Author: Debra Yeo (Page 12 of 29)

Watchable Jan. 31 to Feb. 6

January 31, 2022 / Debra Yeo

Pam & Tommy (Feb. 2, Disney Plus)

Lily James as Pamela Anderson and *Sebastian Stan* as Tommy Lee in “Pam & Tommy.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Erin Simkin/Hulu

It seems to me that “Pam & Tommy” wants to have it both ways.

On one hand, it makes the point that the theft and subsequent distribution of a sex tape featuring actor Pamela Anderson and her husband, Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, was a devastating invasion of privacy. On the other, it puts that humiliation on display by detailing how that sex tape spread around the world, with a large and often sympathetic focus on the man who stole it in the first place, contractor Rand Gauthier.

In fact, if you watched only the first of the eight episodes, you’d think the series should be named “Pam & Tommy & Rand.”

In the opener, Pam (Lily James) is barely glimpsed — and heard, having loud sex with Lee (Sebastian Stan) above the heads of Rand (Seth Rogen) and other workers who are building a “love pad” for the couple.

Luckily for us, Pam’s presence increases, because James’ performance is the best reason to watch this series. The physical transformation of the “Downton Abbey” and “Cinderella” star is uncanny, but her ability goes beyond mere mimicry. She gives an affecting portrayal of a character who, as the series progresses, grows from sex object and party girl to a woman fighting a lopsided and losing battle against misogyny.

Stan (“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”) also acquits himself well as the volatile Lee, although he comes off initially as a caricature, a thong-wearing, sports car-driving rock star who won’t pay Rand and his colleague for work they’re already done despite his aggressive boasts about his fortune. When schlubby, mulleted and broke Rand presses Tommy for the money, Lee fires them both.

To add insult to injury, Tommy puts a shotgun in Rand’s face when he comes back to retrieve his forgotten tool chest. All of this is clearly meant to give Rand proper motivation for later breaking in and stealing a safe from the couple’s garage.

I would presume the guns, watches, jewelry and cash inside that safe would have covered what Rand was owed, but he got greedy. The series portrays how Rand partners with porn producer Uncle Miltie (Nick Offerman) to shop the tape around to video companies. When none of them will touch it because Pam and Tommy haven’t signed releases, Rand and Miltie opt to sell it direct to consumers themselves using a website and mob money.

Tommy tries unsuccessfully to retrieve the tape, using fixer Anthony Pellicano (Don Harvey) and biker friends; then the couple tries and fails to keep Penthouse from printing images from it, compete with a humiliating and sexist deposition of Pam as part of the court case. A web porn entrepreneur named Seth Warshavsky (Fred Hechinger of “The White Lotus”) eventually makes the tape available free online to boost his web-cam business.

The show is an overstuffed combination of biopic, crime caper, and a treatise on the early days of the internet, the online porn industry and celebrity exploitation.

The biographic part mostly focuses on Pam’s and Tommy’s relationship, portraying it as a grand if unconventional love story after they meet at a club on New Year’s Eve 1994 and quickly marry in Mexico (I’ve read the courtship lasted six weeks; the series compresses that timeline to days). In real life, the marriage ended in 1998 after a physical fight (Lee pleaded no contest to felony spousal battery), but the show makes it easy to believe there was genuine love between the couple.

It also touches on how Pam got her start as a Playboy model; her unhappiness with her T&A role on “Baywatch”; her bid to be taken seriously as an actress; and Tommy’s frustration as Motley Crue is eclipsed by grunge and other new music.

(Don’t ask me what category the talking penis fits into — that’s right, Tommy has an argument with his dick about whether to commit to Pam. Giving his member its own cameo is an interesting choice considering the double standard of Pam being denigrated after the video came out while Tommy was congratulated for the size of his penis.)

It’s a no-brainer that Pam was the most negatively affected by the release of the tape, which was less a sex tape than a record of the couple’s honeymoon that included sex. The series shows her having a miscarriage amid the stress of learning that copies of the tape are being sold, and there’s no doubt the scandal had a negative impact on her career as well as her marriage.

In one scene, Pam tells Tommy and their lawyer that the court ruling in favour of Penthouse isn’t really about First Amendment rights to free speech but the fact that she, as someone who has spent her public life in a bathing suit and posing for Playboy, doesn’t have any rights.

“They can’t actually say that sluts — and that’s what this ruling is saying I am in case you’re unclear — they can’t actually say that sluts don’t get to decide what happens to pictures of their bodies,” she says.

It’s one of the more cogent scenes, the other being porn actor Erica (Taylor Schilling) upbraiding her ex Rand for treating Pam’s and Tommy’s private video as porn.

