Stefania LaVie Owen) and Aimee (Dania Ramirez), a former therapist who has set up a sanctuary for hybrids at an abandoned zoo. But they’re up against a paramilitary force known as the Last Men who are intent on wiping out the hybrids, whom some blame for causing the virus.

The other key character is Dr. Singh (Adeel Akhtar), whose only concern is keeping his sick wife alive and her condition hidden from nosy and potentially murderous neighbours.

These character strands are pursued separately at first, but it’s obvious they’ll eventually be pulled into Gus’s orbit, which is a good thing. The series is at its best whenever Gus is onscreen. He is truly the heart of the story, and the casting gods were smiling on the production team (which includes actor Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan as executive producers, and Jim Mickle as showrunner and director) when they found Christian Convery to play him.

The young Canadian actor perfectly embodies Gus’s guileless innocence and his persistent faith that things will work out, even when everything around him suggests otherwise.

On the face of it, a postapocalyptic drama might not seem like the optimal entertainment for a pandemic-weary world, but “Sweet Tooth” reminds us of the human capacity for good even at the worst of times.

Netflix also has Season 2 of “Feel Good,” debuting May 28, the dramedy in which Canadian comedian Mae Martin plays a fictionalized version of herself. As the season begins, Mae returns to Canada and to rehab, leaving George (Charlotte Ritchie) behind in London.

Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten (May 31, 9 p.m., PBS)

Forensic archeologists excavate a suspected mass grave at Tulsa’s Oaklawn Cemetery in October 2020 in “Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Jonathan Silvers/Saybrook Productions

Monday is Memorial Day in the U.S., which honours that country’s military. It’s also the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, a confluence that lends a certain irony given that members of the National Guard were reportedly present when a white mob razed a Black neighbourhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from May 31 to June 1, 1921, murdering as many as 300 Black citizens, leaving thousands more homeless.

If you don’t know anything about the massacre, you’re not alone. This doc makes the point that even some Tulsa residents didn’t know about it until fairly recently. I personally had never heard of it before viewing the 2019 fantasy series “Watchmen.” 

But this film, directed by Jonathan Silvers and produced by Washington Post reporter DeNeen L. Brown, both recounts the history of the atrocity and draws a line from it to ongoing anti-Black racism, not just physical violence but mental, emotional and economic oppression of Black communities.

At the time, Tulsa’s Greenwood area was a thriving neighbourhood, known as the Black Wall Street for its wealth. In just 16 hours more than 35 square blocks were destroyed, a tragedy that was blamed on its victims. 

It began after a young Black man was falsely accused of assaulting a white woman in an elevator and other Black men went to the city’s jail, some with guns, to protect him from being lynched by the crowd of white men that had gathered. After a melee broke out and the Black men fled back to Greenwood, the attack began. 

The white mob was unimpeded by the city’s police, some of them even deputized by the force. None of those men, some of whom can be seen proudly posing in photographs, were ever held accountable.

And the story of what’s called one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history is still being written: the legal fight for reparations to survivors and descendants of victims is ongoing; and this summer, bodies that might belong to massacre victims will be exhumed from a mass grave in a city cemetery. 

Girls5eva (June 3, 9 p.m., W Network)

Paula Pell, Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Busy Philipps in “Girls5eva.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Heidi Gutman/Peacock)

Think of “Girls5eva” as the TV equivalent of a pop song: fun, a little frothy and catchy enough to get stuck in your head.

The latest from executive producers Tina Fey and Robert Carlock (“30 Rock”), created by Meredith Scardino, a writer on Fey’s and Carlock’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Girls5eva” lampoons 1990s and early 2000s girl groups, and the sexism and commercialism surrounding them. 

The group of the title is sort of a New York version of the Spice Girls . . . if the Spice Girls faded into obscurity after one hit.

When hip-hop star Lil Stinker (Jeremiah Craft) samples that hit, “Famous 5eva” (cuz 4eva’s too short), the four surviving “girls” get booked to back Stinker on “The Tonight Show,” leading to dreams of renewed stardom.

Easier said than done, of course, for a group of 40somethings in an industry in which, as their sleazy former manager Larry (Jonathan Hadary) says, “For ladies, 35 is checkout time. That’s a quote from our greatest president.” (The point is made in an even  funnier way by legendary producer Alf Musik, played by Stephen Colbert, who writes Girls5Eva a song called “Invisible Woman.”)

But “chill one” Dawn (Sara Bareilles), “hot one” Summer (Busy Philipps), “fierce one” Wickie (Renee Elise Goldsberry) and gay one Gloria (Paula Pell) persevere through others’ indifference and their own self-doubt, learning to write their own songs (with the help of a fantasy Dolly Parton, played by Fey) and to think outside the boxes they were put in by the music biz.

