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Month: November 2021 (Page 1 of 2)

Watchable Nov. 29-Dec. 5, 2021

November 29, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Rescue (Dec. 3, Disney Plus)

Cave divers in a scene from documentary “The Rescue.” PHOTO CREDIT: National Geographic

“Miracle” is a word that gets overused, but it seems apt for what happened in 2018, when 12 boys and their soccer coach were rescued after 18 days deep inside a flooded cave system in Thailand.

This National Geographic documentary by “Free Solo” filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin plays like a thriller as it tells the story of the rescue operation and underlines just how impossible the mission truly seemed.

It’s also a life-affirming piece of programming that will make you feel good about humanity.

The boys, aged 11 to 16, and their assistant coach had gone exploring in the 10-kilometre Tham Luang cave system after a soccer game on June 23, 2018, but the monsoon rains that usually started in July came early, flooding the already saturated limestone caves and trapping the group about four kilometres from the entrance.

When Thai Navy SEALs, ill-equipped for diving in those conditions, were unable to locate the boys, British cave divers Rick Stanton and John Volanthen were brought in. It was they who discovered the group alive on a rock shelf and shared video of them that was seen around the world.

But as Rick says in the doc, “The whole journey back all I was thinking was what on earth are we going to do now?”

In fact, the pair had already rescued four adult pump workers who’d been trapped in a different part of the cave, bringing them out using regulators, and those relatively short dives turned into “an underwater wrestling match” as the men panicked, imperilling both rescuer and rescued. So how on earth would they keep 12 children and one adult calm during two- to three-hour dives?

Rick and John didn’t think it could be done, but other options — including drilling a new cave entrance or leaving the boys there until the monsoons ended in October — seemed just as impossible.

The answer was to anesthetize them and dive them out unconscious, which seemed preposterous to Richard Harris, a fellow diver and anesthetist from Australia called in to do the drugging. He said there were 100 ways that a child could die during the trip.

But with more heavy rains in the forecast and the boys’ oxygen supply dwindling, it was either that or leave all of them to certain death.

If you’re familiar with the news reports of the time you’ll know that all 13 team mates made it out alive, but the doc — which combines actual footage of the operation with re-enacted scenes — makes it clear just how perilous the rescue was and how wrong it could have gone.

Just a few days after the last of the children were saved the cave completely flooded and remained inaccessible for eight months.

And here’s something else that tends to the miraculous: two days before Rick and John found the children, when they were so convinced they were already dead that they were considering flying back to England, a revered monk named Kruba Boonchum visited the site and said the children were alive, that they would escape the cave but that two lives might be sacrificed.

Two lives were: a diver and former Thai SEAL named Saman Kunan died during the mission; another diver named Beirut Pakbara died more than a year later from a blood infection contracted during the rescue.

While the doc focuses heavily on Rick and John and their fellow cave divers, thousands of people played a part in the operation, including almost 5,000 Thais, and military and civilian volunteers from several other nations.

As one of the Thai officials says in the film, “All you need is generosity and a united effort, and you will succeed.”

I had hoped to post an actual review today of the three-part “The Beatles: Get Back,” which debuted on Nov. 25, 26 and 27, but since I didn’t get the screeners till Monday and since I was on vacation last week and since it involved almost eight hours of viewing under very restrictive conditions (like, I had to make sure my computer screen was angled so that no one else could see it; hope cats don’t count), I was able to get through only the first part, which itself was more than two and a half hours. I can tell you that I found it fascinating and poignant, that it gave me a whole new respect for Ringo Starr, and that I do plan to catch up on the other two parts when time permits.

Short Takes

Laura Fraser, Eiry Thomas, Julie Hesmondhalgh and Heledd Gwynn in “The Pact.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Sundance Now

The Pact (Dec. 2, Sundance Now/AMC Plus)

I missed the boat on this miniseries when it debuted on Super Channel Fuse in October (and where you can still catch it on demand), but I’m caught up now. It is in some respects a standard Britcrime series with a murder to be solved, a twisty plot and an ending you likely won’t see coming. What sets it apart is that the drama is intertwined with a tale of female friendship. Anna (Laura Fraser, “Breaking Bad,” “The Loch”), Nancy (Julie Hesmondhalgh, “Coronation Street”), Louie (Eiry Thomas) and Cat (Heledd Gwynn) all work at the local brewery, leading relatively unremarkable lives until the night of the brewery’s centennial party, when they decide to play a prank on their nasty boss (Aneurin Barnard, “Dunkirk,” “The White Queen”). When he turns up dead, the women panic and make a pact to hide what they’ve done, but the situation spins out of their control when the police discover he’s been murdered. The ending, for me, required some suspension of disbelief, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.

Colton Underwood in a screen grab from the trailer for “Coming Out Colton.”

Coming Out Colton (Dec. 3, Netflix)

Whether or not you were surprised when former “Bachelor” Colton Underwood came out as gay earlier this year, I’d wager you were at least curious about why a gay man would go on a heterosexual reality show to find a wife. The answer, according to this docuseries, is that for a young Catholic man who grew up without gay role models in a small Illinois town, who absorbed the homophobia of locker rooms as a high school, college and then professional football player, the desire to be straight was powerful enough to drive him to pretend to be so on national TV. This six-episode series shows Colton coming out to his family and friends — and to the world via his “Good Morning America” interview — and trying to find himself and his place within the larger gay community. I get why there’s backlash over the series, both because of Colton’s stalking and harassment of ex-girlfriend Cassie Randolph (which he addresses in the show) and because, as a white, cisgender man, he has a platform denied to many other LGBTQ people. And there’s no question his privilege made coming out easier than it might otherwise have been, but it’s also clear that years of self-denial took a toll on him (including a suicide attempt) and that he seems genuinely willing to make amends for past mistakes. It’s also possible his story will help some other scared, closeted kid out there.

Netflix also has Season 3 of “Lost in Space” (Dec. 1). As it opens, the children of the colonists have been separated from their parents for a year since last season’s robot attack on their ship. And the robots are still out there and they’re gunning for Will Robinson (Maxwell Jenkins).

Odds and Ends

The submarine crew of animated children’s series “Big Blue.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC

CBC Kids and CBC Gem have “Big Blue” (Dec. 4), an animated series that’s meant to “help children understand about the importance of taking care of our planet and each other.” Created by Ghanaian Canadian artist Gyimah Gariba, it follows a submarine crew on underwater adventures, led by Black sister and brother Lettie and Lemo.

The big gun in terms of holiday programming this week is “Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues” (Dec. 3, Apple TV Plus), in which the so-called Queen of Christmas performs her new single “Fall in Love at Christmas” among other songs; hangs with guests like Khalid and Kirk Franklin, and gives an interview alongside her 10-year-old twins, Moroccan and Monroe.

Also in the holiday spirit and closer to home is “The Original Santa Claus Parade” (Dec. 4, 7 p.m., CTV, CTV 2, CP24), filmed inside Canada’s Wonderland and featuring guest performances by Ed Sheeran, Carrie Underwood and more.

If you’re in the mood for more Christmas stuff, Crave has the HBO Max animated series “Santa Inc.” (Dec. 2), about an elf (Sarah Silverman) who’s vying to become the first female Santa Claus.

Crave also has the limited U.K. series “Vigil” (Dec. 5), which I didn’t get to screen. It involves a disappeared fishing trawler and a death on a submarine, and it stars Suranne Jones (“Gentleman Jack,” “Scott & Bailey”) and Rose Leslie (“Game of Thrones”), and shares a couple of executive producers with Brit hit “Line of Duty.”

Speaking of Britcrime shows, another “Game of Thrones” alumnus, Gemma Whelan, stars in “The Tower” (Dec. 1, BritBox) as a detective investigating the deaths of a veteran cop and teenage girl who fall from the roof of a highrise, and the disappearance of a rookie police officer.

Finally, Amazon Prime Video has “Harlem” (Dec. 3), a comedy about four Black best friends — an anthropology professor, a queer dating-app creator, a fashion designer, and a singer/actress — who live and play in the predominantly Black Manhattan neighbourhood. Unfortunately, reviews were embargoed.

NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve cross-checked the times where possible, 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. The Odds and Ends section includes shows that I have not watched.

Joey gets his girl, Josh gets rivals on Bachelor in Paradise Canada

November 28, 2021 /
Joey Kirchner and Vay Paquette share some news on “Bachelor in Paradise Canada.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos courtesy of Citytv

You could say that Sunday’s “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” was about loyalty and the rewards or consequences thereof.

Joey proved his loyalty to Vay and got to leave Paradise with his girl.

Josh proved his loyalty to Lisa and was rewarded by . . . her going on a date with another guy. Then, when Josh tried to rekindle his flirtation with Maria — yes, she was still around, I’ll explain later — she got scooped up by another newcomer, raising the prospect of Mr. “Bachelor” in Paradise not getting a rose.

I’m skeptical that Josh will get bounced. I mean, look what happened with Maria. Last week’s episode made it seem as though Josh might give her his rose at Lisa’s expense, but he stuck with Lisa.

By rights, Maria should have gone home along with Bianka and Nicole. Iva had already self-eliminated with the words “I had a blast, but I’m peacing out.”

But then, after the final rose, host Jesse Jones reappeared with a final, final rose, a.k.a. “a special rose for a special lady who deserves another shot at love here in Paradise.” It was up to Josh and the other men, including Kamil, Brendan S, Brendan M, Alex, Joey and Mike, to decide who that lady would be and they chose Maria.

Maria Garcia-Sanchez, right, got to stay thanks to a “special” rose; Bianka Kamber, front, had to go.

The cynic in me thinks that had as much to do with Vay’s continuing jealousy of Maria as with second chances, but there we are.

The next day, Joey was in tears after a sleepless night as Vay continued to give him the cold shoulder over the fact he’d left Vay to go to his friend Maria’s cabin and talk her into sticking around.