The slut-shaming of women like Pamela Anderson hasn’t gone away in the 25-plus years since the scandal erupted, but do we really need this miniseries to get that point across?

I’ve read that the real Pam Anderson doesn’t plan to watch the show. I hope she achieved some peace of mind in the years since her privacy was crassly violated, but bringing it up again in an eight-part series is unlikely to help with that.

Disney Plus, with National Geographic, also has the documentary “Torn” (Feb. 4), which explores not only the life and death of legendary mountain climber Alex Lowe, but what happens when his body is found 17 years later. The discovery unearths difficult emotions for Alex’s three sons, including filmmaker Max Lowe, his widow Jennifer and his surviving climbing partner Conrad Anker, who married Jennifer and raised Alex’s boys as his own.

Short Takes

Amara Karan as detective Leila Hussain in “Hope Street.” PHOTO CREDIT: BritBox

Hope Street (Jan. 31, BritBox)

This new crime drama is about Leila Hussain, a detective constable parachuted in from Nottingham, England, to the small Northern Irish town of Port Devine. Despite the cosy, picturesque setting, it’s not twee and twinkly-eyed locals. Leila (Amara Karan, “The Night Of”) clashes with some of the townspeople and her colleague Sgt. Marlene Pettigrew (Kerri Quinn), not because she’s the town’s first Muslim officer, but because her aggressive style of investigation rubs people the wrong way, but she grows on them and they on her. Leila also has a secret — and dangerous — reason for being in Port Devine, known to her new boss (and potential love interest) Inspector Finn O’Hare (Ciaran McMenamin). With its focus on crimes other than homicides (at least in the three episodes I screened) and its assortment of characters, it’s an entertaining way to pass some time.

Tom Rhys Harries, Kunal Nayyar, Georgina Campbell and Elizabeth Henstridge in “Suspicion.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

Suspicion (Feb. 4, Apple TV Plus)

Who kidnapped Leo Newman? To be honest, three episodes into this purported thriller, I wasn’t sure I cared given how long it was taking to tease out the threads of the plot. The son of a high-powered communications executive about to be named U.S. ambassador to the U.K. (Uma Thurman in a blink and you’ll miss her role), Leo is abducted in a high-end New York hotel by suspects wearing masks of the British royal family. In England, four seemingly unrelated people — an Oxford lecturer (Elizabeth Henstridge) and student (Tom Rhys Harries), a wannabe security expert (Kunal Nayyar) and a tax accountant (Georgina Campbell) — are arrested because they all happened to be at the hotel the night Leo was taken. So was violent Irish criminal Sean Tilson (Elyes Gabel). The other protagonists are a British detective (Angel Coulby) and an FBI specialist (Noah Emmerich) grudgingly forced to work together to find Leo, whose abduction appears to be linked to something his mother’s company is doing. Some of the plot devices are silly — including the ease with which Sean eludes an airport full of police in Belfast and the ridiculously intrusive level of surveillance used on the suspects — and the dialogue laughable. Sample: Aadesh Chopra’s (Nayyar) brother-in-law after Aadesh grudgingly agrees to join the family business, “It’s not carpets we are selling here, it’s dreams.”

Guy Torry, the comedian behind Phat Tuesdays at the Comedy Store. PHOTO CREDIT: Amazon Studios

Phat Tuesdays: The Era of Hip Hop Comedy (Feb. 4, Prime Video)

This docuseries by Reginald Hudlin (“House Party,” “The Bernie Mac Show”) uses a who’s who of comedy talent to revisit a seminal time not just in the history of Black entertainment, but entertainment in general. As the series tells it, Black comedians — unable to get coveted slots at the Comedy Store — established their own thriving scene at the Comedy Act Theatre in South L.A. in the ’80s, launching the careers of many well known Black comics, including the late Robin Harris. After the so-called “Hollyhood” became a less desirable destination for white showbiz executives following the Rodney King riots, comedian Guy Torry decided to take the ‘hood to Hollywood. Given “crumbs,” in one comedian’s words — a Tuesday night slot in the Store’s smallest room — Torry, his fellow comedians and the celebrities who flocked to the club turned it into one of the hottest destinations on the Sunset Strip. When Phat Tuesday moved to the larger Main Room, it sold that out too and became a conduit to TV and movie deals for the comedians on its stage, essentially making Black comedy part of the Hollywood mainstream. If you’re a comedy fan, you’ll want to check this out.