The first season culminates in a snatched moment of glory that is preposterous, predictable and emotionally satisfying all at once.

It took me a few episodes to warm up to “Girls5eva” but, once I did, I was fully invested in the group making good, even narcissistic Wickie (Goldsberry), who gets the best lines.

Speaking of lines, the jokes fly by fast so best pay attention. Same goes for the clever lyrics of the songs, written mainly by Scardino and composer Jeff Richmond, with real life singer/songwriter Bareilles pitching in on a couple of them. (My favourite, though it’s not a Girls5eva tune, is “New York Lonely Boy,” which pokes fun at Gen X parents and their fedora-wearing, sushi-eating only children: “The Strand is his Disneyland.”)

“Girls5eva” isn’t particularly deep or envelope-pushing but, like an earworm, it doesn’t have to be to grab your attention.

Short Takes

Mary Galloway and Kaitlyn Yott as Abe and Daka in “Querencia.” PHOTO CREDIT: APTN lumi

Querencia (June 1, 11 p.m., APTN lumi)

This is the first original series for APTN lumi, the streaming service of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. It’s about the relationship between two Indigenous queer women, winningly played by series creator and director Mary Galloway and Kaitlyn Yott. Daka (Yott) has come to Vancouver to try her luck as a dancer, despite her misgivings and those of her family. Abe (Galloway), a musician, has been on her own for a while and, unlike Yott, is out of touch with her Indigenous traditions. A misunderstanding on the part of Daka’s new roommate brings them together, even though Daka has previously identified as straight, and a spark is struck. The series, a clear-eyed and compassionate look at two young women growing into the people they want to be, will be part of the Inside Out Festival, screening virtually beginning June 2 at noon. There will also be a premiere event June 1 hosted by imagineNATIVE with musical performances and a Q&A.

Ballerina Boys (June 4, 9 p.m., PBS)

Josh Thake, left, and Duane Gosa perform with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.
PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Nespola/Courtesy of Merrywidow Films LLC

Anything that brings together the art forms of ballet and drag seems like a good thing to me, which would seem to be proven by the fact Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has been in existence for some 47 years. This documentary, a Pride Month offering from PBS’s “American Masters,” makes it clear that behind the comedic aspect of men in tutus with faux Russian names there is serious discipline and respect for ballet tradition. Started in New York in the years following the Stonewall riots as “kind of a lark,” in the words of co-founder Peter Anastos, the Trocks grew into a genuine ballet company, one that tours all over the world when it’s not locked down. Despite early disapproval by what Anastos calls “the muckety muck dance establishment,” the company persevered, quite a feat in the ’90s when it lost half its dancers to AIDS. It brings ballet to audiences who wouldn’t know a plie from a pirouette, and to places that aren’t exactly gay-friendly. And it’s clear the dancers love what they do, despite the pain of pointe shoes; they talk in the doc about how performing in drag makes them feel like themselves. The film ends fittingly with a 2019 performance in Central Park of George Balanchine’s “Stars and Stripes” commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

Odds and Ends

I didn’t get an advance look at “Lisey’s Story” (June 4), the Apple TV Plus series that Stephen King adapted from his own novel, although reviews I’ve read suggest that’s not a bad thing. You’ll have to judge for yourself. The cast is certainly top notch, including Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Joan Allen and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Amazon debuts “Dom” (June 4), a crime series based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and based on a true story about a man who’s part of the drug trade and his police officer father.

The Smithsonian Channel has the original series “Searching for Secrets” (June 6), which digs into hidden history in “the world’s most iconic cities.” The list includes New York, London, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris and Singapore. Sorry Toronto.

Watchable the week of May 24, 2021

May 24, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Oslo (May 29, 8 p.m., Crave)

Salim Daw, Andrew Scott, Ruth Wilson, Jeff Wilbusch, Dov Glickman and Rotem Keinan in “Oslo.” PHOTO CREDIT: Larry D. Horricks/HBO

I imagine it’s pure coincidence that this TV movie about the secret talks that led to the 1990s Middle East peace process is debuting just a couple of weeks after another outbreak of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

The latest conflict makes “Oslo” seem like pure fiction when it’s actually a fictionalized version of real-life events, secret back-channel negotiations that took place in Norway and led to the signing of the Oslo I Accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993.

If you know your Middle East history you know the accord fell apart after Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an extremist opposed to the peace process, that an attempt to reach a new deal at the 2000 Camp David Summit failed and that the Second Intifada of anti-Israel violence began shortly thereafter.

Today, a solution to the issue feels farther away than ever, which makes the events portrayed in “Oslo” seem almost miraculous: intransigent enemies sitting across a table from each other in a mansion in the Norwegian countryside and coming to see each other as human beings worthy of being spared suffering.

