Zach Shallcross waits on a beach in Thailand to do what everyone knew he was going to do all along. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC
So ABC, can we finally cut the crap?
The (un)reality series “The Bachelor” had a “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” moment on Monday’s season finale, very nearly openly revealing just how much of a sham it is.
That it did so at the expense of a brokenhearted woman is to its producers’ shame, as well as ours for going along with the nonsense season after season after season.
To no one’s surprise, even those of us who don’t read the spoilers, Zach Shallcross proposed to Canadian nurse Kaity Biggar in the episode, sending Vermont account executive Gabi Elnicki home — but not before Gabi called him out for stringing her along.
Gabi reacts to being told she’s not the one for Zach.
As she stood on the proposal platform in Krabi, Thailand, getting the “I’ve been falling in love with you, but . . . ” speech from Zach, Gabi made him stop: “I’ve known it was coming,” she said of the breakup. “What I don’t know is why you didn’t tell me when you knew.”
Zach claimed that he didn’t “fully” make his decision until the night before in bed, but Gabi interrupted: “You’ve known, you’ve known.”
And there’s the crux. Sure, Bachelors can compartmentalize, they can have feelings for multiple women, but don’t tell me that with a potentially life-changing decision like a proposal on the line they wait until the last possible moment to make up their minds.
The “I can’t decide between two women” conceit is a fiction that Zach agreed to uphold as part of making a TV show. Gabi laid bare the toll it takes on the woman who, in her words, is “strung along” for the sake of sticking to the formula.
“I never thought someone who said they were falling in love with me would make me go through that,” Gabi told host Jesse Palmer after she watched the debacle in front of a studio audience.
“That last day, when you prepare a speech and you have hours and hours and hours of interviews, and you get ready and you spend all morning waiting and waiting and waiting, and I remember having the thought in the back of my head, ‘Zach would never make you go through this.’
“Even though I had that gut feeling of (not being the one) I didn’t think somebody who cared about me would make me go up there, and go through all of that stress and anxiety, and just the entire day just to — I mean I felt humiliated.”
But Zach made her go through it; Zach played the game.
And that wasn’t even the worst of the betrayal.
Gabi told Jesse that until she watched the fantasy suites episode she didn’t know Zach had told “everyone” about them having sex, a decision they had agreed was going to be just “between us.”
“So for me to see that, it was beyond a TV show for me,” Gabi said crying. “I feel ashamed from a moment that felt like love to me.”
She added, “I thought it was love, I thought it was more than a TV show. I get it, sex sells, but now I’ve become a narrative and it’s really painful . . . it’s a part of me that I’ll never get back that I shared with him and it’s extremely violating that the entire nation knows everything.”
Gabi lays out her pain for Zach on the “Bachelor” finale.
And what did Zach have to say for himself? Not much.
Time was short because the finale was on a schedule but, hey, we really, really needed to have Sean and Catherine Lowe in the hot seat so Sean could pretend that, yes, Zach had a tough choice to make, even though Sean and everybody else knew he’d made it weeks ago. Also, so “The Bachelor” could once again trot out its only real success story in 27 seasons. It’s funny, though, that Sean gives God more credit for his life with Catherine than “this sometimes silly reality TV show.”
But back to Zach. He told Gabi there was no excuse for the way he handled things, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, he was sorry from the bottom of his heart, etc.
It was a variation of what he said to Ariel Frenkel when she took him to task earlier for not telling her he’d had sex with Gabi — she didn’t find out until she watched the episode — and for arbitrarily making sex a no-go when he and Ariel had their fantasy suite date.
Ariel was her usual poised, mature self talking to Zach.
“I want to know why the other women were given grace and honesty and I wasn’t given that respect,” Ariel said to applause and cheers.
Also, “by putting sex off the table you made the entire week about sex” — which, no doubt, was the producers’ intention.
“I want you to understand you also took away my agency . . . You took away my ability to even have a conversation. If you had waited you would have found out I was on the same page as you” about not having sex that week, Ariel told Zach.
I have nothing but good things to say about Ariel and Gabi, who were both done dirty by a franchise that has proven over and over again that it will sacrifice anybody’s well-being, particularly women’s, if it means creating a juicy plot line.
But they weren’t the only women disrespected on Monday.
Sure, Kaity got the “prize,” engagement to Zach, but ABC also did her a dirty by upending the usual order of things, by interspersing the “After the Final Rose” interviews with footage of the events in Thailand instead of leaving “ATFR” to the final hour like they did in the old days.
Zach pops the question to Kaity in Thailand.
How were viewers supposed to enjoy the emotional and, for Zach and Kaity, joyous proposal just minutes after we watched Gabi pour out her anguish onstage?
Once the seemingly genuinely happy couple were together in the hot seat, Zach told Jesse, “When I saw her at the last chance date, I saw her and I thought to myself, ‘It’s you, it’s always been you,’ and I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman.
“And obviously, the show, had to wait it out a little bit, couldn’t say anything. I just knew she was my wife.”
And since Gabi’s last chance date came after Kaity’s, or at least was presented that way in the episode, it certainly puts the lie to all that “I didn’t make up my mind till the night before the proposal” nonsense, doesn’t it?
What else can I say? Kaity and Zach said they’re moving in together in Austin, Texas, in the summer and hope to get married in 2025. I wish them well. I hope they make a go of it.
The episode ended with a sneak peek of Charity Lawson’s “Bachelorette” season as we watched her brother, Nehemiah, turn up at the mansion and put on a disguise so he could become the “undercover brother” and find out more about the men.
Frankly, given the franchise’s overall level of disrespect, I think it will take more than a caring brother to protect her from the drama that will be inflicted on her in her season.
Will I continue recapping “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette”? I’m not sure right now that I have the stomach for it, but I’ve been here before and got sucked back in. I will definitely be back in May to follow “Bachelor in Paradise Canada.”
SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Big Door Prize (March 29, Apple TV+)
Gabrielle Dennis, Chris O’Dowd and Djouliet Amara in “The Big Door Prize.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV+
Skeptics vs. believers, realists vs. dreamers: the small town of Deerfield is divided between the two when a strange blue machine that looks like a photo booth suddenly appears in the general store, spitting out cards for a couple of quarters that promise to reveal the user’s life potential.
Actually, it’s far from an even split. Most of the town goes gaga for the Morpho — named after and bearing the symbol of a butterfly — and changes their lives accordingly: everything from taking up relatively harmless hobbies to drastic decisions like quitting jobs, ending marriages or jumping willy nilly into new relationships.
Dusty (Chris O’Dowd), the high school history teacher, doesn’t understand the compulsion to alter lives because of words on a blue card but can’t avoid the temptation to get a card of his own. But the result is far from comforting — especially when his wife, Cass (Gabrielle Dennis), reveals a card that suggests a destiny far loftier than Dusty’s.
The machine also brings unease to Dusty and Cass’s daughter, Trina (Djouliet Amara), who has a guilty secret involving her dead boyfriend Kolton, killed in a car crash, whom the rest of the school has canonized as an “angel.” Nor is it of much comfort to Kolton’s twin, Jacob (Sammy Fourlas); to Cass’s mother, Izzy (Crystal Fox), the mayor of the town; or to Father Rueben (Damon Gupton), the high school chaplain.
And what is the Morpho? A magic trick? A scam? Divine intervention? What does cynical bartender Hana (Ally Maki) know about the machine that everyone else doesn’t?
Those questions are never answered, but the machine undergoes a transformation at the end of the 10 episodes that makes it clear a second season is planned.
The questions the Morpho cards raise aren’t ones that you need a machine to help you ask: Who am I? Am I doing what I’m meant to do with my life? How well do I know the people around me? How well do I know myself?
But they’re also questions that are unlikely to get asked when the status quo seems to be working.
Irish immigrant Dusty, for instance, who just turned 40, seems to have the world by the tail when the series starts: a happy marriage, a family, a job he seems to enjoy and to be valued for in a friendly community. But when cracks start to appear in that facade it’s clear they’ve been there for a while and been papered over in the interests of getting on with life.
The Morpho gives people permission to colour outside the lines, whether that’s Principal Pat (Cocoa Brown) buying a Harley and marrying a man she’s known for a week, or storeowner Mr. Johnson (Patrick Kerr) launching a second career as a magician.
But it also brings on sometimes painful self-reflection as when restaurant owner Giorgio (Josh Segarra) acknowledges that he peaked 20 years ago and has been pumping himself up ever since on past glories.