Once Vay finally agreed to talk it out with Joey he was extremely contrite, even though I don’t think he had a reason to be.

“I don’t want to be the jealous crazy girlfriend . . . but unfortunately that’s how I felt,” said Vay. “I wish I didn’t care when you spoke about another girl,” she said, adding, “If you want to be with me you need to understand that it comes with a lot of baggage.”

Joey understood and was ready to turn himself into a human luggage rack.

“I hate that I’m the reason you felt the way you did yesterday . . . because I love you,” he said.

“I was trying to be a good person for people in need, but you are my No. 1 priority.”

And with that, the deep freeze was over as Joey and Vay smooched and the other campers cheered. More on them later.

In the meantime, a new dude had ambled into Camp Paradise: 27-year-old engineer and firefighter trainee Connor Rogers from Toronto. And he was Lisa’s type, “a mix between Owen Wilson, Prince Harry and Bradley Cooper,” as she put it.

Connor had the good fortune of arriving just after all the men had disappeared to play basketball, but I doubt Lisa would have been dissuaded from accepting his date even if Josh had been around. She did spare a thought for Josh, however, saying, “If I have a great time with Connor I will actually be worrying about Josh because then I’ll have a hard decision to make.”

Lisa Mancini was vibing with Connor Rogers and I don’t even know if he likes Hawaiian pizza.

Well, wouldn’t you know that the date allowed Lisa, a renowned friend to rodents, to channel her “inner squirrel” on a ropes course? And, more importantly, when she and Connor got to the drinks-on-a-couch part of the date, Lisa opened up to him about the death of her father in 2020, something she said she hadn’t shared with anybody else.

“I’m, like, hopeful that we can keep pursuing this,” Connor said before they shared a kiss, one that Lisa said left her feeling sparks whereas kissing Josh felt “more like a friend.”

Oh dear.

To her credit, Lisa told Josh what was going on after she and Connor returned to the beach and he was . . . totally cool with it.

“If you really like someone, Lisa, I want you to explore that here, honestly,” Josh told her. “I’m in your corner. Whether I’m with you or I’m cheering for you, I’ve got your back.”

How sweet is that?

And the silver lining was that Josh could now explore his feelings for Maria guilt free. Just before Lisa turned up, Josh and Maria had been hanging out by the fire pit, flirting, and had agreed to get to know each other more.

But then along came Karn Kalra, a 30-year-old actor from Toronto. (His credits include “Tuxedo Man #1” in the Oscar-winning movie “Green Book,” playing Saddam Hussein in “The Dictator’s Playbook” and Agent Folson in “The Hot Zone: Anthrax,” so more than “actor” Chris Sutton on “The Bachelorette.”)

Maria Garcia-Sanchez got to go on another date, this time with newcomer Karn Kalra.

And why wouldn’t Maria go on a date with him? Josh has got to be one of the nicest guys in Camp Paradise, but it’s not like he’d given Maria a rose.

She even seemed to have fun tubing with Karn, despite getting thrown out of the tube at least twice and face-planting once, which didn’t look like it tickled.

Karn scored points with Maria for being close to his mom and he said she “checks a lot of the boxes off.”

Still, Maria went for a walk with Josh when she got back to camp and said she had more in common with him, but she stopped short of letting Josh kiss her, pointing out, “You literally just kissed someone the night before.”

Well, yeah, it’s Paradise. And your point is?

We’ll have to wait till next week to find out if Maria agrees to be Josh’s fourth Paradise lip-lock or goes for the clean slate, a.k.a. Karn.

In the meantime, Joey and Vay solidified their bond with a date that involved roasting weenies and marshmallows next to a mini trailer called a Happier Camper (honestly, the product placement on this show is intense).

Vay Paquette goes cowgirl for her honey Joey Kirchner on their date.

Vay showed up in a cropped gingham top, jean short shorts, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, which Joey said made him “happy in a bunch of places.”

“Whoever thought the guy walking in in the pink Speedo would be this amazing man?” said Vay.

We knew that Joey had “something big” to tell Vay, but he’d already popped the L-word and it seemed early for an engagement. It turned out Joey had to leave Paradise for Alberta that night to be best man at his friend’s wedding and he wanted Vay to come with him and meet his family.

“Will you be my plus one?” he asked.

“Of course I’ll come with you,” she replied.

So Joey and Vay rode off into the night after exchanging heartfelt hugs with their cast mates. Damn it, I’m going to miss you, Joey!

Now let’s talk about the other couple who dropped an L-bomb. That would be Brendan S and Illeana.

Brendan Scanzano hasn’t wavered in his devotion to Illeana Pennetto.

Brendan has only had eyes for Illeana since Day 1 so it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that he was talking about getting engaged and asking Illeana for her favourite ring style (princess cut or radius cut, which she had to explain to Brendan).

Illeana appeared to be less gung ho than Brendan, saying that he’d run head first into an engagement without thinking about how things would work outside Paradise, but when Brendan told her he loved her, she replied, “I know you do and I love you too.”

And then there were Kamil and Caitlin.

Caitlin Clemmens and Kamil Nicalek. Is she really having doubts or are producers just messin’?

Kamil planned a surprise for Caitlin with blankets, bubbly and a basket of clementines in honour of the nickname he gave her. And they seemed to be on the same wavelength as far as wanting to be in a committed relationship and yet . . . Caitlin kept expressing doubts: about whether Kamil would “step up” when they were a plane ride away from each other; whether he’d call it quits like he did with Annaliese on U.S. “Bachelor in Paradise”; whether she herself would overcome her instinct to cut and run to avoid getting hurt.

It’s hard to tell if these are genuine obstacles or just editing to make it seem like Caitlin and Kamil won’t leave Paradise together.

In any event, it seems like shit is about to get real, or as real as it can anyway, next week. It seems the committed couples are having serious chats ahead of the last rose ceremony. And it look like there will actually be a rose ceremony. And then Jesse shakes things up by announcing fantasy suites.

Yes, definitely a shakeup considering this has been probably the most chaste season in “Bachelor in Paradise” history.

You can tune in next Sunday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And don’t forget “Bachelor After Show: After Paradise” at 9:30 p.m. If you want to talk Paradise with me you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

A Bachelor is born and a final 4 picked on The Bachelorette

November 24, 2021 /
Michelle Young gets milking lessons with Nayte, Rodney, Martin, Olu and Joe on “The Bachelorette.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC

Michelle Young, who’s just the fourth Black lead in 43 combined “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” seasons, picked her final four in Tuesday’s episode and they’re all men of colour for the first time in franchise history.

It’s just too bad that milestone is being overshadowed by the choice of yet another dull white guy as the next Bachelor.

The good news is that on Tuesday Bachelor Nation finally got its first clue as to why Clayton Echard got the call (still to be officially confirmed by ABC). The bad news is that either ABC is letting fifth graders make its casting decisions or it’s manipulating children.

The kids — four students who’d been taught by Michelle — had the task of choosing one of the remaining eight men for a one-on-one date and they picked Clayton.

No sense getting down on the kids. Clayton did build them a fort out of sheets, pillows and overturned furniture. And as student Luke said, “Clayton has really big muscles. He’d be really good at carrying the groceries in” — definitely a useful skill in a husband.

The kids were also perceptive about who didn’t deserve Miss Young’s time.

 “I don’t really like Martin,” said Kelsey. “I don’t know how to explain it. He’s trying to show off. I don’t know if he’s the right one for Michelle and he wears too much cologne.”

Well, that’s bang on.

The kids, if it was indeed the kids, also planned one of the best dates we’ve seen all season, sending Michelle and Clayton to the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota for a real-life Night at the Museum — minus the exhibits that come to life.

Unfortunately for Clayton, fort-building skills and making up his own animal mating call weren’t enough to snag him a rose and a hometown date.

Clayton Echard and Michelle spent the evening in a natural history museum.

Let’s be honest though, that was a given. Sure, he earned the group date rose on last week’s episode, but with guys like Nayte, Joe, Brandon, Rick and Rodney in the running for hometowns Clayton had an insurmountable amount of catching up to do.

Michelle said he checked all the boxes as far as desirable qualities, but “giving out this rose means I’m ready to meet your family and I don’t feel that I’m able to get there with you in time.”

So what made the producers fall in love with him? His muscles? His earnest confession about being ready to settle down and have a family after five years of focusing on his job to the exclusion of all else?

They key moment in the campaign to win fans over to Clayton came after he’d been eliminated and he got letters from two of the kids urging him not to be sad that Miss Young didn’t choose him, which made him cry and vow he’d do whatever it takes to have a family of his own.

Thoughts: why only two letters, was the vote for Clayton not unanimous? (Ahmed, for instance, seemed partial to Rodney and his shaved nipples.)

These letters seemed about as genuine as the wishes that Michelle and Rick pulled out of a wish box on their date but, even if they were real, Luke and Kelsey wouldn’t have written them without guidance from production.

Jayleen and Kelsey, two members of the Bachelor selection committee.

“You will probably meet someone else and fall in love and have lots of kids and be a great dad,” wrote Kelsey, stopping just short of “And you’ll be the next Bachelor.” Just to hammer the point home, the end credits showed Jayleen, impressed that Clayton let her paint his fingernails red, telling a producer, “He’ll be the next Bachelor.”

Yeah, OK, we get it.

Time to move on to what the point of the season is supposed to be: Michelle finding a husband.

To that end, she took Rick, Rodney, Nayte, Joe, Martin and Olu on a farm date, ostensibly also picked by the kids, on which they milked cows, bottle fed calves, churned butter and shovelled shit.

But the real poop got flung around at the after-party. Martin — still pontificating about his “miscommunication” with Michelle over his sexist comment that Miami women were high maintenance — told Rick and Olu that Michelle had not been paying attention, which was “why she perceived everything a little bit incorrectly.”