The film distills the three-hour, Tony Award-winning play by J.T. Rogers into just under two hours. Skilled performances and frequent scene changes — including flashbacks to the visit to Gaza that inspired the two Norwegians who instigated and shepherded the negotiations — keep the talky movie from becoming a slog.

In particular, Brit Ruth Wilson (“Luther,” “The Affair”) and Irishman Andrew Scott (“Sherlock,” “Fleabag”) stand out, playing diplomat Mona Juul and her sociologist husband, Terje Rod-Larsen. Among the actors playing the negotiators, Israel’s Salim Dau, as Palestinian official Ahmed Qurie, and Israeli-German actor Jeff Wilbusch, as Israeli official Uri Savir, do a particularly affecting job of taking their characters from mistrust to acceptance and even regard.

Sure, it’s a sentimentalized version of the facts, but “Oslo” makes the stakes feel high and the breakthroughs feel rewarding, even knowing what we do about how it all turned out.

Whitstable Pearl (May 24, Acorn)

Kerry Godliman as Pearl Nolan in “Whitstable Pearl.” PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Bourdillon/AcornTV

This new detective drama goes down as easily as one of the oysters on the half shell that Pearl Nolan (Kerry Godliman) serves at her restaurant, the Whitstable Pearl.

You may recognize actor and comedian Godliman from the Ricky Gervais series “Derek” and “After Life,” as well as the Lennie James-created “Save Me.” Here she’s an unassuming but whip-smart former cop and single mother who moonlights as a private detective when she’s not running her restaurant in the small seaside town of Whitstable.

It’s always nice to see a woman of a certain age (Godliman is 47) leading a crime drama. It’s also a nice change to see crimes that don’t involve the standard sexual assault and murder of young female victims. In the two episodes made available for review, the victims were male and not all the crimes were murders.

“EastEnders” writer Julie Wassmer created “Whitstable Pearl” based on her own mystery novels.

This is a kindler, gentler kind of crime drama, less plot twist shockers and lurid crime scenes, more ordinary folks getting caught up in bad situations, which doesn’t make it any less satisfying.

Howard Charles (“The Musketeers,” “Shadow and Bone”) plays Pearl’s foil, transplanted big city cop Mike McGuire, who starts off as a cynical antagonist but comes to trust Pearl’s judgment.

Short Takes

Christopher Mark Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, in “The Face of Anonymous.” PHOTO CREDIT: TVO

The Face of Anonymous (May 25, 9 p.m., TVO)

This documentary is not so much about the hacktivist collective known as Anonymous as it is about one man, Christopher Doyon, an aging hippie affiliated with the movement who calls himself Commander X. Doyon was a young man who made his living selling LSD at rock shows in Massachusetts when he got swept up in the protest movement, first anti-apartheid, later animal rights and other causes. His interests in protests and computers coalesced in Anonymous, the faceless hackers who became famous for cyberattacks against governments and corporations as well as their involvement in movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring. Opinions vary as to how influential X was within Anonymous, but he was certainly considered important enough for the FBI to arrest him in 2011. Doyon fled the U.S. soon after, ending up homeless in Toronto, which is where director Gary Lang and co-producer Ian Thornton met him. Thornton eventually helped Doyon escape to Mexico, where he remains in exile and, in his own words, still very much committed to the Anonymous cause.

Jocelyne Immaroitok as Ailla and Benjamin Kunuk as Kuanana in “Maliglutit Searchers.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Kingulliit Productions

Maliglutit Searchers (May 28, CBC Gem)

This film, an Inuit take on the John Wayne western “The Searchers,” was part of Canada’s Top Ten film list in 2016. It’s co-directed by Zacharius Kunuk, whose 2001 film “Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner” won the Camera d’Or at Cannes, and Natar Ungalaaq, who starred in “Atanarjuat.” Set in Nunavut around 1913, it mixes mundane domesticity and austere beauty with violence and revenge when a group of outcasts kidnap the wife and daughter of Kuanana (Benjamin Kunuk) while he’s out caribou hunting. He pursues them, guided by the spirit of a loon called Kallulik. The dialogue is in Inkuktitut with subtitles.

Also on May 28, CBC Gem debuts Zacharius Kunuk’s “One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk,” in which a white man interrupts Noah’s (Apayata Kotierk) seal hunt in an attempt to persuade him and his community to move to a settlement in Igloolik. Also debuting that day is “Sagawaay K’uuna” (“Edge of the Knife”), the first film made entirely in the Haida language.

Finally, CBC Gem has “Deep in Vogue,” a look at the queer ballroom scene in northern England communities like Liverpool and Manchester. It’s no surprise that behind the costumes, the bravado and the dance moves are people seeking community and acceptance.