Still, I wouldn’t want to give you the impression this show is a downer. It has moments of genuine humour and of connection between the characters.
O’Dowd and Dennis give a winning portrayal of a couple who geuninely love each other even if they don’t know one another as well as they thought. Segarra is both annoying and endearing as the bombastic Giorgio. And Amara and Fourlas strike the right notes as teenagers who blend heart with snark.
This is series creator David West Read’s first TV project as a writer and producer since the Emmy-winning “Schitt’s Creek.” And it’s one that aims for the brain as well as the heart.
Apple also has the film “Tetris” (March 31), about the popular 1980s video game.
Short Takes
Streams Flow From a River(March 28, 9 p.m., Super Channel Fuse)
A family of Chinese immigrants who run a laundromat manage to reconnect despite shared hurts and hardships. No, I’m not talking about the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” but about this six-episode web series by Christopher Yip. The queer Chinese-Canadian writer and director made the series with an all-Asian lead cast and writers room, the first digital series to debut as part of the Canadian Film Fest. It follows the Chow family: father Gordon (Simon Sinn), mother Diana (Jane Luk), daughter Loretta (Danielle Ayow) and son Henry (Liam Ma). When Gordon has a stroke, Loretta and Henry return to the small Alberta town where they grew up and helped their parents run a combined liquor store and laundromat. Forced to stay together in the family home when a snowstorm closes highways, they all revisit past conflicts and disappointments before eventually finding a new way to co-exist. The Canadian Film Fest also includes nine feature films and 25 shorts airing on Super Channel Fuse from March 28 to April 1.
The sight of a tiny, premature baby having surgery to push her liver and intestines back into her belly is enough to make your heart flip, but it’s also one of the success stories in this fascinating docuseries from Adi Barash and Ruthie Shatz, the same team behind the docuseries “Lenox Hill,” which followed four doctors at New York City’s Lenox Hill Hospital. Some of those docs are back in this show, which expands to follow staff at Lenox Hill, Lenox Health Greenwich Village, Cohen Children’s Medical Center and North Shore University Hospital, as well as nurses, technicians and paramedics who transport the patients via ambulance and helicopter. The common theme as the series jumps from hospital to hospital, from case to case, is the dedication of these health-care professionals, whether they’re dealing with a 29-year-old opera singer with a huge blood clot in her brain, a 17-year-old boy shot at a party, or a homeless man who had neck surgery and has nowhere to be discharged to. Their jobs have become harder post-pandemic (as they have for medical professionals all over the world): people who stayed away from hospitals during lockdowns are showing up in even worse shape; violence is increasing in the city; already gaping disparities between haves and have-nots are widening. The social issues can’t help but bleed into the exam and operating rooms, but it’s the medical issues that keep you glued to the screen. No matter how graphic the surgeries, how painful the conditions, how sad some of the outcomes, the series is absolutely life-affirming.
Netflix also has “Unstable” (March 30), a comedy series starring father and son Rob and John Owen Lowe as a father and son at a bio research company; South Korean film “Kill Boksoon” (March 31), about a single mother assassin; movie sequel “Murder Mystery 2” (March 31), with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston as private eyes; and the WWII film “War Sailor” (April 2).
Odds and Ends
Classic animated series “Raccoons” is returning to TV. PHOTO CREDIT: Corus
The nostalgia factor is high for the return of animated series “Raccoons” after 32 years, debuting March 27 at 3 p.m. on Boomerang. The Canadian show featuring raccoons Bert, Ralph and Melissa; aardvarks Cyril, Cedric and Sophia, and sheepdog Schaeffer first aired in the late 1980s and early ’90s, and has been restored in 4K from the original hand-drawn, cel animation film.
Paramount+ appears to be trying to remake the fashion competition show with “The Fashion Hero: A New Kind of Beautiful” (March 31), which has “diverse” contestants of all ages working in teams to complete “character-building” challenges with coaches and guest mentors. Eventually one will be named the face of an international brand campaign. Paramount also has Season 2 of “Queen of the Universe” (March 31), a musical drag competition show featuring queens from different countries.
Prime Video has “The Power” (March 31), in which teenage girls around the world develop the ability to electrocute people and things at will and, having been a teenage girl once, I find this terrifying.
Sorry to say I didn’t get a chance to screen the third season of “Staged,” debuting on BritBox March 28, but given how funny David Tennant and Michael Sheen were playing versions of themselves in the first season, I’m willing to give it a go.
I had a quick peek at “The Dreamer” (March 30, Viaplay), a period drama inspired by the story of Karen Blixen, the Danish author immortalized in the 1985 movie “Out of Africa.” In the series, Karen (Connie Nielsen) has returned to her mother’s estate after the failure of her coffee plantation in Kenya, the death of her lover, Denys Finch Hatton (Lochlann O’Mearain), and her own suicide attempt.
Hollywood Suite is featuring films about or by women on March 30, including “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” “The Witches of Eastwick” and “The Virgin Suicides,” curated by indie director of the moment Chandler Levack of “I Like Movies” fame.
And finally, CTV Life Channel and Crave have the docuseries “Evolving Vegan” (March 30, 8 p.m.), in which actor Mena Massoud (“Aladdin”) explores the vegan food scene in Los Angeles, Austin, Mexico City, Vancouver, Portland and Toronto.
NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified 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.
Kaity, Ariel and Gabi wait for Zach Shallcross to hand out the roses on “The Bachelor.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC
Do you remember the good old days of “The Bachelor” when what happened in the fantasy suites stayed in the fantasy suites?
Yes, it was all nudge, nudge, wink, wink, doors closing and lights going out, to give the impression that the Bachelor was doing the horizontal mambo, but nobody was bonking and talking back then so we didn’t end up with scenes like we had Monday night where Zach had sex with one woman and felt compelled to tell another woman about it.
At first glance it seems like a ridiculous — and yes, selfish — thing to do and I’m not saying it isn’t. But it also seems like absolute confirmation that Kaity Biggar will be the last one standing after next week’s season finale.
After all, Zach told host Jesse Palmer that “everyone” needed to be aware that he had broken his no-sex vow with Gabi Elnicki, but it sure looked like Ariel Frenkel went home without knowing bupkis about Zach and Gabi’s night in the sack.
If that was indeed the case — and it wasn’t just the editing out of a conversation — then Zach clearly wanted to fess up specifically to Kaity so she wouldn’t be blindsided after he proposed to her.
Hold that thought while we examine how we got into this mess.
Zach lays down the fantasy suite law with Jesse Palmer: No sex!
It started with Zach having the much promoted conversation with Jesse about how there would be “no sex of any kind” in the fantasy suites, which in and of itself raises questions. So no second or third base then?
He said having sex could “muddy the situation” and that was “not how a healthy engagement should start.” But then, couldn’t you just have sex only with the woman you planned to propose to? So many questions.
Also, Zach confirmed he did not have sex with Rachel Recchia in their fantasy suite, not that I’m surprised. Jesse talked about how Zach “got your heart ripped out of your chest” on that overnight and Zach acknowledged that he learned things about Rachel that night “for the worse.” And we would all love to know what that means.
But never mind, it was time for Zach’s overnight date with Ariel. And let’s be honest: we knew he was going to have a whoopsie on one of this dates and we figured it was going to be with her.
Ariel and Zach check out a Thai night market before spending the night together.
I mean the woman is hot. Plus Zach kept talking in his voice-over about their physical chemistry: “When I kiss Ariel my body just gets hot, omigod, turn on the AC please.”
But despite Ariel eating bugs with the man at a night market in Thailand and sharing that she was falling in love with him, there was no boom in the room, just some making out in their private pool.
A still chaste Zach left Ariel in her adorable pyjamas after they fed breakfast to each other.
And then it was Gabi’s turn and she was in her head, as they say.
Did Zach and Ariel really pass right by her window on their way to dinner, with Ariel in that amazing strapless dress? I don’t know, but even a ride to a private island in a pirate ship during her date couldn’t lift the cloud of Gabi’s self-doubt.
She told Zach that getting the second fantasy suite date was stressing her out. She even left him alone on the beach to cry to a producer that she felt disgusting and ugly.
Having cried and sweated her makeup off, Gabi lays it on the line for Zach.
“I was never good enough in my previous relationships. I was not enough and I was cheated on. I was chosen second,” she told Zach.
But Zach told Gabi that things were “special” with her and reassured her so tenderly I began to think maybe she was going to be the last one standing after all, especially given the way they kissed and cuddled each other in bed the next morning.