“There’s a lot of things that have made me question what she really stands for, I guess,” Martin said. And then he mentioned Michelle’s group date poem, the one in which she shared her hurt at being the “token Black girl” at school, and said it showed there was “something deep inside her that maybe she hasn’t worked past and I think that’s immature.”

Michelle in one of her final conversations with Martin Gelbspan.

Martin, of course, despite his boast that he was brutally honest, didn’t share any of that BS with Michelle but just blah blahed about how she was an amazing woman and he wanted to introduce her to his family and friends.

But Olu spilled the tea — “I just want that right man for you,” he said and I believed him — and Michelle confronted Martin.

Martin at first denied the “immature” comment and then tried to spin it as being about the “difference between being insecure and having insecurities,” which doesn’t even make sense. And he kept talking over Michelle, then apologized for “maybe speaking over you” when she called him on it.

I doubt Martin would have got a hometown rose even if Olu hadn’t spoken up, but it was nice to see Michelle put him in his place before showing him the door.

The real Martin came out in the SUV of Shame. Michelle was making a mistake, he said, but “at this point I wouldn’t even care to give her a shot . . . like a woman like that does not deserve my time.”

Can’t wait to see you get your misogynistic ass handed to you at Men Tell All, dude.

Both butter and Michelle were putty in Nayte Olukoya’s hands.

In any event, the only man who was getting the rose on the group date was Nayte, and it wasn’t for his butter churning or the fact he put his back out on manure duty. He told Michelle he was “definitely, seriously, strongly falling for you” and she replied that she was “really tumbling down a hill so fast falling for you as well.”

So if he wasn’t before, Nayte is now the man to beat.

Next up was a one-on-one with Brandon, the main event of which was Michelle taking him to her childhood home while her parents were out.

Brandon Jones and Michelle before her parents “caught” them.

We’re supposed to believe that Michelle’s idea to hang out in her parents’ Jacuzzi, with Brandon in a borrowed pair of her dad’s trunks no less, was spontaneous and that it was a complete coincidence that her folks surprised them there mid-smooch. As if.

To be honest, I’ve always found Brandon’s intensity when it comes to wooing Michelle a little unsettling and, on Tuesday, he dialled it up to 11 by asking for her folks’ permission to marry her — like, bro, you didn’t even know yet if you were getting a hometown date!

The sentimentality continued at dinner, where Brandon talked about how much he wished Michelle could have met his late grandfather, who was his best friend, and gifted her a bracelet that his mom made for him to give Michelle “if I truly think that you’re the one.”

“Michelle Ann Young, I’m falling in love with you,” he declared.

Michelle handed over the rose, obviously, telling Brandon “I can see you being my best friend.”

She also said, “It’s very possible that I could fall in love with Brandon,” but she won’t and man, is he going to be crushed when he gets sent home.

All that was left to do was hand out the other two roses, which Michelle did after cancelling the cocktail party, a move that’s always supposed to come as a shock but never does.

Obviously her fellow Minnesotan Joe Coleman — of whom she said after the farm date, “Clearly Joe knows how to handle tests” — was a lock for a hometown. I figured it was between Rick and Rodney for the final rose and it was Rodney’s.

Despite how much Bachelor Nation loves Olu — and they’ve been lobbying for weeks for him as Bachelor instead of Clayton — he never had a one-on-one with Michelle, a clear indication he wasn’t her guy.

When Michelle said letting Rick and Olu go was her “most difficult goodbye yet,” you believed her.

On to hometowns — and will Michelle actually go to their hometowns? — and an assortment of skeptical family members.

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

Watchable Nov. 22 to 28, 2021

November 22, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Magic Shadows, Elwy Yost: A Life in Movies (Nov. 27, 8 p.m., TVO and TVO.org)

Late TV host Elwy Yost with son Graham Yost at the 1994 premiere of “Speed,” which Graham wrote. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of TVO

Everyone who’s not a baby boomer (or older) will have to forgive me while I indulge in some nostalgia this week. Between this and my recommendation, sight unseen, of the Disney Beatles documentary (which probably would have been my pick of the week had I seen it), I realize I’m dating myself.

But if you ever spent a Saturday night watching a genial, bespectacled man introduce screenings of classic films, alongside his own interviews with the people who made them, this documentary will be a welcome trip down memory lane.

Directed by Karen Shopsowitz, it comes 10 years after Elwy Yost left us and 22 years after he stopped hosting “Saturday Night at the Movies.”

It may be hard to imagine in the era of on-demand everything, but the show was must-see TV for anyone interested in movies. And though the interviews here are with Canadian fans of Elwy’s — including filmmaker Ron Mann, Greg Godovitz of rock ban Goddo, “Degrassi” creator Linda Schuyler and Elwy’s sons, Christopher and writer-producer Graham — appreciation spread beyond this country’s borders.

The doc reveals a man who was not only smitten with movies, a passion that he made contagious on “Saturday Night” and his other series, “Magic Shadows,” but who was a beloved husband, father and co-worker.

And if this tribute piques your interest, head on over to the Retrontario YouTube channel, where you can watch a few of Elwy’s interviews with Hollywood greats, including legendary director John Huston and beloved comedian John Candy.

True Story (Nov. 24, Netflix)

Wesley Snipes and Kevin Hart in “True Story.” PHOTO CREDIT: Adam Rose/Netflix

The logline for this miniseries says “one of the world’s most famous comedians is forced to answer the question of how far he’ll go to protect what he has.”

The answer is very far, but I’m not allowed to tell you what that means since the answers are considered spoilers.

The question for me: what is the show saying beyond the plot twists that see comedian Kid, played by Kevin Hart, make an escalating series of bad decisions after an initial bad decision in a hotel room after a boozy night out?

The answer: nothing that deep.

It’s not that famous comedian Hart does a bad job as a dramatic actor, but I can’t get a handle on who Kid is beneath the surface, i.e. rich and famous. Thus the choices he makes seem less like potentially soul-shattering, desperate measures and more just the cost of keeping his multi-billion-dollar career intact.

Wesley Snipes fares a little better as brother Carlton, who has to tamp down his resentment while doing Kid’s bidding, lest the largesse that keeps him afloat gets cut off.

I only watched four of the seven episodes, but I gather the series gets even twistier before it’s through.

Netflix also has Season 2 “Masters of the Universe: Revelation” (Nov. 23); Season 4 of real estate reality show “Selling Sunset” (Nov. 24); Season 5 of animated comedy “F Is for Family” (Nov. 25); new anime series “Super Crooks” (Nov. 25); and “School of Chocolate” (Nov. 26), in which Amaury Guichon tries to do for chocolatiers what “The Great British Baking Show” did for bakers, but without the stakes (nobody gets sent home) and not as much of the charm.

The Beatles: Get Back (Nov. 25, Disney Plus)

Beatles Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison play a rooftop concert in 1969 in footage from “The Beatles: Get Back.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd.

I’m breaking a rule here in writing up a TV series that I haven’t yet seen — aside from the trailers and sneak peeks that are out there.

The screeners for this three-part extravaganza (which I’ve read runs almost eight hours in total) aren’t being made available till Monday and, even then, reviews are embargoed until Thursday when it debuts.

But when an Oscar-winning filmmaker like Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings”) creates a documentary out of unseen footage of one of the biggest bands in the world it seems to me it’s worthy of attention.

Whether you think the Beatles were one of the greatest rock bands ever (and personally, I’m not a diehard fan), the 60-some hours of footage shot in January 1969, of the Beatles writing and recording 14 new songs, and giving their final live performance on a rooftop in London, represent music history in the making.

Note that the other two parts of the doc debut Nov. 26 and 27.

Disney Plus also has its latest Marvel superhero series “Hawkeye” (Nov. 24), which I didn’t screen (and probably just as well because I hear through the grapevine that the conditions to do were alarmingly prohibitive); the documentary “Becoming Cousteau” (Nov. 24) about famous underwater explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau (his 1960s-’70s TV series “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” is another blast from my past); and the animated sitcom “Solar Opposites” (Nov. 22).

Odds and Ends

Iain Glen of “Game of Thrones” and Kim Engelbrecht in “Reyka.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy CBC Gem

South African drama “Reyka” (Nov. 26, CBC Gem) isn’t your standard detective series in that the titular lead (Kim Engelbrecht) was kidnapped as a child and has a somewhat unsettling relationship with her jailed abductor, played by Iain Glen, Jorah Mormont on “Game of Thrones.” She also has a child she struggles to raise while investigating the murders of six women left to rot in a sugar cane field.

CBC Gem also has “On the Spectrum” (Nov. 26), an Israeli dramedy about three roommates on the autism spectrum, and “Write Around the World” (Nov. 26), in which British actor Richard E. Grant travels to France, Spain and Italy following in the footsteps of great authors.

HBO and Crave have a few things I didn’t get a chance to preview, including the docuseries “Black and Missing” (Nov. 23, 8 p.m., HBO) about a foundation of the same name that highlights the cases of missing Black girls and women in America. There’s also another instalment in HBO’s “Music Box” series, “DMX: Don’t Try to Understand” (Nov. 26, Crave), about a year in the life of rapper Earl “DMX” Simmons, who died in April at the age of 50. Plus Season 2 of HBO’s “How to With John Wilson” debuts Nov. 26 at 10 p.m. And if it’s not too early for holiday fare, you can check out “8-Bit Christmas” (Nov. 24, Crave), a new family comedy set in 1980s Chicago, starring Neil Patrick Harris and Steve Zahn, and directed by Canadian Michael Dowse (“Goon”).

Speaking of Christmas, Apple TV Plus has the documentary “‘Twas the Fight Before Christmas” (Nov. 26), about a Christmas-loving man in Idaho whose neighbours threatened to sue him over his holiday light show.