Odds and Ends

James Corden with the cast of “Friends” on the “Reunion Special.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Terence Patrick/HBO Max

Probably the most hyped cast reunion in the history of cast reunions can be seen on Crave May 27 at 10 p.m., “Friends: The Reunion.” Yes, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), Monica (Courteney Cox), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Ross (David Schwimmer), Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) reunite on Stage 24 at Warner Bros. Studios, the original “Friends” soundstage, to relive old times. There were no advance screeners for this one.

Riding high on the success of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” Sacha Baron Cohen has turned bits of the flick that hit the cutting room floor into “Borat Supplemental Reportings Retrieved From Floor of Stable Containing Editing Machine” (May 25, Amazon Prime Video). The “multi-part special” includes unseen “Moviefilm” footage, something called “Borat’s American Lockdown,” and six documentary shorts debunking theories like “Vaccine Microchip,” “Mail-in Ballots Scam” and “China Virus.” No word on whether there are any Rudy Giuliani cameos.

Amazon also has a YA series called “Panic” (May 28), which I gather is about teenagers in a small Texas town doing dangerous things.

Netflix has Season 3 of “The Kominsky Method” (May 28), which has lost Alan Arkin but gained Kathleen Turner, reuniting with her old “Romancing the Stone” co-star Michael Douglas.

Disney Plus debuts “Launchpad” (May 28), a collection of live action shorts from filmmakers from under-represented backgrounds.

Sundance Now has the documentary series “Between Black and Blue” (May 25), about a real-life 1975 case in which two New York City police officers were accused of killing a Denver businessman and then fought to clear their names.

This post was edited to add the “Friends” reunion.

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 programs reviewed 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.

Watchable the week of May 17, 2021

May 17, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: In Treatment (May 23, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

Uzo Aduba as Dr. Brooke Taylor in “In Treatment.” PHOTO CREDIT: HBO/Bell Media

I approached this new iteration of the beloved HBO series a bit like one of Dr. Brooke Taylor’s new patients: warily.

It’s been just over a decade since Gabriel Byrne sat in the chair as Dr. Paul Weston, doling out psychotherapy in his New York (and before that Baltimore) office, working through his patients’ knotty problems and, in his off hours, on his own.

It didn’t take long for Dr. Taylor, played by Uzo Aduba, to win my trust. Aduba, who came to prominence playing a mentally ill inmate in “Orange Is the New Black,” ably fills the therapist’s seat. 

I had forgotten the pleasure of this two-hander of a show, of watching a pair of actors simply talk to each other and, in doing so, reveal interesting things about the human condition.

It’s rewarding to watch as Brooke kindly but firmly peels back the layers of self-deception and prods the walls of her patients’ resistance — with insight she doesn’t always extend to herself and her own issues.

Speaking to the Television Critics Association earlier this year, Aduba called the role “one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had in my life” and “also one of the most satisfying, fulfilling experiences,” for which she credited her fellow actors.

The diverse ensemble is indeed a capable one. It includes Anthony Ramos (“Hamilton”) as a young Hispanic man employed as a caregiver to a young white disabled man; Quintessa Swindell as a young Black woman trying to figure out her future; and John Benjamin Hickey (“The Big C”) as a white-collar ex-con whose therapy is mandated as part of his release.

Executive producers Jennifer Schuur and Joshua Allen have deliberately positioned this update as a fourth season of the original “In Treatment” rather than a new version. 

So, for instance, Paul Weston is still out there, unseen other than as a name on a computer or phone screen, as Brooke’s supervisor and “America’s therapist” during the pandemic.

Updating the series — moving it to Los Angeles and to the present day — allows timely issues to be part of the give-and-take between Brooke and her patients.

Besides the pandemic — Brooke works out of her home because her office building is still closed and treats one patient via video — the show also touches on topics like being Black in America, class differences and white male rage, but not in ways that feels intrusive or forced.

Truthfully, arriving at this point in our collective unease, “In Treatment” feels a little like a dose of TV therapy.

Line of Duty (May 18, BritBox)

Adrian Dunbar as Superintendent Ted Hastings and Martin Compston as DS Steve Arnott
in “Line of Duty.” PHOTO CREDIT: Steffan Hill/World Productions

Season 6 of this fan favourite crime show was never going to be just another instalment. It comes amid two years of pent-up demand and suggestions that there won’t be a Season 7.

And in the U.K., where the season has already aired, it was a ratings blockbuster for the BBC.

So does it live up to the hype? Mostly yes with a teaspoon of no.

First off, if you don’t know your OCG (organized crime group) from your CHIS (covert human intelligence source) I’d advise getting up to speed on past seasons before you dive into this one.