The “cuddle sesh” to which Gabi alluded turned out to be a euphemism, however.
Zach spilled the beans to Jesse: he and Gabi had sex.
“I feel terrible because I’ve essentially gone against my word,” Zach said.
He added, “I think every woman needs to be at least aware of what actually happened this week because I don’t want there to ever be any secrets,” as Jesse tried to keep the look of incredulousness off his face.
Did Zach really need to tell Kaity or anyone else though? I mean, it would be an elephant in the room down the road for sure. I’m just not convinced the right time to get honest was before he and Kaity got anywhere near their own fantasy suite.
Nor was Gabi pleased when Zach paid a visit to her room before his date with Kaity to say he was going to be “fully transparent” with everyone else about what she thought was just between them.
Oh yeah, and Zach told Gabi he was falling in love with her, to add another layer of confusion to the proceedings.
But there was Kaity, excited about spending all day and night with Zach.
Zach and Kaity paddle the mangrove forest before the waters got rough.
We’ll leave aside the fact that Zach’s talk about “full transparency” coincided with him and Kaity paddling a glass-bottomed boat through the mangrove forest. And speaking of coincidence, Zach came clean to Kaity during a rain shower while thunder rumbled in the background. And is there money in the “Bachelor” budget for those kinds of special effects?
Zach didn’t name names but told her he had been “intimate.”
And she reacted . . . exactly how you would expect her to react. “Crushed” was the word she used. It’s not that she didn’t realize Zach might have sex with someone else, but she didn’t want to hear about it and I’m with her on that.
Zach tried to patch things up by telling Kaity he could see it being “us” at the end and she was “so special,” and he found it hard to see her upset.
“Like, what did you expect Zach? Do you think I was gonna be like yay?” Kaity asked.
Well, duh. Zach finally seemed to start clueing in that honesty isn’t always the best policy, “Catholic guilt” notwithstanding.
Still, despite Kaity saying she felt distant from him and wondering aloud how she would spend the night with him after his revelation, she kept touching him throughout their conversation. So it wasn’t a shock when Kaity showed up for their fantasy suite and declared that relationships weren’t “always rainbows and butterflies” and they would get through this.
If there was any sex during their overnight, nobody was saying boo about it.
There’s not much to tell about the rose ceremony. It was obvious even during last week’s hometowns that Ariel was the odd woman out.
Zach walked her to the waiting van, telling her she was “the most intriguing, interesting, beautiful, respectful, mature, intelligent woman I’ve ever met.”
And we were treated to the rather bizarre sight of Kaity basically telling Gabi she knew she’d had carnal knowledge of the man they were both hoping to snag. This show, honestly.
“I feel like I’m wearing like an A on my chest. Scarlet letter over here,” said Gabi, and I’m pretty sure she was referring to the 1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne novel “The Scarlet Letter” and not the 2010 Emma Stone film “Easy A.”
Gabi wasn’t feeling all that chuffed about having a rose, especially since Zach avoided making eye contact with her.
How will it all turn out in next week’s “stunning” finale, to use Jesse’s word? Probably exactly how we expect with some bumps along the way.
You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
That’s not to say the characters in this drama don’t speak to each other, but its actors also give a master class in the power of looks, gestures and pauses.
Lester (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) is an 11-year-old boy whose mother has died of cancer, leaving him to move in with his uncle Ken (Brian J. Smith) on his farm.
Lester doesn’t have the words to express his bereavement, nor does Ken to bridge the gulf between the two of them, although not for lack of trying. Lester prefers to be alone, whether he’s drawing comics in his room, or running around in a cape and mask imagining he can fly.
Ken, who’s gay, snatches brief solace with a man (Daniel Maslany) he met at the co-op.
Then there’s Lou (Stephen McHattie), a cranky senior who lives alone and who’s staring down dementia. He keeps getting pulled viscerally into his past, when he and his brother Vince (Ryan Bruce) played hockey in Toronto.
Lou’s niece Anne (Molly Parker), a day nurse, tries to help him but has troubles of her own, including an uneasy relationship with her husband, Doug (Rossif Sutherland).
Anne is also an aunt to Lester through his estranged father, Jimmy (Kevin Durand), a former hockey play whose career was ended by a head injury and who now works as a mechanic one town over.
These are ordinary people doing ordinary things, but ones with clear inner depths as well as secrets.
It’s obvious from the three episodes I screened that great care has gone into every aspect of this series from the script written by Lemire and Eilis Kirwan, to the directing (Andrew Cividino), to the magnificent acting and the beautiful cinematography (James Klopko).
To see actors of the calibre of Parker and McHattie practise their craft is something to be savoured, but there is excellent work all around.
This is a quiet, measured show, but one that stays with you. The ordinary, as it happens, can be quite extraordinary.
Episode 1 will have already aired by the time you read this (my fault for forgetting to include it in last week’s Watchable list), but you can catch up on CBC Gem.
CBC Gem also has the tween “Murdoch Mysteries” spinoff “Macy Murdoch” (March 23); the comedy “You’re My Hero” (March 24), about a 20-something with cerebral palsy; and Season 3 of “The New Wave of Standup” (March 24).
Courtney Eaton, Sophie Nelisse and Jasmin Savoy Brown in Season 2 of “Yellowjackets.” PHOTO CREDIT: Kailey Schwerman/Showtime
Yellowjackets (March 24, Crave)
The overarching question about “Yellowjackets” is whether this drama about a high school girls’ soccer team turned feral after surviving a plane crash in the wilderness is still the audacious, unsettling, clever show that won raves for Season 1.
The answer is yes; “Yellowjackets” still goes there in Season 2.
Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to tell you much about where “there” is because so many of those details are on a spoiler list released by Showtime.
You will get some answers about topics like Javi’s disappearance, Shauna’s baby, what really happened to adult Travis and the cannibalism, but you won’t get them from me. You’ll have to watch.
The season opens in the mid-’90s with the girls still in the woods two months after Jackie (Ella Purnell) froze to death. Winter has fully set in. They’re cold and hungry, and a rift is developing between those like Van (Liv Hewson), Misty (Samantha Hanratty) and Travis (Kevin Alves) who believe Lottie (Courtney Eaton) has mystical powers, and skeptics like Shauna (Sophie Nelisse), Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) and Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown).
In the present, adult Misty (Christina Ricci) is still trying to find the disappeared Nat (Juliette Lewis), whom you’ll recall was kidnapped last season just as she was about to kill herself; the police are sniffing out Shauna’s (Melanie Lynskey, who continues to be a marvel) involvement in the disappearance of artist Adam Martin, whom she killed in Season 1; and Taissa (Tawny Cypress) realizes that she didn’t leave the violent, sleepwalking version of herself behind in the woods when estranged wife Simone alerts her to the bloody dog’s head shrine in their basement.
“Yellowjackets” continues to give us one of the most kickass female acting ensembles on TV, both the older and younger versions, but the adult survivors are separated for the first half of the season, which slows the momentum somewhat in that timeline.
Still, it gives some of the men in the cast more to do.
Shauna and husband Jeff (Warren Kole) become delightful partners in crime, expanded to a family unit when daughter Callie (Sarah Desjardins) finds out what her mother’s been up to.
And Misty meets her match in Walter (new addition Elijah Wood), a fellow musical theatre-loving citizen detective who helps her find Natalie: “a bored Moriarty looking for his Sherlock.”
When Shauna, Taissa, Nat and Misty are reunited with adult Lottie (Simone Kessell), now the leader of what may or may not be a cult, and adult Van (Lauren Ambrose), the resolutely single manager of a video rental store, the pace promises to pick up in the remaining episodes (six were made available for review).
This season, the series leans more into the idea that something supernatural infiltrated the girls’ consciousness in the woods and that it wasn’t just a case of losing their grip on sanity after 19 months of deprivation. And the grown-up survivors begin to fear that whatever it was has followed them into the present.
Given that creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson have planned a five-season arc for the series, we’re likely to get as many questions as answers out of Season 2, but so far it’s still a ride worth taking.
Watching the first episode of this miniseries about the 1993 standoff between federal agents and followers of self-proclaimed messiah David Koresh, what stands out most is the waste of lives on both sides. The three-part series gives a detailed account of the event, which began with a botched ATF raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, over illegal weapons, and ended 51 days later with a fire and the discovery inside of 75 bodies, 25 of them children. The story is told via interviews with eyewitnesses — including law enforcement, media and surviving followers of Koresh — never before seen police and news footage, and recordings. In the 30 years since, blame has been apportioned to both sides — the ATF pressed ahead with the raid despite knowing Koresh had been warned and Koresh reneged on promises to let his followers leave, for example — but it’s a tragedy no matter whose side you’re on.