Amazon Prime Video has the documentary “Burning” (Nov. 24) about the devastating Australian bushfires of 2019 and 2020; the docuseries “The Curse of Von Dutch” (Nov. 26) about the rise and fall of the company behind those trucker hats; and Season 3 of assassin drama “Hanna” (Nov. 24).

And finally, if you’re into shows set in high school, the “Saved by the Bell” reboot returns for its second season Nov. 25 at 8 p.m. on W.

NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve cross-checked the times where possible, 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.

Juggling women and balls on Bachelor in Paradise Canada

November 22, 2021 /
Brendan Morgan showed that women weren’t the only thing he could keep up in the air
on “Bachelor in Paradise Canada.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos courtesy of Citytv

Never mind the juggling, singing, dancing, piano playing, guitar shredding and the lame “comedy” in Sunday’s “Camp Paradise Twisted Talent Show,” the real talent this late in any season of “Bachelor in Paradise” is for a newcomer to get a rose.

Of the five surplus women who joined the cast of “Paradise Canada,” the only one who seemed like she might pull it off — emphasis on might — was Maria Garcia-Sanchez.

But if you think Brendan Morgan is her potential rose daddy, think again.

Sure, the last we saw of Brendan M last week was him ignoring main squeeze Angela to spend extra time with Maria, with whom he’d just returned from a date. But it didn’t take long for Maria — and us — to figure out she’d been played, with Angela and Brendan recommitting to each other, inasmuch as someone who’s still yapping about having the freedom to “pursue other options” can commit.

Angela Amezcua and Brendan Morgan toast to the future, whatever that turns out to be.

Then, hello, Josh started chatting up Maria, reviving the possibility of her getting a rose and marking himself as the official “Paradise Canada” stud since he’d gone on two dates, kissed three women and was now checking out a fourth.

But wasn’t Josh coupled up with Lisa? Well yes and no.

Josh said he cared about Lisa but didn’t know “what kind of feelings those are.” Meanwhile, he saw potential with Maria and told her he wanted to explore it.

But the exploration got short-circuited the night of the rose ceremony when Maria had a meltdown, told Josh she wanted to go home and then slammed her way into her cabin to start packing her stuff. More on that later.

She wasn’t the only newbie who picked flight over fight.

Sasanet, who had a disastrous date with Mike last episode, was there for a good time, not a long time, as the theme song says.

Sasanet says farewell to Camp Paradise with affirmations and a big ass glass of wine.

“I had fun, I met amazing people, however the men just were not on my level,” Sasa said.

She took leave of her cast mates with a bit of sassy humour — “I’m happy to have been here and met everyone, well most of you at least” — and some parting affirmations. They’d all find love, happiness, luxury, glamour and wonderful lives, she said. And then she was off to find the first of the three husbands a psychic told her she was going to have.

And now let’s talk about the fight part of the equation. That would be Iva, who wasn’t willing to leave Paradise without one.

Editing, of course, is everything on these shows. We’d just listened to Josh tell Maria that he was “a quiet person” and that “really energetic, like, loud people tire me out” when who should materialize in front of him but the hyper energetic Iva?

Never mind not beating about the bush; Iva beat the bush into bits. She told Josh she was jealous he was flirting with other girls, that she liked him and didn’t like any other guys, and asked, “Are you still into me?”

Which presupposes that Josh was into her to begin with.

He wouldn’t tell her point blank that she wasn’t getting his rose, even though she wasn’t, but he recommended she pursue “other things.” And the other thing was Mike.

Iva Mikulic makes her pitch for Mike Ogilvie to dump Stacy for her.

Mack Truck Mike, meet Titan Truck Iva.

Iva told Mike she had come to Camp Paradise for a fresh start after being “stuck on the same guy for the past three years”; she wanted to fall in love, a couple of kids, a nice big house and a nice big yard — is that all? — and she asked Mike if there was “a way for me to convince you that you should, like, explore this with me?”

Mike diplomatically told Iva he couldn’t give her an answer.

“She’s a very aggressive person,” he commented. Ya think?

Iva also told Mike he was “smoking hot,” but he declined her invitation to “kiss and see if we can vibe.”

Bartender Kevin Wendt and fiancee Astrid Loch judged the talent show.

During the talent show — overseen by bartender Kevin Wendt and his fiancee Astrid Loch (who welcomed their baby the night before “Paradise” aired!) — Brendan S, as part of a cringey attempt at a comedy roast with best bud Kamil, suggested Iva had another motive for coming to Paradise: to further her music career. Hey, she wouldn’t be the first.

Iva could at least sing, as could Joey and Vay. Josh played a mean piano and Mike unleashed his inner metal god on the guitar, complete with crotch grab. Lisa drew clever caricatures of her fellow campers.

But the winner was Brendan M for his shirtless juggling and doing a yoga pose called the locust that, well, you can check it out in the photo above.

As impressive as that was, Brendan’s win also fit the storyline of him returning to Angela after his dalliance with Maria since the prize was a date. And it didn’t hurt that Angela’s good friend Astrid was one of the judges.

Angela confided in Astrid, her former “Bachelor” and “Bachelor in Paradise” pal, about her hurt over Brendan M taking Maria out, not to mention Brendan’s annoyance over Angela being hurt.

“The Paradise experience to me is meeting someone that you’re gonna build a life with after this, not dating a bunch of random girls,” Astrid said.

Except Brendan still seemed to be thinking about the random girls when he and Angela finally talked things out during their dinner date.

He told Angela his intentions were good in going on the date with Maria, but when asked what those intentions were, Brendan M said, “to give myself a fair opportunity to see if there was a connection there. For me to get the most out of this, I think it’s only right for me to pursue other options. At the same time, it doesn’t take away from what you and I have. I was a bit upset at the fact that you looked at it that way.”

What? That Angela looked at you pursuing your options with Maria as potentially detrimental to your relationship with her? Gee, can’t imagine why she’d think that.

To make matters worse, when Angela asked Brendan if he was done exploring other relationships, he said, “I feel as though I am. I also feel like I deserve the freedom to be able to explore something.” So no, then.

Don’t ask me how you go from that to Angela and Brendan agreeing to “move forward with each other.” Colour me super skeptical.

You want to know who hasn’t explored other options the whole time he’s been on the beach? Joey.

Joey Kirchner and Vay Paquette: not “just a Paradise fling.”

As he and Vay snuggled in a Muskoka chair, Joey told her he was falling in love with her. “I am too, 1,000 per cent,” Vay replied. “I can spend the rest of my life with you, I already know,” she said.

As heartwarming as that is, there was one adorable Colombian-Canadian obstacle to Joey and Vay attaining post-Paradise bliss. Vay couldn’t seem to shake her jealousy of Joey’s friendship with Maria.

Josh, meanwhile, still appeared to be into Maria, taking her for a walk away from the other campers with the rose ceremony looming. But Maria was so pissed that she’d wasted her date on Brendan M that she seemed to transfer that distrust to Josh. When he complimented her beauty and her personality, she replied skeptically, “If you want to get to know me, that’s on you. If you don’t, like, it’s fine.”

“Obviously, I do,” said Josh. Maria’s response to that was an eye roll.

Maria Garcia-Sanchez at the talent show with Bianka Kamber, a.k.a. the Invisible Woman.

Josh, bless him, kept trying, but then Maria started crying, told him, “I really want to go home, this is so dumb,” and ditched Josh to go start packing up her stuff.

It was Joey who talked her down, following Maria into her cabin to dispense hugs and advice. He was convinced she still had a shot with Josh and got her to agree to stick around.

Josh, meanwhile, was getting advice from Mike, who told him to figure out “what makes you happy.” Would it be Maria and the chance of “something incredible” with her, or would he keep working on what he had with Lisa, notwithstanding that seemed more like a friendship than a romance?

We’ll presumably find out next week when there’s — maybe? — a rose ceremony.

In the meantime, Vay gave Joey the cold shoulder when he returned from his chat with Maria. Brendan M, of all people, seemed to take Vay’s side, saying Joey should have been a little more conscious of how Vay was feeling.

Excuse me while I stop to ponder the irony of the man behind the feelings that put Maria in need of consoling, the man who ignored his own girlfriend’s feelings to take Maria out in the first place, suggesting another dude wasn’t being sensitive about a woman’s feelings. Wow.

“Don’t keep mentioning the same girl over and over and over and over again. It makes me feel like shit,” Vay complained.

Sorry Vay, but I’m with Joey. “I clearly don’t give a fuck about Maria in a romantic way; platonically yes,” he told, yes, Brendan M.

Vay, honey, time to put your big girl panties on and euthanize that little green monster. Joey seems like a really nice guy who was just trying to help an old friend. That supersized jealousy is not a good look.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere based on next week’s promo showing more of Vay’s whining about Maria. And with less than a week left till the final rose, Brendan S is talking engagement and Caitlin is still talking about whether Kamil will step up. Ugh. And two more guys show up, with one particularly cocky dude infringing on whatever Josh has with whomever he has it with.

You can tune in next Sunday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And don’t forget “Bachelor After Show: After Paradise” at 9:30 p.m. If you want to talk Paradise with me you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Nayte gets one-on-one, Chris S gets bum’s rush on Bachelorette

November 17, 2021 /
Did the producers have it in for Chris Sutton, fifth from right? He had the most ridiculous
costume on a Viking-themed group date. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Has there ever been a more perfect visual metaphor than Chris S dressed as a horse’s ass on Tuesday’s episode of “The Bachelorette”?

I’m hard pressed to think of one considering Chris spent his portion of the episode acting like a posterior.

Let’s review. Last week, Chris disrupted the cocktail party by telling Michelle Young that some guys, i.e. Nayte, thought they had it “in the bag,” primarily because Nayte commented that it wasn’t a question of if he got a one-on-one date but when.

Well, duh, Nayte was right: the first impression rose winner got Tuesday’s second one-on-one (Michelle’s fellow Minnesotan, Joe Coleman, got the first, more on that later).