As the season begins, things could be better for Anti-Corruption Unit 12. Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) has moved on to Hillside Lane Station and doesn’t seem eager to maintain ties with AC-12; Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) is still popping painkillers like M&Ms for his back pain (from being attacked in Season 4); and Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) is on thin ice with the police brass (although when is he ever not?).

Steve and his new partner, Chloe Bishop (Shalom Brune-Franklin), are investigating potential corruption in Hillside’s probe of the murder of a high-profile journalist. The main antagonist is DCI Jo Davidson (guest star Kelly Macdonald of “Trainspotting,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “No Country for Old Men” and more), who’s working under DS Ian Buckells (Nigel Boyle), an AC-12 detractor whom we first met in Season 1. 

Buckles is just one of the past characters who turns up this season, which is full of callbacks and name checks that fans will appreciate.

Also to be appreciated is the committed work of the main trio of actors. Without Arnott, Fleming and Hastings, a.k.a. the Gaffer, and their dogged dedication to outing “bent coppers,” “Line of Duty” would never have inspired the devotion that it has.

My one quibble is that I found the finale anticlimactic, which is all the more reason to hope for a Season 7.

Short Takes

Pop star Cher with Asian elephant Kaavan. PHOTO CREDIT: Zoobs Ansari

Cher & The Loneliest Elephant (May 19, 8 p.m., Smithsonian Channel)

Celine Dion sang that “Love Can Move Mountains”; another world famous pop star used her passion to help move a multi-ton bull elephant. This doc tells the story of the rescue of Kaavan, an Asian elephant who was kept for 35 years in deplorable conditions at the now mercifully closed Islamabad Zoo in Pakistan until three women started a campaign to free him: Cher, American vet trainee Samar Khan and Anika Sleem, a Pakistani expat living in Toronto. It took five years, a court verdict and the dedication of a virtual village of animal experts and others to carry out the difficult task of moving the massive, and at the time potentially dangerous, animal to a sanctuary in Cambodia — in the midst of a pandemic no less. In his new home, Kaavan will be able to roam free with his own kind, as elephants are meant to do, instead of being shackled in a tiny enclosure. Keep tissues handy as you watch; I’m certain you’ll need them.

The Hindenburg exploding over the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, N.J., on May 6, 1937. PHOTO CREDIT: The Associated Press file photo

Hindenburg: New Evidence (May 19, 9 p.m., PBS)

The science series “Nova” has one for the history buffs: an episode that re-examines the Hindenburg disaster of 1937. The footage of the German airship exploding over an airfield in Lakehurst, N.J., is among the indelible images of the 20th century, so it’s fitting that an old reel of film unseen by investigators at the time is what spurs re-examination of the cause of the fire that brought the Hindenburg down, killing 36 (amazingly, 62 passengers and crew lived). Lt. Col Jason O. Harris and author Dan Grossman find an answer to the mystery of what sparked the flames with the help of Germany’s Zeppelin Museum and a Caltech professor of chemical engineering, but I won’t spoil things by telling you what they discovered.

Odds and Ends

As usual, Netflix has several new offerings, including second seasons of Spanish murder mystery “Who Killed Sara?” (May 19) and autobiographical comedy “Special” (May 20), Season 3 of Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None” (May 23) and the Zack Snyder zombie film “Army of the Dead (May 21), which I did not review (hey, I already took one for the team by watching all four hours of “Justice League”).

A show I previously recommended when it debuted on BritBox is available on Hollywood Suite as of May 20. “The Pembrokeshire Murders” dramatizes how a team of detectives in Wales solved two murders two decades old by re-examining the forensic evidence. Luke Evans stars.

Amazon Prime Video has the anthology series “Solos” (May 21) from David Weil, the man behind the high-profile Nazis-in-America show “Hunters.” This one is packed with some big name actors essentially performing monologues, among them Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and Anne Hathaway. I’d love to tell you what I think, but reviews are embargoed.

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 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.

Watchable the week of May 10, 2021

May 10, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Underground Railroad (May 14, Amazon)

Thuso Mbedu as Cora in “The Underground Railroad.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Amazon

It feels strange to describe something that deals with the abomination of slavery as beautiful, but “The Underground Railroad” is a gorgeous piece of television, grandly cinematic, even when it’s laying bare ugliness.

That seems fitting given that it’s the debut TV project of Barry Jenkins, renowned as the director and co-writer of Oscar-winning films “Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

He couldn’t have taken on a more ambitious task: a 10-episode adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Colson Whitehead.

Jenkins has created an epic that envelops you with its sights and sounds and feelings, with images that seep into your consciousness like fragments of vivid dreams.

He’s aided brilliantly by cinematographer James Laxton and composer Nicholas Britell, who also collaborated on his movies. Thanks to them, the look and sound of the series are truly striking. But none of that would matter if the performances didn’t live up to the esthetics.