Prime Video (formerly Amazon Prime Video) also has the new action series “Reacher” (Feb. 4), based on the “Jack Reacher” novels; and the rom-com “Book of Love” (Feb. 4), an opposites attract tale about an uptight English author (Sam Claflin) and the Mexican translator (Verónica Echegui) who turns his book into an erotic novel.

If You Missed It . . .

We Need to Talk About Cosby (Crave)

Do check out this docuseries by W. Kamau Bell, which I got too late to include in last week’s list. Based on what I’ve seen of it, it does a thorough, thoughtful job of comparing the Bill Cosby we thought we knew — revered comedian and TV star — with the one we know now, the man accused of serial sexual assault. It gives voice to some of Cosby’s victims as well as Black people for whom the change in perspective is a particularly painful one.

Odds and Ends

Will Arnett and “Schitt’s Creek” and “Kevin Can F**k Himself” star Annie Murphy in “Murderville.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Of Netflix

Would that I could tell you what I think of new Netflix comedy “Murderville” (Feb. 3) but — all together now! — reviews are embargoed until Tuesday. Toronto-born Will Arnett stars as detective Terry Seattle and the shtick is that in every episode a new celebrity guest becomes his partner and, without a script, has to figure out the identity of the murderer. Guests include Annie Murphy, Conan O’Brien, Ken Jeong, Kumail Nanjiani, Marshawn Lynch and Sharon Stone. Netflix also has Season 2 of “Sweet Magnolias” (Feb. 4) and Season 2 of “Raising Dion” (Feb. 1).

If you remember Lemon and Jimbo from Season 1 of “Canada’s Drag Race” — and how could you not? — you’ll want to watch them compete against “RuPaul’s Drag Race” stars from other countries in “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs the World” (Crave, Feb. 1, 9 p.m.). Crave also has Season 2 of “Raised by Wolves” (Feb. 3).

I would have loved to get a look at “Canfield Roots” on PBS (Feb. 1, 7:30 p.m.). It’s about the community of Canfield in Ontario and its connection to the Underground Railroad, which helped enslaved Black Americans escape to relative freedom, and its most famous conductor, Harriet Tubman. PBS also has “Arctic Sinkholes” on “Nova” (Feb. 2, 9 p.m.), which explores the phenomenon of methane gas explosions in the far North and, alas, yet another threat to the planet from climate change.

And if climate change docs make you want to put your fingers in your ears and go la, la, la, la, you can watch Season 3 of “Celebrity Big Brother” on Global TV (Feb. 2, 8 p.m.), although celebrity might be stretching it a bit.

Finally, Hollywood Suite has Season 5 of the acclaimed Italian crime drama “Gomorrah” on demand staring Feb. 1.

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 some shows that I have not watched.

Cassidy leaves, Shanae lies and the Bachelor drama continues

January 25, 2022 / Debra Yeo

Clayton Echard and Nicole Eggert oversee a “Baywatch”-themed group date.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos except screen grabs John Fleenor/ABC

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a “Bachelor” season launches with a lead who wasn’t the viewers’ choice and gets criticized for devoting too much time to the bullies among the cast.

The main difference between Matt James’ season a year ago and Clayton Echard’s now is that the bullies — so far — are targeting other white women. Oh and the franchise has reverted to its comfort zone of having a white man in the lead.

There are a couple of conclusions we can draw: the people who put this show together have learned nothing from past controversies and, even if they had, they don’t care what we think.

On Monday night, just ahead of the latest outrageous stunt by villain Shanae Ankney, “Bachelor” creator Mike Fleiss tweeted, “Not sure what it is, but there’s something about Shanae that I really like. . .”

Perhaps he was trying to be ironic, but it felt like a jibe at those of us who were genuinely disturbed by Shanae’s behaviour. And I’m not gonna lie: watching Shanae blatantly lie to Clayton as she badmouthed contestant Elizabeth Corrigan, and then laugh about pulling one over on him, really bothered me.

But guess what? The episode ended (yet again) without a rose ceremony, but it was clear from the promo of next week’s instalment that Shanae will make it through another week and we’ll be in for more of the drama that Fleiss and crew value so much.

I suppose some people will vote with their remotes and just stop watching. Ratings were down between Week 1 and 2, which aired two weeks ago, but were still good enough to lead the night in the all important 18 to 49 demo.

Me? I’ve committed to recapping the season, which I guess makes me part of the problem, but let’s get on with it.

Cassidy Timbrooks gets some bad news from Clayton.

Last week’s episode ended with Clayton asking host Jesse Palmer if anyone had ever taken back a rose before. It took about 16 minutes on Monday for Clayton to do just that, showing Cassidy the door after learning that she’d been FaceTiming her friend with benefits back home pretty much right up until it was time for her limo ride to the Bachelor mansion.