The minute Chris realized that Nayte wasn’t on the group date card, he looked like he’d swallowed a lemon.

“I went out on a limb for her and told her the honest truth, which is what she wanted to hear and asked from everyone else in the house,” he told the producer-enabler on the other side of the camera, self-righteously tapping out his points with one of his fingers.

“Everything I said fell on deaf ears. The way things played out I feel like I got the short end of the stick.”

Well, he definitely got an end on the group date.

Chris, Casey, Rodney, Martin, Leroy, Rick, Clayton, Olu and Brandon met Michelle at the home of the Minnesota Vikings football team — yes, the group had relocated from Palm Springs to Michelle’s hometown of Minneapolis — where instead of the NFL Vikings they met three older dudes dressed up as ancient Vikings.

The date participants had to put on costumes and do things like yell really loudly, throw logs, eat disgusting fermented herring and arm wrestle. But all the guys except Chris got to dress more or less like Vikings; Chris, the least physically imposing man in the bunch, wore horse’s legs and hoofs with an inflatable horse rear end.

Chris Sutton in a tug of war with Casey Woods. Go ahead, try not to laugh at that silly image.

I’m thinking either the producers were having a laugh at Chris’s expense or trying to compound his humiliation so he’d go off the deep end. Having him arm wrestle the absolutely ripped Olu undoubtedly helped with that mission.

By the time the group segued to the after-party at the historic Semple Mansion, Chris was in full brood mode over the fact he didn’t get the one-on-one despite all the “good information” he’d given Michelle about Nayte. And he claimed he really wanted to talk to her about that but made no attempt to do so.

This was no doubt all part of the evil production plan, although Chris mouthed the word “Wow” when Michelle announced she was wrapping up the party despite not having spoken to Chris. (Clayton, who’d hulked his way into being declared a “true Viking” earlier in the day, got the date rose for telling Michelle about his admiration for his parents. As you know, Michelle is really into parents.)

Absurdly, despite having had a whole evening when he could have grabbed a few minutes of Michelle’s time, Chris decided to wait until the next day and interrupt her date with Nayte to say his piece.

Well, perhaps decided is the wrong word. He couldn’t have known where Michelle and Nayte were having dinner without production being on side, so whether he was goaded into living out his white saviour fantasy or was following a villain script (he is reportedly an aspiring actor) it obviously wasn’t entirely his idea.

Michelle and Nayte had been having a pretty deep discussion, with Michelle telling Nayte about a past relationship that was so toxic she couldn’t eat and thought she had a disease. They had just shared a kiss when Michelle looked over Nayte’s shoulder with a WTF expression on her face as Chris walked up to the table.

She agreed to step outside with Chris, who basically told her he was pissed she’d chosen Nayte over him, although he didn’t put it exactly like that.

“I came here to say I warned you and I don’t want you to make the wrong decision,” i.e. give a rose to Nayte, Chris told her.

With eloquence and far more patience than Chris deserved, Michelle told him she could make her own decisions.

“I do appreciate you wanting to look out for me but also, at the same time, I can speak for myself,” Michelle said. “And I want a man who’s going to stand and support me when I speak and not a man who’s going to speak for me.”

Also, “as a female of colour there’s a lot of situations where people speak for me and my voice isn’t heard.”

She made herself heard in this case. Telling Chris she didn’t see their “relationship” progressing, Michelle walked him as far as the top of the escalator and then returned to give Nayte the date rose, saying their chemistry “is undeniable, unlike anything that I’ve ever felt before.”

“I’m very crazy about Nayte,” Michelle said, adding that he was starting to feel like her person.

Nayte Olukoya cemented his frontrunner status after his date with Michelle.

Besides, Nayte had already been approved by people with way more cred than Chris: Michelle’s two best friends. They joined Michelle and Nayte earlier in the day on a boat ride on Lake Minnetonka (note: Michelle, as she has all season, did the driving) and asked him allegedly hard questions. The first question was clearly a plant from production: “Is there anyone here that you think could be here for the wrong reasons?”

That gave Nayte an opening to talk about Chris S and explain that he didn’t really think he had it in the bag; he was just confident because he knew “there’s something going on” with Michelle.

Michelle’s friends clearly agreed, gushing about Michelle’s and Nayte’s “amazing natural chemistry.”

“I love the way you guys look at each other,” said Allie.

Let’s backtrack a bit and talk about Joe, the season’s other frontrunner.

For their date, Michelle took him on a walk down memory lane — after they’d stopped by a Minnesota Twins game where she threw out the first pitch and kissed Joe for the Jumbotron — visiting her old high school, where they smooched while towering over her old locker, admired her photo in the trophy case and played one-on-one basketball in the gym (yeah, she beat him; in a dress, she pointed out).

“I feel like Joe would have been my crush in high school,” Michelle said.

The main event came over dinner where Joe told Michelle how a college football injury had led to a couple of operations, getting seven screws and a plate in his left foot, and anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide when he couldn’t perform the same way on the basketball court and had to eventually quit the sport.

Michelle and Joe both shed tears.

“You give up so much for the sport that you love. To have something take you out of it before you’re ready to be taken out of it is a pain like not everyone will understand,” said Michelle, herself a former college basketball player.

Naturally Michelle gave Joe the date rose, saying her feelings for him had grown tremendously.

They finished the night with a smoochy Ferris wheel ride.

Joe Coleman was rewarded with a rose for opening up to Michelle on their date.

There were three roses already spoken for and five to give out going into the rose ceremony — yes, if you’re keeping track, we’re five for five in the rose ceremony to episode ratio.

The only thing you really need to know is that Martin had another bout of foot-in-mouth disease that I thought for sure was going to get his butt sent home.

First, he mentioned hearing Michelle give compliments to other men and wondering if she meant the ones she gave him.

“Do you think I would blow smoke up your ass?” asked Michelle. Uh, no.

Then Martin started yapping about women in Miami being high maintenance for allegedly expecting men to do everything for them.

Men, he said, don’t usually “go into a relationship saying ‘Hey, you’re gonna take care of me,'” which made Michelle laugh.

Excuse me, Martin, do you know any men?

And, then as the realization dawned that he was digging himself a hole, Martin told Michelle he knew she was different. Not exactly a convincing recovery.

Alas, he collected a rose along with Rick, Olu, Brandon and Rodney. Casey and Leroy went home.

I’m not entirely sure what next week will bring since the promo was about the rest of the season, but it looks like the other guys aren’t done targeting Nayte. Leave the Canadian guy alone, eh?

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

Watchable Nov. 15 to 21, 2021

November 15, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Jagged (Nov. 19, Crave)

Alanis Morissette during the “Jagged Little Pill” tour in 1996.
PHOTO CREDIT: Epiphany Music/Alanis Morissette/Courtesy HBO

I can’t pretend to know what Alanis Morissette finds offensive about the documentary “Jagged” beyond her statement that it’s “a reductive take” on her story made by someone with a “salacious agenda,” by which I presume she means director Alison Klayman.

It seems to me every documentary is somewhat reductive. No filmmaker, no matter how well intentioned, can capture all the nuances of another person’s lived experience.

As for “salacious,” that likely refers to Morissette’s headline-making revelation that she experienced “statutory rape” when she was a 15-year-old in the music industry being pursued by older men. There’s also a segment on the speculation around the identity of the man whom Morissette went “down on” in a theatre in her revenge anthem “You Oughta Know.”

But those bits are just small pieces of the whole.

“Jagged,” which is about the making of the blockbuster 1995 album “Jagged Little Pill,” is an admiring take on one woman’s triumph in an industry that didn’t entirely know what to do with her.

If you haven’t listened to the album in a while, this doc will remind you just how good it is.

It’s rather gobsmacking to think Morissette was just 19 when she was dumped by label MCA, which wanted to confine her to the dance pop mould of her early hits, moved to L.A., met producer Glen Ballard and started writing the songs that became “Jagged Little Pill.”

It’s still one of the bestselling albums of all time, having sold more than 33 million copies to date.

There’s plenty of documentation here of just how massive a star Morissette was in the 1990s, including concert footage and backstage video of her and her band, which included future Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

Hawkins is among the admirers in the doc — others include filmmaker Kevin Smith and Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson — who extol Morissette’s achievement as well as the doors she kicked open for female singer/songwriters to come.

Ballard recounts how nobody would sign Morissette until Maverick Records, Madonna’s label, and a young A&R guy named Guy Oseary came along. Things started to snowball after L.A. radio station KROQ began playing “You Oughta Know,” the album’s first single, with second single “Hand in My Pocket” cementing Morissette’s fame internationally.

It wasn’t all adulation, of course. The film touches on her pigeonholing by media of the day as an “angry white female,” to quote Rolling Stone’s headline.

If you’ve heard the whole album you know that most of the songs on “Jagged Little Pill” are not angry, but even if they were, so what? Female anger deserves to be expressed and listened to.

Morissette herself says she was writing “not to punish,” but to express feelings and get them “out of my body because I didn’t want to get sick.”

Only Morissette herself can say how successful she was at that endeavour, but the older woman we see in the film seems clear-eyed, self-possessed and confident, a survivor.

I’m sorry she doesn’t like the doc. To me, it’s an interesting look back at a time when a young Canadian woman ruled the music world.

Short Takes

Sally Lindsay as Jean and Steve Edge as Dom in “The Madame Blanc Mysteries.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Cassar/Acorn TV

The Madame Blanc Mysteries (Nov. 15, Acorn TV)

There’s an exoticism to the title of this new Acorn original, but its namesake — Mrs. White in English — is as down to earth as they come. Longtime “Coronation Street” actor (and “Scott & Bailey” co-creator) Sally Lindsay created and stars in the series as an antiques dealer whose husband dies in mysterious circumstances, leaving her virtually penniless and forced to relocate to their one surviving property in the fictional French town of Saint Victoire. Naturally, while trying to untangle the circumstances of her husband’s death, Jean White gets pulled into other mysteries involving both murder and antiques. Her partner in solving crime is local taxi driver and handyman Dom (Steve Edge) and the town is peopled with colourful eccentrics including, most notably, chateau owners Jeremy and Judith Lloyd James (fellow “Corrie” alum Robin Askwith and Sue Holderness of “Only Fools and Horses”). It’s a charming addition to the British detective series canon.