Thuso Mbedu, a South African actor who’s unknown in North America — but presumably not for long — imbues Cora, the teenage slave whose journey we follow, with fierce intelligence and profound spirit. Cora navigates myriad emotions and states of being along with the many miles she travels and Mbedu dynamically conveys them all, often using just her face and her large, expressive eyes.

Praise is also due to Aaron Pierre as Cora’s fellow plantation slave Caesar; Sheila Atim as her mother, Mabel; William Jackson Harper as Royal, a free Black man who aids Cora; Joel Edgerton as slave catcher Ridgeway and, especially, Chase Dillon as Homer, the young Black boy who helps Ridgeway do his dirty work.

When we first meet Cora she’s picking cotton in Georgia, marked by the abandonment of her mother, who left the plantation years before.

Cora flees on the Underground Railroad, which, in the show as in the book, is an actual subterranean train system. (Some of the most haunting parts of the soundscape are heard waiting for trains underground; the Earth itself seems to be moaning.) From there we follow Cora from state to state and from one type of white treachery to another.

The series deals more in the psychic wounds of slavery than the physical ones, although the first episode features graphic violence that put me in mind of “12 Years a Slave.” It’s clear that even for the Black men and women we meet who aren’t enslaved, freedom is fragile and requires constant vigilance.

Ridgeway, who’s the most fully formed character besides Cora, chases her relentlessly, obsessed with the daughter since the mother was the only slave he couldn’t catch.

Cora must elude not only Ridgeway, but her own image of herself as someone so unworthy of love that her own mother abandoned her. When she finally breaks through the anger, her joy is short-lived, quashed by a brutal betrayal that is both shocking and predictable.

But Cora is a survivor, even when she doesn’t want to be. As she makes yet another escape, it’s not clear where she’ll end up and whether she’ll be safe there; we can only hope she’ll find true freedom, in both mind and spirit, a hope that extends to her descendants and the descendants of all those enslaved.

The Crime of the Century (May 10 and 11, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

A graveyard scene underscores the cost of the opioid crisis in “The Crime of the Century.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

Infuriating and depressing: that’s how I would describe this two-part documentary by Alex Gibney, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning filmmaker behind docs like “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and “Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief.”

But it’s also worth watching for a lucid and detailed explanation of the American opioid crisis.

There are villains galore here, everyone from profit-obsessed drug company executives and sales reps, to doctors and pharmacists who take bribes to dispense ridiculously powerful pills to patients, to the corrupt Federal Drug Administration officer who allowed oxycontin to be declared safe for chronic pain relief, to the politicians who push big pharma interests in exchange for campaign contributions, to the justice department officials who buried evidence of drug company wrongdoing in exchange for guilty pleas and slap-on-the-wrist fines.

What is abundantly clear is that the opioid epidemic, which has killed some 500,000 Americans in the last 20 years, is also an epidemic of greed.

Opium — from which drugs like morphine, heroin and oxycodone are derived — has been cultivated since the reign of King Tut and has fuelled western profit and addiction for at least a couple of centuries, but Gibney pins the origins of the current epidemic on three brothers from Brooklyn and their pharmaceutical company.

It was the Sackler brothers, whom Gibney describes as “some of the world’s most successful drug pushers,” and Purdue Pharma who came up with OxyContin, a continuous-release form of Oxycodone.

But the drug’s original use, end-of-life cancer pain, wasn’t lucrative enough so the FDA was convinced to allow a claim that the drug’s delayed absorption mechanism reduced the likelihood of addiction — and Purdue and other drug-makers that followed its lead were off to the races.

Evidence began to mount not long after that Oxy was being used as a street drug, crushed and snorted, or dissolved and injected, but Purdue’s line was that the addicts were at fault, not the pills.

And then there’s fentanyl, another powerful drug initially meant for cancer patients, which is the subject of much of the second episode of the doc.

The resulting carnage is assessed by journalists (the Washington Post is a partner in the series), concerned doctors, drug company whistleblowers, people who’ve seen the deaths firsthand and crusaders like Joe Rannazzisi, who lost his Drug Enforcement Administration job for speaking out against a U.S. law that makes it harder to crack down on drug distributors who supply the so-called “pill mills” that flourish in Florida and elsewhere.

Gibney piles outrage upon outrage, more than I can do justice to here. Your best bet is to watch for yourself.

Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer (May 11, 8 p.m., PBS)

Author Steven Johnson and broadcaster David Olusoga guide viewers through “Extra Life.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Nutopia

What could be more timely than a history of vaccination as we line up for our COVID-19 shots? Personally, I had no idea that the forerunner of today’s inoculations was a practice known as variolation — making a small incision in the arm and smearing it with smallpox fluid— that was imported to the United States in the 1700s via an African slave named Onesimus.