Netflix also has conspiracy series “The Night Agent” (March 23); and Season 4 of dating show “Love Is Blind” (March 24).
If anyone wonders whether Kiefer Sutherland has still got it, this thriller series suggests the answer is a firm yes. The British-born Canadian actor plays John Weir, an expert in corporate espionage who finds himself the victim of a frame-up for murder after a seemingly perfect job goes very, very wrong. There are twists upon twists as Weir untangles who targeted him and why. The show exemplifies John’s governing principle of “trust no one” since viewers quickly learn that nothing they think they know is as it seems. And that is the fun of it. Sure, the plot requires suspension of disbelief — there’s a scene in which Weir infiltrates a police station, for instance, that utterly defies belief — but the entertainment value makes up for any incongruities. Sutherland, at 56, isn’t quite the action star he used to be — a fact the series winks at with one particular fight scene — but he inhabits the role of the highly intelligent, paranoid, world-weary Weir with aplomb. And despite trusting no one, he finds himself with a couple of helpers, including Meta Golding (“The Hunger Games”) as a lawyer who gets pulled into the plot after a seemingly random meeting with Weir (or was it?) and Charles Dance as a person from Weir’s past. Also along for the ride are Rob Yang (“Succession”) as a U.S. Treasury investigator embroiled in the case; Jason Butler Warner (“Ozark”) as a childhood friend and former partner of Weir’s; and Enid Graham (“Mare of Easttown”) as an FBI agent on Weir’s trail. “Rabbit Hole” makes the argument that a polarized, post-truth world is ripe for exploitation and that power resides with those who control the data. There’s a reason Weir only uses cash and burner phones. Whether that strikes you as plausible fact or pure fiction, there’s enjoyment to be had watching Weir unravel the threads.
Odds and Ends
Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin in Season 4 of “Succession.” PHOTO CREDIT: HBO
Surely, one of the most, if not the most anticipated debut of the week is Season 4 of “Succession” (March 26, 9 p.m., Crave). The last time we saw the highly dysfunctional Roy family, father Logan (Brian Cox) had just pulled the rug out from under his kids Kendall, Shiv and Roman with the help of son-in-law Tom (Matthew Macfadyen). I got a look at the first new episode but, since nothing can be written about it until Wednesday, I will just say this: Hell yeah! Crave also has the Canadian documentary “And Still I Sing” by Afghan-Canadian Fazila Amiri (March 21) about two women competing on the TV show “Afghan Star” when the Taliban takes over; and the movie “Clerks III” (March 24, Starz) from Kevin Smith.
Prime Video’s new releases this week include “The Power,” a series about teenage girls around the world suddenly being able to, um, electrocute people?; boxing movie “Perfect Addiction”; and “Reggie,” a documentary about Black baseball star Reggie Jackson. All debut March 24.
Speaking of documentaries, TVO has “First to Stand: The Cases and Causes of Irwin Cotler” (March 21, 9 p.m.), about the former politician and human rights champion.
The main Disney+ offering this week is “Up Here” (March 24), a romantic comedy series set in 1999 New York City, in which the lovers (Mae Whitman and Carlos Valdes) express their innermost thoughts in song.
Finally, Showcase and STACKTV have Season 2 of “Bel-Air” (March 20, 9 p.m.), the reimagining of the Will Smith breakout series “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” although it looks like Smith is no longer involved behind the scenes.
NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified 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.
Ariel, Charity, Kaity and Gabi await their fates on the hometowns episode of “The Bachelor.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC
Twenty-seven seasons in, it’s no surprise that brothers, fathers and other family members might want to ask the Bachelor tough questions when their sisters and/or daughters bring him home for vetting.
What is shocking is that families continue to wholeheartedly give those sisters/daughters their approval to pursue this total stranger when three out of four of them are essentially being strung along.
Does anybody really believe that at this late stage of the game, emphasis on “game,” Zach Shallcross doesn’t know to whom he plans to propose?
My guess is that it’s going to be Kaity — and no, I never read spoilers if that’s what’s floating around out there — which means Gabi, Ariel and Charity were just around to fill the mandated number of hometown dates and, likewise, fantasy suites next week.
On Monday, it was Charity’s turn to get handed into an SUV with a declaration that she deserved love that Zach couldn’t give her. And to be honest, it seemed obvious back when Charity got her one-on-one in Estonia that Zach wasn’t going to pick her.
But still, her perfectly lovely family was subjected to having to entertain and feed Zach while he pretended there was a chance in hell she might be the one.
Sitting with Charity’s brother Nehemiah, Zach called Charity “this incredible and special woman,” which is exactly the kind of language he uses for someone he’s about to send home.
Zach visits Charity Lawson in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia.
Asked by Nehemiah what set Charity apart from the other three, Zach said “we felt almost immediately comfortable with each other” and he “didn’t have any doubt that she’s looking for exactly what I’m looking (for), which is forever love.” Neither answer sounds like what you say about the woman of your dreams.
Nonetheless, after Charity had heartfelt, touching and tearful conversations with her brother, her father, her mother and her friends, Charity’s mom Vickie told her that “as far as Zach, that’s nothing but a good thing.”
Charity felt confident enough to tell Zach after an evening of line dancing that she was falling in love with him. And when she said she 1,000 per cent could see herself engaged to Zach you just knew her goose was cooked.
Hers was actually the third date of the episode; Gabi’s was the first.
And in keeping with the “Gabi is weird” narrative she and Zach attempted to tap a maple tree in the woods of Pittsford, Vermont, which devolved into a silly bit of sexual innuendo when Zach stuck his finger in the hole and said things like, “Oh, it is wet in there.”
Good lord.
Gabi Elnicki has Zach taste test maple syrup and no, it didn’t end well.
The maple syrup tasting didn’t go much better when Zach picked the fake pancake syrup as his favourite over the three genuine articles. And you’d think Gabi would have learned her lesson about Zach and maple syrup after forcing him to drink it on Night 1 and getting a less than enthusiastic reaction.
The one type of sugar Zach seems to go all in for is on Gabi’s lips. Last week they were kissing against a wall; this week it was a tree.
They disengaged eventually so that Zach could meet Gabi’s father, mother, sister and two brothers.
Big bro Evan wanted to know Zach’s full intentions. That “comfort” word came up again, but Zach also said Gabi was “someone I could see a future with,” which he more or less repeated to mom Stephanie.
Stephanie reserved judgment whereas father Kevin was more optimistic, having fallen in love with Gabi’s mom in a day after meeting her in a lunchroom — although I doubt he was dating three other women at the same time.
Gabi told Zach she could see a future with him but also cried because “this hurts.”
“We’re gonna get through this,” Zach reassured her and I suspect they will, at least until final two.
From the woods to the metropolis, Zach’s next date was with Ariel in New York City.
So no maple syrup, but there was pizza, a beef tongue sandwich, gefilte fish and espresso martinis.
Zach and Ariel Frenkel eat some carbs in Lower Manhattan.
Zach seemed enthused over learning about Ariel’s Jewish heritage — her parents, she said, fled the Soviet Union due to antisemitic persecution and built a life to be proud of in New York — less so about meeting the brother who had offered to beat up her ex-boyfriends.
Brother Bobby definitely had questions and his first one really seemed to stump Zach.
“At the end of the day, my sister’s the one choosing you, so why should she choose you?”
“Great question,” said Zach, which is what people usually say when they have no idea how to answer.
“Great answer,” retorted Bobby as Zach hemmed and hawed. He eventually came up with his “big heart” and being “a pretty good cook.” And that was not a great answer.
Nor could he tell Bobby Ariel’s birthday or her middle name, but he doesn’t need to know those things to kiss Ariel, which seems to be Zach’s main interest.
Ariel’s father Feliks who, alas, did not bring up orgies, said that Zach seemed very nice but, given Ariel was just one of four women, “Why am I expected to be 100 per cent when the other answer could be 25 per cent?” Why indeed?
Nonetheless, he told Ariel he trusted her judgment. And she seemed to trust Zach, telling him she was definitely falling for him.
“I’m gonna let myself enjoy these emotions and be intensely happy,” she said.