From left, Renee Rapp, Alyah Chanelle Scott, Pauline Chalamet and Amrit Kaur.
PHOTO CREDIT: Jessica Brooks/HBO Max

The Sex Lives of College Girls (Nov. 18, 10 p.m., Crave)

Mindy Kaling continues her campaign for TV world domination with this HBO Max comedy she co-created with Justin Noble, a writer on her Netflix hit “Never Have I Ever.” Once again, the female POV is front and centre, with four young women from extremely different worlds thrown together as roommates at prestigious Essex College. Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) is a chill athlete with a senator for a mother and a taste for older men; Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet, sister of Timothee) is an earnest small-town nerd and sexual naif; Leighton (Renee Rapp) is a New York sophisticate with a secret and, initially at least, disdain for her roomies; and Bela (Amrit Kaur) is a former “Indian loser with acne, sweaty armpits and glasses” who’s reinventing herself as a sex-positive, aspiring comedy writer. There’s sex, yes, but it’s much less daring than, say, Netflix’s “Sex Education.” The show’s mainly about four engaging young women learning to love and trust themselves, and lean on each other.

From left, Alexander Rosenberg, Edgar Valentine, Andi Kovel, Cat Burns and Nao Yamamoto
in “Blown Away: Christmas.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix © 2021

Blown Away: Christmas (Nov. 19, Netflix)

If you’re a fan of the glass-blowing competition series “Blown Away,” this Christmas edition will probably jingle your bells. It encompasses just four episodes with five contestants, returnees from the first two seasons of the regular show. The hot shop is all decked out for the holidays, the challenges are Christmas-themed and eliminated contestants have to remove their stockings from the mantel, but otherwise the series hits all the familiar beats. “Queer Eye” design expert Bobby Berk hosts and Canadian glass artist Katherine Gray is back as the resident evaluator. A little blow, blow, blow to go with your ho ho ho.

Also on Netflix is “Cowboy Bebop” (Nov. 19), based on a previous animated show and movie that were themselves adapted from an anime series. It stars John Cho as bounty hunter Spike Spiegel. If you like splashy violence, characters that feel like cartoons rather than people and quips in place of dialogue, enjoy. Me, I’d give it a miss.

Netflix also has “Tiger King 2” on Nov. 17, continuing the sensationalistic story of Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin and the other folks who got famous in the first docuseries. It was not provided for critics to screen in advance.

Odds and Ends

Sonequa Martin-Green and David Ajala in “Star Trek: Discovery.” PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Gibson/CBS

I’d love to tell you about Season 4 of “Star Trek: Discovery,” having watched the first two action-packed episodes, but reviews are embargoed until Nov. 18, the day it debuts on CTV Sci-Fi Channel at 9 p.m.

Reviews are also embargoed for Amazon Prime Video’s big-budget fantasy series “The Wheel of Time” (Nov. 19), based on the novels by Robert Jordan, which stars Rosamund Pike as the leader of a powerful, all-female organization called the Aes Sedai that’s looking for the “Dragon Reborn.”

Yep, another embargo for “Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson” (Nov. 19, 10 p.m., FX), the latest “The New Times Presents” project about Janet Jackson’s famous “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show and the hysteria that followed.

I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to screen “A Life in Ten Pictures” (Nov. 19, CBC Gem), which examines the lives of famous people with the starting point being photographs of each. The subjects include Freddie Mercury, Elizabeth Taylor, Amy Winehouse, Muhammad Ali, John Lennon and Tupac Shakur.

Hollywood Suite is paying tribute to great Canadian filmmaker Norman Jewison, screening a selection of his movies beginning Nov. 19 at 9 p.m. with the comedy “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.” Others airing between Nov. 19 and 21 include “In the Heat of the Night,” “Best Friends,” “A Soldier’s Story,” “Moonstruck” (one of my personal favourites) and “Only You.”

Edited to update my review of “The Sex Lives of College Girls.”

Three new women shake up Bachelor in Paradise Canada

November 15, 2021 /
Sunday’s “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” was rocky for Kamil Nicalek and Caitlin Clemmens
and Angela Amezcua and Brendan Morgan. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos courtesy of Citytv

Beware the quiet ones.

When three new women infiltrated Camp Paradise on Sunday’s “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” it wasn’t the two more aggressive ladies who caused the most disruption; it was the “really nice girl.”

There are now five more women than men on the beach — a bit of overkill, no, “Bachelor in Paradise Canada”?

And the three newbies all had date cards, but only one of the dates threatened the established order. More on that later.

As the episode opened, the campers discussed the flirtations of the night before (which you can read about here) and Nicole, one of last week’s newcomers, lamented that the people who were coupled up — essentially everyone but her and fellow new arrival Bianka — seemed unlikely to “budge.”

Bianka, who as a “Bachelor Canada” winner was kind of a marquee attraction when the cast was first announced, has had hardly any screen time and appeared to not even be trying to kindle any romantic sparks.

But that state of affairs didn’t deter Halifax fan contestant Sasanet, a.k.a. Sasa, who declared “Everyone’s gonna be obsessed with me” and who, in Brendan M’s words, wasn’t afraid to step on toes. She figured every man was fair game until they were engaged.

Mike Ogilvie reminded Sasanet Iassu a bit of Thor on their date.

So she chose “beautiful man” Mike for her date and Mike got to show off the physique she so admired on a slip and slide, even pulling Sasa along the slide at one point using just his brawny arms — “like Thor,” she said — as she held onto his ankles.

“Was he as good as Thor? No, but he met my expectations,” Sasa quipped.

Alas, it would have taken all of the Avengers to pull something resembling a decent conversation out of Mike and Sasa. That expression that opposites attract? Not in this case.

City girl Sasa made it clear she preferred a walk in the mall to hiking and when Mike asked her if she liked hardcore metal music, she replied, “Absolutely not, it stresses me out.”

Mike couldn’t wait to return to Stacy. “I’m very thrilled to be coming home to you,” he told her.

In the meantime, host Jesse Jones had announced the “Camp Paradise Bonfire,” which involved the campers sitting around a bonfire and asking each other anonymous questions that had been dropped into a box.

From left, Lisa, Illeana, Bianka, Vay and Sessa at the bonfire, with Josh, Brendan M and Kamil behind.

Mike got asked, “Why didn’t you tell Stacy about your interest in Caitlin before the rose ceremony?” His lame answer: he couldn’t find Caitlin to talk to for a week, which I guess is better than “I waited because production told me to.”

And then for Kamil: “Do you not realize all the girls notice you checking them out or do you just not care?”

Kamil hemmed and hawed and then settled on, “I didn’t think I was checking them out, but if that’s the case I guess I’ll admit to it. There’s a lot of beautiful people here in Paradise.”

Finally, Joey not so anonymously had a question for Vay: “Are you falling in love with Joey because I’m falling in love with you.”

Vay said she was definitely getting there although she needed more time because of her trust issues and that made Joey’s heart warm.

You want to know whose heart wasn’t warm? Caitlin’s.

She was brooding over Kamil’s admission to checking people out.

“I want somebody who’s got eyes just for me, like not on everyone else,” she told Kamil.

Kamil was annoyed but apologized, but only for the way he answered the question, which Caitlin called “lacklustre.”

That wasn’t the end of the discussion. Mike and Stacy told Kamil and Caitlin the reason they were being “targeted” by other people was because they spent so much time apart from the rest of the group.

Mike suggested Kamil go on other dates, like Mike had, to be sure his relationship with Caitlin was a “10 out of 10.”

Kamil disagreed. “Once you find something special in life I feel like you should keep it close,” he retorted, adding that he’d be happy to leave Paradise right then and there with Caitlin and make it work in the real world.

“That sounds like love to me. Would you say then you’re in love?” Mike asked.

Neither was willing to fess up to that.

It didn’t end there because the next day Kamil chastised Caitlin for not having his back and making a “big deal” over his checking people out comment. “I don’t feel I need to reassure you all the time,” Kamil said. Caitlin was aghast and said in her confessional she felt like she was being gaslit.

I think Mike’s right. One of these two should go on a date with a different person.

Onwards! A new day brought a new arrival: fan contestant Iva from Calgary.

Iva described herself as “aggressive in my pursuit.” Even “I got shade for days” Joey called her “blunt” for the way she fired questions at the men.

Josh Guvi gets to know Iva Mikulic, perhaps more than he bargained for.

But Josh found her “spicy” and agreed to go on a date. His current romantic interest, Lisa, kind of took it in stride, calling Josh “the Bachelor in Paradise.”

As for the date, it was all fun and games when it came to flying on a trapeze; less so when Iva demanded that Josh dump Lisa. “You make out with her I’ll fucking throw you in the lake,” Iva said. Well, all righty then.

Iva’s demand might have carried more weight if Josh had enjoyed making out with her. But when a producer asked Josh about his kiss with Iva, he kind of grimaced and diplomatically declared himself “undecided.”

Josh told Lisa all about the ultimatum when he came back to the beach. “Does that mean me and her are gonna have a problem?” asked Lisa. “I am the last person somebody wants a problem with. I’m small, but I’m mighty.”

Speaking of problems, Angela definitely had one.

The third new arrival was Maria, a Colombian-born, Toronto-raised designer who described herself as having Canadian “niceness” and Colombian “spice.”