Engaging hosts Steven Johnson and David Olusoga take us through that history, including the development of the world’s first vaccine by British doctor Edward Jenner in the late 1700s, to the eventual eradication of smallpox, a disease that killed many millions of people going back centuries. It was vanquished by 73 countries working together in the 1960s and ’70s to vaccinate everyone on the planet, an achievement that holds a measure of hope for today’s pandemic battle.

As epidemiologist Larry Brilliant says, “People forget what human beings can do when we’re unencumbered by divisiveness and hate, and that we stand up to the moment in time.”

Obviously, the current vaccination push against COVID is part of the discussion, with nods to vaccine hesitancy and the need to vaccinate in every country in the world, especially the poorest ones, to avoid prolonging the pandemic.

All this is part of a look at how science and medical innovations have lengthened life expectancy. It’s shocking to think that a person born in 1900 could expect to live an average of just 32 years whereas, today, the average Canadian can expect to live to at least 80.

The series, presented by TV production company Nutopia, also includes episodes about the use of data, medical inventions and public behaviour. If that sounds dry, I expect them to be highly watchable if they’re anything like the first.

For a look at the very start of the human life span, PBS also has “Fighting for Fertility” (“Nova,” May 12, 9 p.m.), about how science and technology are helping people who are struggling to have children.

Short Takes

From left, Kim Fields, Mike Epps and Gabrielle Dennis in “The Upshaws.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Lara Solanki/Netflix

The Upshaws (May 12, Netflix)

This sitcom, co-created by Regina Y. Hicks (“Insecure”) and comedian Wanda Sykes, is about a Black working class family in Indiana. The family dynamics are complex: Bennie (Mike Epp, “Uncle Buck”) has four kids, three with his wife and former high school sweetheart, Regina (Kim Fields, a.k.a. Tootie from “The Facts of Life”), one with his high school “baby mama” Tasha (Gabrielle Dennis, “Rosewood”). From what I can tell from the episode I watched it’s got the pacing and the non-stop punchlines of your standard sitcom. The best lines come from the animosity between Bennie and his sister-in-law Lucretia, played by Sykes.

Netflix also has the movie “The Woman in the Window,” about an agoraphobic in New York City who may or may not have witnessed a crime. It’s from director Joe Wright (“Darkest Hour”) and has a crazy stacked cast, led by Amy Adams alongside Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie and Wyatt Russell. Also debuting on May 14 are “Halston,” the latest from Ryan Murphy, with Ewan McGregor starring as the famous fashion designer, and Season 2 of animated series “Love, Death & Robots.”

Odds and Ends

I didn’t get a chance to check out “Blinded — Those Who Kill” on Acorn (May 10), but it’s headlined by Natalie Madueno as criminal profiler Louise Bergstein, who also starred in the absorbing Danish crime drama “Darkness — Those Who Kill.” Acorn also has “Amber” (May 10), a Dublin-set drama about a teenage girl who goes missing.

If you haven’t had enough of Britney Spears docs yet, BBC Select has “The Battle for Britney: Fans, Cash and a Conservatorship” (May 11), in which journalist Mobeen Azhar looks into the pop star’s legal issues by talking to everyone but Britney. I understand Britney herself is not a fan of the show.

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 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.

Watchable the week of May 3, 2021

May 3, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Going Native (May 8, 8:30 p.m., APTN)

Drew Hayden Taylor gets a horse-riding lesson from Jarrod Pretty Young Man in “Going Native.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of APTN

What do you think of when you think of Indigenous culture? Beads and feathers? Powwow dances? Drum circles?

How about zombie movies, gourmet cuisine, cutting edge architecture or an award-winning winery? No? Then let Drew Hayden Taylor enlighten you.

The 58-year-old member of Ontario’s Curve Lake First Nation is no slouch himself when it comes to cultural contributions

Take a peek at his website and check out his list of accomplishments, which includes writing short stories, plays, novels, nonfiction books, TV and film scripts, acting as a writer-in-residence at several universities and as artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts.

I also think of Taylor as a cultural ambassador via documentaries like “Redskins, Tricksters and Puppy Stew,” “Searching for Winnetou” and “Cottagers & Indians” (based on his play of the same name).

In the 13-episode series “Going Native,” he spreads the word about Indigenous accomplishments and combats damaging colonial stereotypes.

Sure, that can be an uphill battle in a country like Canada, whose citizens consistently undervalue its cultural accomplishments, let alone those of its First Nations, but I urge you to check out “Going Native” nonetheless — not just because you’ll learn some things, but because it’s fun.

Taylor travels throughout North America (this was shot pre-pandemic) and uses humour and enthusiasm to share vignettes about Indigenous visionaries — people like architect Patrick Stewart, filmmaker Jeff Barnaby, video game designer Meagan Byrne and vintner Justin Hall, to name just a handful.