Frontrunner Kaity got the very last date, which was also kind of in Zach’s hometown since he too lives in Austin, Texas.
Kaity could hardly be expected to show him around, especially since she had been there just a few weeks, so instead they went grocery shopping and bonded over cinnamon cereal.
Zach and Kaity Biggar enjoyed running errands in Austin.
Then Kaity took Zach to her house where he put together an Ikea bookshelf, screwed in lightbulbs and set up her mattress.
He was not at all put off. “If it’s Kaity and I at the end of this, this is gonna be a great insight into what life would look like,” Zach said, although presumably he wouldn’t be putting furniture together every week.
Mind you, we were led to believe it could all be for naught since Kaity said she couldn’t be with Zach without the approval of her mother, who had raised her after her father and stepfather both split.
Did her mother, Anne, give the OK? What do you think?
Anne couldn’t help but notice how “handsy” Zach and Kaity were with each other after they arrived. And Zach gave Anne more assurances than he’d given any other parent, saying he could “100 per cent see a future with Kaity” and could “absolutely see myself falling in love with her.”
Yep, Kaity for the win.
Speaking of 100 per cent, that’s how much Anne said she would support Kaity being with Zach moving forward. So Kaity told Zach she was falling in love with him.
There was nothing left to do at that point but for Sean Lowe to have another of his totally voluntary and not at all contractual visits with Zach (at least Sean didn’t have to see Zach stripped to his pecs again although there was yet another gratuitous Zach shower scene at the start of the episode).
Zach pretended he didn’t know whom he was going to send home and Sean made sympathetic comments about how brutal that was going to be, “but I’m proud of you so far.”
Zach also got moral support from host Jesse Palmer with not one but two hugs before he went into the mansion to break Charity’s heart.
After walking her out, Zach told Charity he’d been sick to his stomach all day.
“I know you don’t want to hear this from me, but you deserve all the love and I couldn’t give it to you. I’m grateful to know you,” Zach told Charity before handing her into the SUV and then crying as it pulled away.
Charity was gracious and tearful but also kind of pissed once she was alone.
“It makes no fucking sense to me,” she said. “I can’t give you the love you deserve. Like I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what it frickin’ means.”
Maybe she got to ask Zach that question during “The Women Tell All,” which airs Tuesday night at 8 p.m. on Citytv. I’m afraid I won’t be recapping that one. I’ve got too much to do this week for double “Bachelor.”
Next week it’s the “no sex, OK, yes sex” fantasy suites episode when Zach apparently gets intimate with someone and upsets everyone else. And does what happens in the fantasy suite not stay in the fantasy suite anymore?
Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt and Jason Sudeikis in Season 3 of “Ted Lasso.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV+
“Ted Lasso” has certainly earned its reputation as one of the sunniest shows on television, but Season 3 reminds us that where there is sun, there’s also cloud.
It opens with Ted (Jason Sudeikis) dejectedly dropping son Henry off at Heathrow for his flight back to the U.S. and then, during phone therapy with Dr. Sharon (Sarah Niles), wondering “what the heck I’m still doing here.”
If this does turn out to be the final season of “Ted Lasso,” which has yet to be confirmed, that opening could be the first hint of a series-ending return to the States for Ted.
In the meantime, there’s work to do for AFC Richmond now that the football (soccer) team has climbed back into the Premiere League.
Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) is particularly obsessed with winning and proving wrong all the prognosticators who expect Richmond to bottom out, not to mention getting one over on slimy ex-husband Rupert (Anthony Head) and his top-rated West Ham United.
That team, of course, is coached by “Wonder Kid” Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed), who took a heel turn in Season 2, angrily leaving the Richmond coaching staff and betraying Ted by outing his panic attack to the media. As played by the very capable Mohammed, Nick is not fully at ease with the way he treated Ted but, encouraged by the despicable Rupert, leans into his meanness.
Given Apple’s strictness about not revealing spoilers, I’m guessing I’m not allowed to tell you about the new blood on the Richmond team or what happens when the team starts playing its Premiere rivals.
Nor can I reveal what I know about the most pressing personal issues from last season, including what happens between player-turned-coach Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and girlfriend Keeley (Juno Temple); or between Rebecca and her younger lover, player Sam Obisanya (Toheeb Jimoh).
When he’s not playing this season, Sam is focused on getting his Nigerian restaurant off the ground while Keeley is trying to get the hang of being her own boss now that her PR firm is up and running.
There’s also a focus in the first four episodes on player Colin Hughes (Billy Harris) while journalist Trent Crimm (James Lance), formerly of the Independent, makes a reappearance.
And, of course, old favourites like Higgins (Jeremy Swift), Jamie (Phil Dunster), Dani (Cristo Fernandez) and Sassy (Ellie Taylor) are still in the mix, while new characters are introduced.
Based on the episodes that were made available for review, this third season is making full use of its ensemble and, with relationships well established, there’s added emotional resonance between the characters.
One suspects that Ted’s unresolved feelings about Nate’s betrayal, and vice versa, will make up a key part of the season, but there’s plenty of plot to go around for the other characters as the trend toward longer episodes continue.
Whether that’s a strength or a weakness as the season continues remains to be seen. But given the skill with which the cast portrays these people and the affection with which viewers like me regard them, I’d guess the former.
Apple also has “Extrapolations” (March 17), a near-future drama about the effects of climate change on everyday lives with an all-star cast that includes Meryl Streep, Sienna Miller, Kit Harington, Edward Norton, Matthew Rhys, Marion Cotillard, Murray Bartlett and many more.
Zephryn Taitte and Leonie Elliott as Cyril and Lucille Robinson in “Call the Midwife.” PHOTO CREDIT: BBC/Neale Street Productions/Olly Courtenay
Call the Midwife, Sanditon, Marie Antoinette (March 19, 8, 9 and 10 p.m., PBS)
I have grouped these series together because Sunday is a sort of period drama-palooza for those of us who admire this form of television.
First up is “Call the Midwife,” a show I have long enjoyed for the way it handles serious social and medical issues with the sort of gentle touch its midwives lovingly apply to their patients, with dollops of interpersonal drama and humour.
It’s as reliable and enduring as Nonnatus House, home base of the religious and lay nurse-midwives who minister to the economically disadvantaged London district of Poplar. It’s 12 seasons in now and appears to still be going strong.
Case-of-the-week birth stories are the backbone of the series, but this season appears likely to have a particular focus on Jamaican midwife Lucille (Leonie Elliott). Her depression over last season’s miscarriage hasn’t completely lifted as the season begins and is deepened by homesickness and racism as the poisonous anti-immigrant proselytizing of Enoch Powell infiltrates the district and even the delivery room.
There’s also a new nun shaking up the order of things at Nonnatus House, Sister Veronica (Rebecca Gethings), while Trixie (Helen George) plans her wedding to Matthew (Olly Rix).
Crystal Clarke as Georgiana Lambe and Rose Williams as Charlotte Heywood in Season 3 of “Sanditon.” PHOTO CREDIT: Joss Barratt/Red Planet
“Sandition,” meanwhile, debuts its third and final season. I know this series based on the last, unfinished novel of Jane Austen isn’t universally adored, particularly by viewers disgruntled over the departure of actor Theo James and, thus, love interest Sidney Parker. Sure, Austen probably intended Charlotte (Rose Williams) and Sidney to end up together, but she didn’t have to contend with an actor who no longer wanted to be on a show.
It opens with Charlotte returning to Sanditon for the grand birthday party of friend Georgiana Lambe (Crystal Clarke), who’s about to come into full possession of her vast fortune. Charlotte is accompanied by farmer fiancé Ralph Starling (Cai Brigden), a man for whom she’s clearly settling after the death of Sidney and her brushoff by Colbourne (Ben Lloyd-Hughes).
Colbourne, meanwhile, returns to his estate along with daughter Leo (Flora Mitchell) and niece Augusta (Eloise Webb), only to have his dreams of reuniting with Charlotte dashed at Georgiana’s ball — although I’d stay tuned on that point.
Villain Sir Edward Denham (Jack Fox) is still enduring a punishing course of rehabilitation ordered by his aunt, Lady Denham (Anne Reid), but ever the rake, has spotted another heiress to exploit.
And speaking of villains and heiresses, Georgiana’s duplicitous Season 2 wooer Lockhart (Alexander Vlahos) is back in the picture while Georgiana concocts a “Bridgerton”-like scheme with the help of newcomer Lord Montrose (Edward Davis) to fend off fortune hunters.