To Joey, she was “a sweetheart of a girl,” someone he’d worked with in Toronto and gone on one unsuccessful date with. But as he gave Maria the lay of the Paradise land, Joey made it clear he had a deep connection with Vay — which didn’t make Vay any less jealous of the time Joey spent with Maria or the way he talked about her.

Guy after guy politely blew Maria off, letting her know they were taken — all except Brendan M. Brendan told Maria he was “definitely open” to “meeting new people and seeing if there’s possibility there.”

Uh oh.

When Brendan agreed to Maria’s date, he justified it by saying he and Angela had talked “in the past” about allowing each other to go on dates with new people, but the operative word was “past” — Angela clearly thought that kind of deal was behind them.

Angela summoned Brendan for a chat — the conversation they should have had before he agreed to go with Maria because tossing “All right?” over your shoulder as you walk away with someone else doesn’t really count. Brendan said he wanted Angela to just focus on what they had but also to give him the “respect” to go on this date.

Basically, he was unsympathetic to her distress, leaving her with a non-committal “Chat with you later,” not even a hug or a peck on the cheek.

Cold, dude, cold.

“It feels nice to be painted on,” said Brendan Morgan, with Maria Garcia-Sanchez. We bet!

He was all smiles when he and Maria met up to strip down to white bathing suits and throw paint on a drop sheet and each other, eventually rubbing it on each other’s bodies.

Still, Brendan hadn’t completely forgotten about Angela. As he and Maria shared drinks by a cosy fire, Brendan admitted he really wanted to kiss her but refrained because he didn’t want to disrespect Angela.

Bad news, Brendan, the “disrespect” horse bolted before you shut your lips, er, the barn door.

Angela was back at the beach, telling her besties Illeana and Caitlin she wasn’t sure she could completely trust Brendan anymore.

And then Brendan dropped the equivalent of a cow patty on the whole situation by returning from his date, spotting Angela with her friends and manoeuvring Maria over to a beach bed instead of talking to Angela.

Hey Brendan, I think we’ve solved the mystery of why you’re not in a committed relationship yet. You clearly have no idea how to commit!

Next week, it looks like neither Angela nor Maria is happy with Brendan M. There’s more tension between Joey and Vay over Maria. Iva continues her dogged pursuit of not only Josh but Mike. And is that Kevin Wendt’s lovely fiancee, Astrid Loch, helping him introduce the “Camp Paradise Twisted Talent Show”?

You can tune in next Sunday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And don’t forget “Bachelor After Show: After Paradise” at 9:30 p.m. If you want to talk Paradise with me you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Edited to correct the spelling of Sasa.

Chris S steps up as the new villain on The Bachelorette

November 10, 2021 /
Michelle Young took 12 of the men on a slumber party group date, but they ended up sleeping on her. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Michelle Young wasn’t the only one who didn’t feel seen on Tuesday’s episode of “The Bachelorette.”

Apparently, Chris Sutton — who, let’s be honest, we haven’t paid attention to since his intro package in the season premiere — was missing his “look at me” moment. He rectified that with a self-serving speech at the cocktail party about how some of the other men thought they “have it in the bag” — it presumably meaning Michelle — and weren’t putting in the effort she deserves. And then he tried to throw Nayte Olukoya, one of the front-runners, under the bus.

Hey, Chris, we see you now, but it’s not a good look.

Chris actually said in his confessional: “I came in on my white horse and I saved her from the castle that she’s been stuck in.” First off, what the hell does that even mean? Second, I can’t think of anyone who needs saving less than Michelle, especially not by the likes of Chris.

I concur with Nayte: “What a dweeb.”

Alas, Chris S was still around after the rose ceremony. Michelle has done such a good job of weeding out the dudes who are there to cause drama: first Ryan, then Jamie and Peter. But Chris S got to stay. Maybe production asked her to stop dumping the trouble-makers? I don’t know.

Speaking of Jamie, Michelle’s first date was with Martin, who was described as being “very close” to Jamie, so the date narrative was whether Michelle could trust Martin.

Michelle and Martin Gelbspan hung out at the BMW Performance Center.

Personally, I’m not sure I’d trust a guy who tears the sleeves off his shirt, but that’s just me. Things seemed to go fine as Martin and Michelle spun around, literally, in BMW M3s at the BMW Performance Center near Palm Springs. Michelle outdrove Martin and that shouldn’t surprise you.

Martin started to skid when he and Michelle got into a tub to cool off with some champagne and Martin said he didn’t think Jamie was a bad person: “I still think he’s a hell of a man.” Michelle figured Martin was questioning her decision to send Jamie home. So was Martin next?

He course-corrected at dinner at the Rancho Mirage Observatory, explaining that he hadn’t learned how to express emotions growing up and was still working on his communication skills. I’m not sure what any of that had to do with his opinion of Jamie, but Michelle gave him the date rose.

It was on to the group date on which 12 of the men — Will, Chris S, Casey, Chris G, Leroy, Rodney, Olu, Brandon, Clayton, Joe, Romeo and Nayte — got to “surrender to love” by putting on PJs and attending a slumber party complete with cotton candy, popcorn, an ice cream sundae bar, mini spa treatments and giant teddy bears.

Michelle said it was all about “bonding and quality time,” but she didn’t count on the men being more interested in bonding with each other than with her.

By the time WWE stars the Bella Twins showed up to supervise the Ultimate Teddy Bear Takedown — in which the men beat the stuffing out of each other with their bears — Michelle was pissed.

The WWE’s Bella Twins helped the men turn their teddy bears from cuddly to cudgels.

She was so annoyed I’m not sure she took the time to appreciate the absurdity of pairing Brandon, who looks shall we say a little boyish, with Olumide, who Clayton said “looks like he ate three of Brandon for breakfast.” I mean, come on, we watched Olu do an exercise that looked like a pushup combined with a jumping jack.

Hosts Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe nearly fell off the couch when Olu took his shirt off. Brandon’s strategy of trying to dance out of reach could only work so long against that type of brawn.

So Olu’s team, which included Clayton, Casey, Romeo, Leroy and Nayte, won after-party time with Michelle. They were so busy jumping up and down together and playing with the streamers that fell from the ceiling they didn’t notice when Michelle left the building for a heart to heart with Kaitlyn.

Michelle explained that having the guys ignore her took her back emotionally to high school, when she was the “token black girl” who didn’t get asked out on dates. “I wasn’t seen,” said Michelle.

“I’m frustrated and hurt,” she added, struggling to hold back her tears. “In this situation I felt like one thing I wasn’t gonna have to worry about was not being seen.”

Totally makes sense to me, as it did to the chastened men at the after-party.

It resonated especially with Olu, who teared up as he told Michelle that everything she said about feeling isolated as a Black woman reminded him of his four sisters and “me being that male figure in my sisters’ life, having to uplift them, tell them that (they’re) beautiful, you can do anything, the right guy will come to your life.”

It was a genuine moment, one that Michelle especially appreciated because of Olu showing emotion as a Black man. For the date rose to go to anybody but him would have been ridiculous.

(And on the topic of ridiculous, I’m with everyone else who’s commenting about the absurdity of Clayton apparently being chosen as the next Bachelor before Michelle’s season even aired. No offence to Clayton, but I’ve seen nothing to suggest he won’t be just another boring white dude in the lead. Olu deserved to be considered.)

Michelle said she got what she needed from the men, that things were back on track.

Then, for a palate cleanser, she went on a one-on-one with Rick that involved taking the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway to Mount San Jacinto State Park, where they walked around taking in the view and smelling trees.

And oh look, there’s a “wish box,” with instructions to read all the wishes inside before writing and leaving your own. What a coincidence that the first two were about finding “my soulmate” and “a love like my grandparents had,” and the third was “I wish my dad could see the man I’ve become.” Because it turns out Rick has some serious father issues. So good job whichever producer got rid of all the real wishes and put in the fake ones.

Michelle’s and Rick’s wish was “We wish to find love by having the hard conversations,” which sounds less like a wish than a decree for every single dinner portion of a one-on-one date.

And so, during dinner, they got down to it. Essentially, when Rick was 17 he found a text from another woman on his dad’s phone, told his mom about it and his parents split up three days after Christmas. Rick talked about his dad being depressed for about 10 years and calling Rick one day when he was at work and too busy to talk. After Rick called back later, his dad texted “I’m just trying to catch my breath” and was then found dead by a friend, which happened three years ago.

His father died “still blaming me because I blew a whistle unfortunately,” Rick said.

That is heavy stuff that Michelle would have to hear eventually, but planting a note so Rick would talk about it on camera definitely feels skeevy.

Nonetheless, Rick regained his good cheer, told Michelle he felt like he was falling in love with her and accepted the date rose, which she presented to her “little lettuce wrap,” a callback to his Night 1 silver platter getup.

Michelle and Rick Leach enjoy a private performance by Andy Grammer.

And then they got to dance and smooch to a musical artist that people have actually heard of — and not a country one at that — Andy Grammer.

Onward to the rose ceremony — and can I just point out we’re four for four as far as episodes ending with rose ceremonies? Wow.

After Chris S made his silly speech and then rudely butted in front of Brandon for alone time with Michelle, he served up Nayte as an example of one of the men who thought they had it in the bag, recounting Nayte’s comments after the group date card arrived.

OK, yes, Nayte did say, “I’m not stressing about when I get a one-on-one date. All I know is a one-on-one is coming. If it’s not today it’s gonna be another time.” And yes, perhaps he should have said that in his inside voice, but he’s right! He’s the first impression rose winner and likely headed to the finale (and no I haven’t read the spoilers, I don’t give a crap about them) so duh, of course he’s getting a one-on-one.

Does that equate to thinking he has “it in the bag”? I don’t think so.

Nayte was understandably perturbed when his alone time with Michelle was consumed with what Chris had said about him and her warning him that “I’m not this massive prize at the end of this.”

So Nayte confronted Chris and they had a loud, angry conversation, during which Chris S lied and said he gave up Nayte’s name because Michelle asked him for the facts.