Taylor throws himself into his research, sometimes quite literally as when he attempts to mount a horse bareback at the home of the Pretty Young Man Indian Relay Team or gets chased by “zombie” Xander Jones. I’d put those in the “do not try this at home” category, but I’d happily sample the wine at Nk’Mip Cellars in Osoyoos, B.C., or the bison sausage at Toronto’s NishDish.

Other episodes delve into music, fashion, art, business, spirituality, survivalism, storytelling, sports and astronomy. And the series has already been renewed for a second season.

Sortez-Moi de Moi (May 7, 8 p.m., Crave)

Pascale Bussieres and Vincent Leclerc in “Sortez-Moi de Moi,” a.k.a. “Way Over Me.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Bell Media

This Quebec drama is attention-grabbing right out of the gate in that it’s rooted in the treatment of mental health — and not TV disease-of-the-week mental health but knotty, complex issues that won’t be resolved in an episode or even a season.

It should come as no surprise, either, that the patients aren’t the only ones struggling.

The series begins with a death — I won’t say whose — that has life-changing consequences for some of its characters, particularly crisis team social worker Clara St. Amand (Sophie Lorain), who’s devoted to her work but not to the bureaucracy behind it, and psychiatrist Justine Mathieu (Pascale Bussieres), who seems unsympathetic at first glance.

The other lead character is a charismatic patient with bipolar II disorder, David Ducharme (Vincent Leclerc), a condition that given his line of work (again, no spoilers) could be life-threatening.

Based on the two episodes available for review, the drama does an excellent job of teasing out the connections and complications between its characters, not giving too much away but leaving you wanting to know more.

The show is described as a psychological thriller, but it also plays at times like a medical or crime drama, one grounded in naturalistic performances. It’s based on an idea by actor Lorain and director Alexis Durand-Brault, known in Quebec for the TV series “Au secours de Beatrice” (“Helping Beatrice”), about an emergency room physician with psychological problems.

Also known as “Way Over Me,” “Sortez-Moi” debuts simultaneously in French, on Crave Super Ecran, and on Crave in versions that are dubbed or subtitled in English. 

Short Takes

Expert Paul Winicki assesses author Jason Reynolds’ watch collection in “Antiques Roadshow, Celebrity Edition.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Antiques Roadshow for WGBH

Antiques Roadshow, Celebrity Edition (May 3, 8 p.m., PBS)

Prohibited from taking its show, well, on the road by the pandemic, this venerable series celebrated its 25th season by sending its appraisers to the homes of celebrities to assess their favourite things. The episode I screened featured Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, author Jason Reynolds, actor S. Epatha Merkerson, pro golfer Dottie Pepper and comedian Jay Leno (who, in an unintended bit of irony given his recent apology for making racist jokes about Asians, casually mentions all the Asian antiques scattered around his Newport, Rhode Island mansion). Most of the items in that first episode didn’t have outsized monetary value — apart from a couple of Kerrigan’s medals, particularly the one she won after that infamous 1994 injury — but that doesn’t dampen the vicarious thrill of peeking into famous people’s abodes.

Jill Halfpenny as Jodie with Cody Molko as Daniel in “The Drowning.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Bernard Walsh/Acorn TV

The Drowning (May 6, Acorn TV, Sundance Now)

This drama explores the line between grief and obsession when a woman who lost her four-year-old son in a drowning accident spots a teenager on the street who looks remarkably like her child would at 14. Caution, reason and everything else is thrown to the wind as Jodie (Jill Halfpenny, “EastEnders”) sets out to prove that Daniel (Cody Molko) is actually her son Tom, whose body was never found that day at the beach. Rupert Penry-Jones (“Spooks,” “The Strain”) also stars as Daniel’s father, or abductor in Jodie’s eyes.

Odds and Ends

From left, David Julian Hirsh, Ben Daniels, Josh Duhamel, Leslie Bibb, Mike Wade and Matt Lanter
in “Jupiter’s Legacy.” PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Wilkie/Netflix

There are several shows of interest coming to Netflix this week, all of them embargoed for review until later in the week. Most notable is “Jupiter’s Legacy” (May 7), a made-in-Toronto family superhero drama starring Josh Duhamel, Leslie Bibb and Ben Daniels. It’s based on the comic book series by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely. Netflix also has Part 2 of “Selena: The Series” (May 4) about revered Mexican American singer Selena Quintanilla; and the docuseries “The Sons of Sam: A Descent Into Darkness” (May 5), about a journalist who spent decades trying to prove that serial killer David Berkowitz had not acted alone. 

From Apple TV Plus comes Season 2 of office comedy “Mythic Quest” (May 7) about a group of video game developers.

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