It remains to be seen whether Charlotte and Georgiana get their happy endings, which in an Austen novel usually means marrying for love.
Louis Cunningham as Louis XVI and Emilia Schüle as “Marie Antoinette.” PHOTO CREDIT: Caroline Dubois/Capa Drama/Banijay Studios France
Talk of marriage brings us to the final series in the trifecta, “Marie Antoinette.”
It’s a French-British co-production that deals, at least initially, with the early days of the famous French queen (played by Emilia Schüle), who was just a teenager when she was sent from her native Vienna to France to marry the future Louis XVI (Louis Cunningham), himself still an adolescent.
This series leans into the tribulations of the new dauphine, separated from everything she loves in Austria (including her beloved pug), thrust into the petty viciousness of the French court, married to a boy who, as the show tells it, won’t even speak to her let alone have sex with her. (In real life, it took seven years for the young couple to consummate their marriage; not sure how long it takes in the series, not having got that far yet.) That latter point put Marie Antoinette in political danger since the whole point of the marriage was for her to produce a French heir.
The series does, as other critics have pointed out, move slowly and might not suit viewers uninterested in the nitty gritty of French court life. Personally, in the couple of episodes I watched, I appreciated Schüle’s portrayal of a naive teenager at the mercy of people more interested in their own pursuits of power than in a young girl adrift.
Short Takes
U2’s the Edge, left, and Bono, right, with Dave Letterman at the Los Angeles premiere of “Bono & The Edge: A Sort Of Homecoming, With Dave Letterman” PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Bono & the Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, With Dave Letterman (March 17, Disney+)
You could argue that U2 is not the musical juggernaut it used to be; that Bono has long been identified more with activism than music; that a show of this nature is inherently self-serving — U2 does have a Las Vegas residency coming up, after all. None of that takes away from the charm of this hybrid interview documentary/travelogue/concert special. Former talk show host Dave Letterman makes the trip to Dublin, his first (what took him so long?), to hang with Bono and the Edge of U2 (Larry Mullen Jr. was off recuperating from surgery, Adam Clayton was making an art film, apparently). Yes, there’s a little bit of mythologizing going on, from Bono and the Edge themselves as well as commentators like photographer Anton Corbijn, journalist Fintan O’Toole, musician Glen Hansard (“Once”), record exec Jimmy Iovine and drag queen Panti Bliss. But the special reminds us that these Dublin lads have been friends and band mates for an astonishing 47 years, since meeting at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, and that their music is inextricably linked to their roots in the Irish capital: from its overwhelming Catholicism to the violent spillover of Northern Ireland’s “Troubles” to its transformation into a more peaceful, tolerant, secular place. And speaking of that place, Letterman gets to do some travelling around the city — a locale I personally find delightful and spend time in every year, having extended family there. He even takes a chilly dip at the famous Forty Foot swimming spot, inspiring a new song. The highlight is the music and if you have been or still are a fan of U2 it will bring back potent memories. Bono and the Edge play stripped down versions of hits like “Vertigo,” “Bad,” “Beautiful Day” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in an intimate concert at the Ambassador Theatre. There’s also past concert footage — including legendary gigs like Red Rocks and the post-Sept. 11 Super Bowl halftime show — and a jam session with local musicians at McDaids pub. It’s all good craic, so it is.
Disney+ also has the film “Boston Strangler” (March 17), starring Keira Knightley as the reporter who connected the 1960s murders and broke the story about the serial killer.
Bob Odenkirk as Hank Devereaux in “Lucky Hank.” PHOTO CREDIT: Sergei Bachlakov/AMC
Lucky Hank (March 19, AMC/AMC+)
First things first, Hank Devereaux is not Saul Goodman, not that he was ever going to be. Bob Odenkirk’s new series is about a college English professor in a working-class Pennsylvania town rather than an Albuquerque con artist turned lawyer whose clients are drug kingpins. It concerns itself with topics like the pettiness and thin skins of academia, on the part of both faculty and students, and the disquietude of a middle-aged man with daddy issues and a sense of unfulfilled potential. Nonetheless, Odenkirk shows that his masterful blending of comedy and drama in “Better Call Saul” was no fluke. As Hank, he brings a lived in authenticity to this flawed man who can’t seem to get out of his own way. In the first of two episodes, the only ones made available for review, Hank is goaded by a student into a rant about the mediocrity of the student’s work and the college that employs him, which leads to a short-lived revolt in his department. In the second, he can barely contain his envy of a former friend whose writing career has gone stratospheric while Hank’s own stalled after one novel. Also excellent is Mireille Enos as Hank’s extremely sensible and patient wife, Lily. She and Odenkirk give a credible portrayal of a comfortable middle-aged marriage. “Office” alum Paul Lieberstein and Aaron Zelman (“Criminal Minds”) developed the series. Look for Canadian Nancy Robertson of “Corner Gas” in a guest role as Hank’s fellow professor Billie.
Odds and Ends
Dominique Fishback stars in “Swarm.” PHOTO CREDIT: Prime Video
To my mind, one of the most anticipated shows this week is “Swarm” (March 17, Prime Video), the horror series from Donald Glover and Janine Nabers starring Dominique Fishback as a darkly obsessed fan of a Beyonce-like singer. Since reviews were embargoed, though, I didn’t screen it. Prime also has “Class of ’07” (March 16) which, like “‘Swarm,” sounds intriguing but is also embargoed. It’s about a group of women trapped at their 10-year high school reunion by a tidal wave and is described as “‘Lord of the Flies’ in cocktail dresses.” Also on Prime “Last Light” (March 17), which marks the return to series TV of “Lost” star Matthew Fox, playing a father separated from his family by a crisis with the world’s oil supply.
CTV takes a page out of the “Virgin River” book with “Sullivan’s Crossing” (March 19, 7 p.m., CTV/CTV.ca), about a woman pulling up stakes for a bucolic location in which she meets an annoying but alluring stranger. B.C.’s Morgan Kohan stars as neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan, who leaves Boston after a professional crisis to take refuge in Sullivan’s Crossing, the Nova Scotia campground run by her estranged father, Sully (Scott Patterson), where she meets Cal (Chad Michael Murray of “One Tree Hill”). The show is based on the book series by “Virgin River” author Robyn Carr and shares an executive producer with “Virgin River” in Roma Roth.
Now the Netflix slate: the doc “Money Shot: The Pornhub Story” (March 15); cutthroat competition series “The Law of the Jungle” (March 15); Season 2 of fantasy series “Shadow and Bone” (March 16); and choreography competition series “Dance 100” (March 17) are among the releases.
Paramount+ has the “The Journey With Andrea Bocelli” (March 14), a docuseries about the popular singer; docuseries “Monster in the Shadows” (March 17), about the 2012 disappearance of Alabama teen Brittney Wood; the Elegance Bratton film “The Inspector” (March 17); and the comedy special “Jinkx Monsoon: Red Head Redemption” (March 17).
Finally, W Network and STACKTV have “The Best Man: The Final Chapters” (March 16, 9 p.m.), which reunites the cast of the 1999 film.
NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified 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.
From left, Ariel, Kat, Charity, Kaity and Gabi with Zach Shallcross and host Jesse Palmer at the rose ceremony in Budapest, Hungary. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC
This is what “The Bachelor” producers think of the women on this show. After Greer was released from her COVID quarantine, they made her fly to another country just so Zach could break up with her.
If Zoom was good enough for a rose ceremony, surely it was good enough to let Greer know she didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting a hometown date, which apparently everyone but Greer knew. Or she could have just disappeared like Logan did on Rachel and Gabby’s season.
But no, we needed to see the mascara streaking down her cheeks as she sat next to Zach in his Budapest hotel suite.
If there was a word or phrase of the week, it wasn’t “best friend,” which made a reappearance, or even “flabbergasted,” which Zach pulled out on his date with Kaity; it was “insecure,” which is how most of the women felt at some point during the episode.
Well, not Kaity. Everything seemed to be coming up roses for Kaity — pun intended — after she got the first Hungarian one-on-one, her second of the season.
Kaity Bigger looks at Zach Shallcross with adoration as he reads the love “poem” he typed.
She and Zach rode the Budapest Castle funicular — another new Bachelor word! — and wrote the world’s worst “poems” to each other on an old typewriter on the castle grounds, which had not at all been planted at a lookout point by “Bachelor” producers.