Chris Sutton, who will heretofore be down as the Dweeb, doing his best to impress Michelle.

Dude! As if she could get a word in edgewise during your monologue when you were too busy trying to make yourself look good.

Chris also got into it with Olu, who suggested Chris might not get a rose because of “the shit you just pulled.”

Chris laughed to himself, boasting about how all the men hated him and when he got his rose he was going to say, “This one’s for you Olu and then I’m gonna wink at him.” And I don’t believe in violence, but I really, really felt like reaching through the TV screen and slapping the smirk off his face.

Perhaps for an aspiring actor like Chris, it’s better to be a villain than just another guy who’s destined to be group date fodder. Did ABC offer him a speaking role on a show or something?

Anyway, Chris S did indeed get a rose along with Brandon, Leroy, Joe, Rodney, Clayton, Casey and Nayte. Chris G, Will and Romeo got jettisoned.

Next week, Chris S moans about Michelle’s “infatuation” with Nayte; there’s a one-on-one with Joe; Michelle spends quality time with Nayte, and tells some unlucky fellow or fellows “Our relationship isn’t progressing forward” and “I can’t do this anymore.” Fingers crossed those words are directed at Chris.

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

Watchable Nov. 8 to 14, 2021

November 8, 2021 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Dopesick (Nov. 12, Disney Plus)

Kaitlyn Dever and Michael Keaton in “Dopesick.” PHOTO CREDIT: Antony Platt/Hulu

If you watched Alex Gibney’s docuseries “The Crime of the Century” earlier this year you’ll already be familiar with the facts about America’s opioid crisis, a staggering tragedy that began with the pushing of OxyContin in the mid-1990s as a pain relief wonder drug.

This miniseries, created by actor, writer and director Danny Strong (“Empire”), dramatizes the Oxy epidemic. The three episodes made available for review range from 1986, when Purdue Pharma first came up with the concept of a new time-release opioid, to 2005, when Virginia prosecutors launched a grand jury investigation of the company.

Strong focuses on seven key characters from different sides of the crisis, some real, some invented: Purdue president and chief Oxy champion Richard Sackler (Michael Stuhlbarg); Appalachian doctor Samuel Finnix (Michael Keaton); his patient, miner Betsy Mallum (Kaitlyn Dever); Purdue sales rep Billy Cutler (Will Poulter); DEA agent Bridget Meyer (Rosario Dawson); and Department of Justice investigators Rick Mountcastle (Peter Sarsgaard) and Randy Ramseyer (John Hoogenakker).

Sackler is portrayed as part businessman, part evangelist, pushing employees to sell ever-increasing amounts of “the greatest painkiller in the history of human civilization.”

Purdue sales reps like Cutler relentlessly market Oxy to doctors and pharmacists as a safe drug that’s virtually impossible to abuse while Purdue-bankrolled pain associations spring up around the country to preach the narrative that the real tragedy in America is the under-treatment of pain.

And Finnix just wants to help patients like Betsy, injured in a mining accident, and at first Oxy does that — until it doesn’t and they need ever higher doses to control the pain. Meanwhile, people like Meyer, Mountcastle and Ramseyer attempt the near impossible task of holding Purdue to account.

We already know how the story ends, with addiction, drug-fuelled crime and death — or rather, doesn’t end, since the opioid epidemic is ongoing, fed not just by OxyContin but by drugs like heroin and fentanyl.

It’s an important story to tell but also a complicated one and breaking it down into manageable chunks makes sense, particularly when they’re handled by such a capable group of actors. But sometimes the focus is too diffuse, with episodes jumping back and forth between characters and time periods, diluting the show’s emotional impact.

Still, it’s a worthwhile piece of television.

Disney Plus also has the “Home Alone” movie update “Home Sweet Home Alone,” Olaf the snowman recreating beloved Disney tales in “Olaf Presents” and Season 2 of “The World According to Jeff Goldblum” (all Nov. 12). Plus the blockbuster Marvel movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” starring Canada’s Simu Liu, will debut on Disney that day along with a making-of docu-special about “Shang-Chi,” “Marvel Assembled.”

Short Takes

Tosh (Alison O’Donnell) and Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall) are back solving crimes in “Shetland.” PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Mainz/ITV Studios

Shetland (Nov. 9, BritBox)

It’s been a long wait for Season 6 of this Britcrime series set in Scotland’s Shetland Islands and, based on the single episode made available for review, I’d say it was worth the wait. Douglas Henshall is back as quietly resourceful detective Jimmy Perez, backed by colleagues Tosh (Alison O’Donnell) and Sandy (Steven Robertson, an actual native of Shetland). Jimmy faces a challenging case when a local lawyer is shot dead in his home with an unregistered weapon and no witnesses. Potential suspects include a drug abuser who lost a custody battle for her kids, the sister of a murder victim whose killer the lawyer defended and an ex-soldier whose case he refused to touch. Throw in a true crime-obsessed teenager who’s interfering with the case and a hobby photographer whose drone might have captured pictures of the killer, and you’ve got a satisfying puzzle.

A recreation from “Black Liberators WWII.” PHOTO CREDIT: History/Corus Entertainment

Black Liberators WWII (Nov. 11, 9 p.m., History/STACKTV)

Among the more than 1 million Canadian soldiers who fought in World War II were some who did so despite being treated as second-class citizens in the country they were fighting for. But thousands of Black soldiers enlisted anyway and contributed to some of the most important campaigns of the war. This documentary focuses on six of them: Robert “Bud” Jones, John Olbey, Sam Estwick, Calvin Marshall, Welsford Daniels and Owen Rowe, who volunteered to fight for Canada along with other Black Caribbeans. It’s thanks to Rowe’s daughter, Kathy Grant, that we get to hear about the men’s experiences in their own words, since she recorded interviews with them as part of the Black Canadian Veterans Stories of War project. The men are all dead now except for Olbey who, as of this writing, was 99 years old and living in Chatham. The men’s testimonies reinforce the fact that war truly is hell, but it was also a reprieve from the discrimination these Black soldiers experienced at home — and, to Canada’s shame, continued to experience when they returned from battle. But the doc isn’t about that; it’s about what these particular men achieved and, like other veterans, their stories deserve to be told. As Leslie Estwick, daughter of Sam — who joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and became a pioneer in radar technology — puts it, “The history of Canada is the history of everyone in it.”

Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell in “The Shrink Next Door.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

The Shrink Next Door (Nov. 12, Apple TV Plus)

Apple TV throws its hat into the ring of podcast TV with this series adapted from the Wondery podcast of the same name. Both podcast and show are based on the true story of a man whose life was infiltrated by his psychiatrist for almost three decades, to the point the doctor took over his house and part of his business. In the eight-episode show, of which I screened three, Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell get to flex their acting muscles, with Rudd playing charismatic shrink Dr. Isaac Herschkopf and Ferrell as Martin Markowitz, a successful but insecure business owner who meets Herschkopf when he seeks treatment for panic attacks. Rudd is particularly captivating as we watch him insidiously turn himself into the most important person in Marty’s life. Kathryn Hahn (“WandaVision”) also does great work as the one person who can see through Herschkopf’s demeanour of professional solicitude, Marty’s sister Phyllis.

Juliette Lewis in “Yellowjackets.” PHOTO CREDIT: Showtime/Bell Media

Yellowjackets (Nov. 14, 10 p.m., Crave)

From the opening minutes, when we see a terrified young woman running through woods and tumbling into a death trap, we know the girls of the Yellowjackets New Jersey state champion high school basketball team got up to some very bad things when they were stranded by a plane crash for 19 months. The what, why and how are teased out in flashbacks to 1996 in this Vancouver-shot Showtime series. Meanwhile, in 2021, we follow four of the now middle-aged teammates, played by Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Tawny Cypress and Christina Ricci. Part of the fun of the show is watching these women go about their lives knowing their seeming ordinariness belies dark secrets. But the past won’t stay buried. A woman claiming to be a reporter is asking questions, and vaguely threatening postcards arrive, suggesting someone hasn’t forgotten or forgiven what happened in ’96. With these capable actors at the controls — alongside the ones who play their younger selves, Sophie Nelisse, Sophie Thatcher, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Samantha Hanratty — you can buckle in and enjoy the ride.

Odds and Ends

Owl expert Jim Duncan with a Manitoba great grey owl. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC

Think back to when the pandemic began and the sudden drop in things like traffic and air flight, and other noisy activities. “Nature’s Big Year,” the Nov. 12 “Nature of Things” broadcast (CBC, CBC Gem, 9 p.m.) explores how that inactivity affected various animal species, from wolves in Bighorn Backcountry in Alberta to loggerhead turtles in Florida to hedgehogs in Nottinghamshire, England, to great grey owls in Balmoral, Manitoba, to blackbirds in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne to snow geese on the St. Lawrence River. It’s likely no surprise that the lesser the human activity the better off the animals are.

Amazon Prime Video has a couple that sound worthwhile. The docuseries “Always Jane” follows transgender teen Jane Noury and her supportive family (Nov. 12) while the documentary “Pharma Bro” (Nov. 11) is about Martin Shkreli, the so-called “most hated man in America,” known for raising the price of AIDS drugs 5,500 per cent.

Netflix has Season 2 of “Gentefied,” the well-regarded series about a Mexican-American family in Los Angeles, on Nov. 10.

AMC Plus has the U.K. murder mystery “Ragdoll” (Nov. 11).

Corus Entertainment channels have several offerings, including the special “Adele One Night Only” on Global TV Nov. 14 at 8:30 p.m.; “Great Escapes With Morgan Freeman” (Nov. 14, 9 p.m., History), in which the actor hosts tales of history’s greatest jail breaks; and animated sci-fi series “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” (Nov. 13, midnight, Adult Swim).

NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time, and reflect information provided to me and verified where possible, 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.

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