At first Cassidy was deny, deny, deny, but for some reason she caved and admitted there was a friend she’d slept with a couple of times over the last couple of months, but she had “no interest in resuming that relationship because I knew it wasn’t going anywhere.”

And what did she think Clayton was going to do with that information? She cried a lot when he handed her into the SUV of shame, so maybe she actually liked him? I dunno. And of course, there’s the double standard of a woman who’s about to become one of 30 chasing the same stranger being expected to live like a nun in the months leading up to filming, but Cassidy was annoying so I can’t pretend I’m sorry she’s gone.

Then Clayton, looking appropriately mournful, handed out 16 more roses (Sarah and Susie already had two) and 18 women moved on, sweetly but naively hoping they could put the drama behind them.

First up was a group date with Serene, Susie, Eliza, Mara, Marlena, Hunter, Genevieve and Jill, and can somebody please explain why this franchise has made such a fetish out of so-called “vulnerability”?

Kaitlyn Bristowe (back to the camera) practises ersatz group therapy on Clayton’s date.

The women had to sit in a circle on a stage with Clayton and “Bachelorette” host Kaitlyn Bristowe and spill their guts about painful things in their lives. I mean, they don’t know Clayton, they don’t know Kaitlyn, just a few weeks in they probably barely know each other, so why?

Asked to share a part of themselves they weren’t proud of, their discussion turned to body image. Hunter confessed she had worn contacts to turn her eyes blue and changed her hair colour to please a boyfriend who cheated on her. Serene said she used to overeat in front of other people to fend off accusations she was anorexic because of her small stature. Even Clayton said he purposely lost weight when he was in Grade 7 because he thought he was fat.

Marlena talked about the burden of being a woman of colour: “having to be 10 times better just to be seen and just to be heard has been a lot for me,” although she also said she hadn’t intended to talk to Clayton about race. Bring it on was basically his response. She was helping the white guy “see things from a different perspective.” And that’s about as deep as this franchise gets on the topic.

At the after party there was more talk about opening up and validating feelings, but mostly Clayton kissed people and then gave the date rose to Eliza because she was a “sweetheart” and he seemed to really like her outfit.

Next up was a one-on-one with Sarah and yet another gratuitous “Bachelor” alumnus guest appearance.

This time, former Bachelorette Becca Kufrin was there because she had allegedly planned the date, which is as believable as the fact that when Clayton and Sarah were told they had to strip to their underwear they just happened to be wearing matching black briefs and a sports bra in Sarah’s case.

Clayton and Sarah had to run around the streets of Los Angeles in underwear. Fun?

So we went from contestants having to strip emotionally to doing it physically. Sarah and Clayton got to make spectacles of themselves doing embarrassing things like dancing and singing (or rapping) in their gitch.

Clayton said it was “a true test to our relationship.” No it wasn’t, it was a bit of humiliation dreamed up by some producer with the sensibility of a 12-year-old boy.

Apparently Sarah hadn’t been quite vulnerable enough, because at dinner she talked about being part Vietnamese and being adopted into a white family because her birth parents were too young to raise her, and how she grew up feeling ashamed of being adopted.

Sarah was laying down some real feelings but getting rote responses from Clayton like “Seriously, thank you so much for sharing that.”

Nonetheless, she eagerly accepted the date rose and danced and smooched with Clayton as a string quartet played “Clair de Lune” inside the “Immersive Van Gogh” exhibit in Los Angeles.

Back at the mansion, the stage was being set for the group date nonsense to come.

First, Shanae turned what appeared to be a nice gesture by Elizabeth — making some garlic butter shrimp to share — into another reason to hate her; her words, not mine. I don’t know how many shrimp Elizabeth made, but Shanae ate eight of them — there was a counter onscreen keeping track — so some women didn’t get any. Shanae made more, but when most of the women failed to look up when Shanae brought a plate of shrimp to the hot tub she blamed that on Elizabeth too.

Then the next date card came. Elizabeth and Shanae were both on it, along with Gabby, Rachel, Kira, Melina, Lyndsey, Sierra and Teddi. Shanae groused in confessional that she didn’t want Elizabeth on her group date, “but she’s not gonna win. I need to get that fuckin’ rose tomorrow.”

Kira, Teddi, Elizabeth and Lyndsey in the red suits.

I’m not sure why “Baywatch” was the theme of the date. So we could watch the women jiggle across the beach in those famous red bathing suits, perhaps? Anyway, original cast member Nicole Eggert was there and the women had to put sunscreen on each other, give CPR to a dummy (no, not Shanae) and do a slo-mo stroll.