They learned important facts about each other, like her favourite colour is purple and his original family name was Shacklecross. And if old English names were derived from what people did for a living, I’m not sure I want to know what that one’s about.
By the time they had their non-dinner at Budapest’s oldest bathhouse, Zach was telling Kaity she made him feel “so special and safe and flabbergasted,” and Kaity was telling Zach he made her feel “that safety, that security, that stability” she’d been missing in her other relationships.
That emphasis on reliability made sense when Kaity explained that her father had left when she was young and the man who raised her also left when she was in Grade 8. And she started to cry and, for once, Zach didn’t start comparing her experience to something in his own life.
“Wow, I mean, that’s, I mean, not easy and I, I, I can’t fathom that, you know, it’s just,” he said.
So eloquently put. But he could have said goo goo, ga ga and Kaity would still have been beaming when he handed over the date rose, which guaranteed her a hometown date.
Next up was the group date. Ariel, Charity, Gabi and Kat were sent to the Kalman Imre Theatre, which was “dark and very scary” inside, according to Charity. She didn’t know the half of it.
Ariel, Charity, Kat and Gabi with Zach and mentalist Labib Malik on the group date.
Zach was hanging with a magician named Labib Malik, who claimed to be able to read minds.
At the very least, his tricks — including making a red heart appear to transfer from Zach’s hand to Gabi’s — enabled us to enjoy Gabi’s swear word substitutions, like “holy shiitake mushroom” and “what the front door.” Malik also asked the women to think of words and then wrote those words down on a chalk board, and he never missed.
What was less fun for the women was when Malik, warning them he’d know if they were lying to him, made comments and asked questions designed to make them feel like they were blowing it with Zach.
So Gabi was told that people found her confusing; Ariel was told she was keeping people from knowing “the true you”; Charity was induced to say she had a hard time trusting herself after her previous horrible relationship; and Kat was outed for having considered quitting “The Bachelor.”
Kat, Gabi and Charity were all in tears at the after-party at various points. Ariel seemed to be the only one who wasn’t losing her shiitake mushrooms.
All we really knew at this point was that Zach had to give Ariel a hometown date so we could meet the father who told her, “Ariel, you can’t do the show. I know what they do there, orgies. You will walk into a room and they will force you to get naked.”
Charity assured Zach that although she hadn’t forgiven herself for staying too long in her abusive relationship, “I have no doubt with you, none at all,” which seemed to work for Zach.
Gabi confessed her “super ADHD” to Zach and “all the weirdness that goes on in my brain,” but Zach assured her that her personality was “fun to be around.” And he reinforced that with wall smooching, which is like regular smooching, but you do it pressed up against a wall.
With Kat on the other hand, Zach was nervous that when the mentalist asked her if she wanted Zach to meet her family, she replied, “I think so.” A crying Kat dug the hole deeper by telling Zach there were days she felt like she “just couldn’t do it” and “when things get hard I want to leave and give up.”
She tried to turn it around by assuring Zach she saw a forever future with him, but the pained look on his face said forever was only going to last until the next rose ceremony.
Gabi got the rose — come on, wall kisses — which unleashed more tears from Kat.
Then it was time for Greer to get punked.
She walked to Zach’s hotel bubbling with excitement and optimism about seeing him again.
Zach and Greer Blitzer chat in his hotel suite for the first time since her COVID confinement.
After some small talk about the weather and COVID and such — and why do you have your hand on her knee if you’re about to break up with her? — Greer uttered the fateful words: “I guess I was just wondering, like, where you’re at.”
Bottom line: “To give a hometown rose I need to feel 100 per cent confident that I can see a future and I don’t feel that,” Zach said.
Well, duh. Greer never stood a chance, not without getting a one-on-one date. At this point they should just stop giving out first impression roses on “The Bachelor” because they’re nothing but stinkweeds.
Greer got the consolation prize of being told she was “an incredible woman” and a couple of hugs. Welcome to Budapest!
Speaking of one-on-ones, there are two types when it comes to second dates: the ones that shore up relations with a frontrunner, which is what Kaity got; and the ones where you take out someone on the bubble, which is what Brooklyn got.
It’s not a hot tub, but Zach and Brooklyn Willie share some water kisses.
All the bike riding, the hot air balloon riding, the smooching in the pool of yet another bathhouse as people clapped and yelled “Kiss! Kiss!” (also totally not rigged by “Bachelor” producers) was for naught.
At their non-dinner, Brooklyn got emotional talking about the family she expected him to meet, including her mom and the dirt bike-riding grandpa who raised her after her father skedaddled and who, let’s be honest, might have given Gabby’s Grandpa John a run for his money.
Zach excused himself from the table and was this one of those drama-inducing fakeouts?
It wasn’t. An emotional Zach told Brooklyn that her family “know the love that you do deserve,” but there was something blocking his connection with her and “I want you to know that you do deserve the love I can’t give you.”
They parted with tears on both sides while, back at the hotel, the other women cried and group-hugged when Brookyn’s suitcase was taken away.
Despite last week’s disagreement between Brooklyn and Kat, the women are obviously close, which explains I guess why we never got a two-on-one this season: not enough animosity in the house, fake or otherwise.
There was nothing left but the rose ceremony and don’t tell me you’re surprised that Kat got sent home, and Charity and Ariel got the last two roses.
“Why?” Kat asked Zach.
Despite their strong connection in the Bahamas — which if I’m being honest seemed mostly physical to me — “over the past couple of weeks it changed and I couldn’t see a confident future in us,” Zach said.
There was another teary handoff to the van of doom and, after Kat was driven off complaining “It’s not fair,” host Jesse Palmer came out to hug and comfort Zach. And maybe I’m a sucker, but I found that very touching.
Next week is a twofer, with hometowns (and a couple of very protective brothers, oh boy) on Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv and “Women Tell All” Tuesday at 8 p.m. You can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Confessions of Frannie Langton (March 8, BritBox)
Karla-Simone Spence and Sophie Cookson in “The Confessions of Frannie Langton.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of BritBox
Period dramas are certainly not the overwhelmingly white entertainments they used to be, but it’s still rare to have one led by a Black female character.
So “The Confessions of Frannie Langton” is already atypical in that its focus is Frannie (Karla-Simone Spence), a former slave who becomes a servant to a white aristocrat and his wife in Georgian London when she is handed over to them by her previous owner. (It’s based on the award-winning novel by Sara Collins, who also wrote the show.)
Throw in the fact its plot is driven by a love story between two women and it’s definitely not your average costume drama.
Oh, and did I mention it’s also a murder mystery?
When we first meet Frannie, she’s being dragged out of the bed of her mistress, Marguerite (Sophie Cookson), accused of murdering both the woman and her husband, George Benham (Stephen Campbell Moore).
Did Frannie do it? She says not, but she also can’t remember what she did or didn’t do in her laudanum-induced state. In any event, it’s clear that even if innocent she’ll never get a fair trial in late 1820s London where, despite the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807, Black people are still regarded as less than human.
As the series builds to the trial it also teases out Frannie’s story: how she was separated from her mother as a child in Jamaica to live with John Langton (Stephen Mackintosh) and his wife; that she became an assistant to Langton, a sort of plantation Dr. Mengele, experimenting on slaves to prove the superiority of the white race.
Whatever else Frannie might have done, these are the memories that haunt her, and Benham is complicit in them as the person who funded Langton’s work while pretending innocence of what he was really up to.
But Frannie doesn’t see herself as a victim.
“The thing you need to understand is that I’m fed up with people like you deciding who I am or what I am as soon as you take one look at me,” she tells the lawyer representing her at trial, and her character could just as well be talking to the TV audience.
Frannie is intelligent, feisty, forthright and plays the system to her advantage as well as she can in her circumstances. But her Achilles heel is her love for Marguerite, who despite her whiteness has as little control over her circumstances as Frannie does.
The passion between the women is palpable and believable, and never portrayed lasciviously. But Marguerite is not an escape for Frannie; in her own way she’s as heedless of Frannie’s well-being as Benham and Langton, and her disregard hurts Frannie more.
This obliviousness is well portrayed in the story of Olaudah, a four-year-old slave boy whom Benham renames Laddie and gives to Marguerite as a distraction after a miscarriage. The couple eventually discards him and, when they encounter him again as an adult, played by Patrick Martins, he’s seething with resentment of them.
Olaudah has carved a niche for himself in white society as a boxer, as has Sal (the wonderful Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn), who runs a brothel that specializes in BDSM for its white customers and who is Frannie’s most steadfast friend.
Surprisingly, the series is only four episodes long, but it packs a lot into those episodes.
“Bridgerton” may have whetted our appetite for seeing characters of colour in period dramas; “The Confessions of Frannie Langton” satisfies with a portrayal of a Black lead character that is entertaining but also exposes the unsavoury realities behind the lovely period facades.
Shelved (March 6, CTV/CTV.ca)
Lyndie Greenwood, Chris Sandiford, Dakota Ray Hebert and Paul Braunstein in “Shelved.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media
Has there been a workplace comedy set in a library? Not to my memory but, in putting his in a Toronto library branch, creator Anthony Q. Farrell (“The Office,” “Secret Life of Boys”) has certainly hit on a location that’s reflective of the city.
“Shelved” takes place in a Parkdale branch of the fictional Metropolitan Public Library. People who don’t live in Toronto might not know that Parkdale has historically been home to low-income, marginalized communities, but the series quickly establishes that the Jameson branch has far fewer resources than outposts in wealthier neighbourhoods.
Cheerful, ever optimistic branch manager Wendy (Lyndie Greenwood, “Sleepy Hollow”) spends the pilot episode trying to replace Jameson’s computers, an essential resource for its clients that’s been missing for months. A couple of smirking employees drop off hardware even older than what she’s replacing while the oblivious facilities director suggests Jameson patrons bring their laptops and use the Wi-Fi.
Wendy eventually finds a solution thanks to Howard (Chris Sandiford, “What We Do in the Shadows”), who’s on a day transfer from the Midtown branch but soon becomes permanent — to his horror — thus solving another Jameson problem: understaffing.
The main cast is rounded out by Paul Braunstein (“Burden of Truth”) as assistant head Bryce and Dene actor Dakota Ray Hebert (“Run Woman Run”) as Jaq, keeper of the social media accounts and the feminist yin to Bryce’s anti-woke, right-wing yang.
Bryce quips to Howard that there are “a lot less gang fights” at Jameson than at his previous branch, but the vibe here is more sunny ways than mean streets.
Even the homeless patron, Unhoused Wendy (Robin Duke), looks rather well-kempt. She’s one of the few library users who gets a substantial amount of dialogue in the first two episodes, the only ones made available for review.
There’s also Sheila (Taylor Love), who comes in part-time to run the branch’s settlement desk and who quickly becomes a romantic interest for Howard.
Farrell has come up with an interesting concept, one that seems to have less bite and more sweetness than workplace comedies like “The Office.” We’ll see whether Canadian viewers want to take it on a long-term loan or just browse.
Short Takes
Preben Hodneland and Ine Marie Wilmann in “Furia.” PHOTO CREDIT: Boris Laewen
Furia (March 7, Viaplay)
I can already hear the cries of “What, more TV?” when I mention that there’s a new streaming service available in Canada. Described as “the leading producer of Nordic noir,” Viaplay launches here Tuesday and will be available via Apple TV, Android TV, Chromecast and other platforms. I was invited to sample the content ahead of the launch and watched a couple of episodes of Norwegian crime drama “Furia.” It starts with a cop from Oslo, Asgeir (Pal Sverre Hagen), moving to the picturesque small town of Vestvik with his seven-year-old daughter, hiding out from a Russian mob boss who wants him dead. But, as any consumer of crime drama knows, small towns aren’t necessarily all that bucolic, even ones with gorgeous mountain backdrops. What starts as the investigation of vandalism and arson at a refugee centre leads to a murder inquiry and the discovery of an alt-right cell in Vestvik that’s part of a larger terrorism plot. Asgeir, who’s apparently really bad at keeping a low profile, gets a little too close to the group as well as to Ragna (Ine Marie Wilmann), who blogs anti-Islam screeds under the pen name Furia. Ragna isn’t who she appears to be, however, and has a history with the Utoya massacre, a real-life attack in which a neo-Nazi killed 77 people, including 67 at a youth summer camp, in 2011. Also, if you watched Steven Van Zandt’s “Lilyhammer” you’ll recognize Fridtjov Saheim as Kjetil, one of the right-wing conspirators.
Athletes rights activist Payoshni Mitra with former middle distance runner Annet Negesa. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of TVO
Category: Woman (March 8, 9 p.m., TVO/TVO.org)
If you’d like to experience some infuriation on International Women’s Day I recommend watching this documentary by Canadian filmmaker and former Olympian Phyllis Ellis. It lays out the long history of invasive gender testing of female athletes deemed too masculine by governing bodies like World Athletics, formerly known as the IAAF. It’s a practice that goes back decades in many sports, but Ellis focuses mainly on 21st-century runners of colour, like Caster Semenya of South Africa, Dutee Chand of India, Margaret Wambui of Kenya and Annet Negesa of Uganda, since the practice disproportionately affects Black and brown women. At the very least, careers have been ruined by the results of testosterone tests that, according to one doctor, are based on bad science. And then there are cases like Negesa’s. She was told she needed surgery to be able to compete so underwent the removal of her gonads as well as a partial clitoridectomy. It’s the kind of stuff you might expect to see fictionalized in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Though she was told she could run again in just a few weeks, she was unable to compete again and sought asylum in Germany since the changes to her body meant her life would be in danger in Uganda. As athletes right activist Payoshni Mitra says, “When you are a man and you do exceptionally well you become a superman. When you are a woman and you do exceptionally well you must be a man.” Semenya lost a case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport against IAAF regulations that force women with high levels of testerone to reduce those levels to compete in certain events, but she has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.
If you’re a fan of dark British crime drama “Luther” and its hero, troubled detective John Luther (Idris Elba), you’re going to watch the Netflix film “Luther: The Fallen Sun” (March 10) no matter what the theatrical reviews say. I know I will. Netflix also has MH370: The Plane That Disappeared (March 8), a docuseries about the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 in 2014; Part 2 of the fourth season of “You” (March 9); and competition series “Outlast” (March 10), sort of an Alaskan “Survivor.”
“Perry Mason” is back for a second season (March 6, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave) and, based on the first episode, seems to be off to a promising start. In 1932 Los Angeles, Mason (a reliably good Matthew Rhys) is as restless as ever and, despite a vow to stick to civil law after last season’s Emily Dodson case, he and Della Street (Juliet Rylance) will soon get pulled into a murder case involving the rich son of an oil baron. Crave also has the HBO series “Rain Dogs” (March 6, 10 p.m.), about a working-class single mother and her daughter; and the original series “Disobey” (March 8), about the 1989 Chantale Daigle case, in which her ex-boyfriend sued her to prevent her from having an abortion.
On the subject of competition series, Paramount+ has “The Challenge: World Championship” (March 8), featuring top competitors from the American, British, Australian and Argentinian versions of the series participating in extreme physical activities to win $500,000.
Staying in the reality TV vein, if you’re a fan of “Big Brother Canada,” you probably don’t need me to tell you that Season 11 debuts March 8 at 9 p.m. on Global and STACKTV.
Disney+ has a number of things debuting this week, the most interesting of which for comedy fans is “History of the World: Part II” (Disney Star, March 6), an eight-episode followup to Mel Brooks’ 1981 film “History of the World: Part 1.” Also coming this week, the concert special “Miley Cyrus — Endless Summer Vacation” (March 10); the comedy-drama “UnPrisoned” (March 10), which stars Kerry Washington as a single mother and therapist who takes in her father (Delroy Lindo) when he’s released from jail; and the feel-good film “Chang Can Dunk” (March 10), about an unpopular Asian-American high school student (Bloom Li) who bets the school basketball star he can sink a ball by homecoming.
Prime Video’s latest is “Pendant ce temps en cuisine” (March 10), a docuseries that follows six Quebec chefs.
Acorn has “Holding” (March 6), which stars “Game of Thrones” vet Conleth Hill as a police sergeant in a small Irish town with a murder to solve. Charlene McKenna (“Bloodlands”) and Siobhan McSweeney (Sister Michael in “Derry Girls”) co-star.
With apologies to the publicist, I did not get time to check out “Bug Sex” (March 10, 9 p.m., CBC/CBC Gem), an episode of “The Nature of Things” about the reproductive habits of insects.
Finally, a couple of Oscar-related things. If you’re curious about “To Leslie,” the film that controversially earned Andrea Riseborough a Best Actress nomination, it’s on Super Channel Fuse on March 11. And the 95th Academy Awards themselves air March 12 at 8 p.m. on CTV.
NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified 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.
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