Shanae distinguished herself by putting sunscreen on Clayton’s nipples and then jumping on him and kissing him for far too long, all the while hoping Elizabeth was watching. How could she not watch such a cringe-worthy display?

“I’m back on top,” crowed Shanae. But she wasn’t because Nicole gave the prize of extra time with Clayton to Gabby. Clayton was so impressed with Gabby’s quirkiness and goofiness that he also gave her the date rose — but not before Shanae had turned the cocktail party into another shit show.

Shanae lied to Clayton that Elizabeth was perpetuating their beef of the week before; that the other women wouldn’t talk to Shanae when Elizabeth was around; and that Elizabeth was “a liar and a bully and toxic,” which of course is a description of Shanae herself.

She even squeezed out a few tears and then boasted in her confessional, “Omigod, he believed me. Trust me, I have him. I know I have him. I was good, like, I was good. Holy fuck, I was good. And I didn’t mean to cry, but I cried,” she laughed.

I don’t know if Shanae is really that much of a jerk, if the stress of shooting has altered her behaviour, if she’s following a villain game plan or being egged on by producers, but her glee at hoodwinking Clayton seemed unambiguous.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth cried what appeared to be real tears after Clayton confronted her, yet again, with Shanae’s accusations, claiming that Shanae’s mental health was “wavering.”

“I’ve been nothing but kind to her. Like, what did I do?” protested Elizabeth. “I don’t feel like I can really talk to you because I’m just being questioned.”

Shanae Ankney pre-emptively gloats about her imagined victory over Elizabeth.

The other women questioned Shanae about her claims but since she was unable to give them any examples she tried to shut down the conversation instead and reverted to calling Elizabeth “fake” and “two-faced.”

See, if Clayton was channelling Michelle Young he would have got to the root of the bullshit right then and there, and sent Shanae home. Instead, he planned to address the subject at the next night’s cocktail party.

“Elizabeth’s the problem,” declared Shanae. “She’s not gonna make me lose because of her lying ADHD ass.” So we’re back to that, are we?

We already know Shanae will get a rose and she’ll be on yet another group date next week and that Clayton, unable to see through her crap, will play more tonsil hockey with her. And she will find a new target for her raging insecurity in Genevieve. And honestly, I’m so over it.

But I’ll be back next week recapping the new episode, which airs Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Watchable Jan. 24 to 30, 2022

January 24, 2022 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Gilded Age (Jan. 24, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

Cynthia Nixon and Christine Baranski in “The Gilded Age.” PHOTO CREDIT: Alison Rosa/HBO

In a year that already promises period drama treasures, including second seasons of “Sanditon” and “Bridgerton,” “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes gives us this treat: a show that drops us in the midst of the 1880s version of America’s 1 per cent with all the visual splendour that implies.

“The Gilded Age,” which Fellowes conceived while “Downton” was still airing, is centred in the New York of the Astors and Vanderbilts, when the so-called “Four Hundred” ruled society, but the nouveau riche were nipping at their heels.

There’s some irony in the fact these Old New York families would be parvenus compared to England’s oldest, aristocratic dynasties, but their snobbery is no less virulent.

Our main guide to the old money rules of engagement is Agnes van Rhijn, played by a wonderfully formidable Christine Baranski. She was forced to marry money, unhappily so, when her brother squandered her parents’ fortune, leaving her and sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon) penniless, and she fiercely guards her status as part of the upper crust.

Carrie Coon as Bertha Russell. PHOTO CREDIT: Alison Rosa/HBO

On the new money side is the equally formidable Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), who is as ferocious in her ambition to take her place at the pinnacle of society as her husband George (Morgan Spector) is in his rapacious business dealings.

The Russells have built a palace of a house — in which the gilding of the title is on full, decadent display — right across 5th Avenue from Agnes and Ada, so it seems likely Agnes can’t avoid interacting with Bertha forever, despite her best efforts.

The viewer’s proxy in all this is Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson, one of Meryl Streep’s daughters), Agnes’s and Ada’s niece, forced to move from Pennsylvania to Manhattan when she is left destitute by her spendthrift father’s death.

Despite her initial reluctance to take Marian in, Agnes is determined to mould her into a model of old money respectability, a goal that is at odds with Marian’s curiosity about the Russells and the scandalous Mrs. Chamberlain (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and her romantic interest in lawyer Tom Raikes (Thomas Cocquerel), whom Agnes deems an unsuitable suitor.

Denee Benton and Louisa Jacobson as Peggy and Marian. PHOTO CREDIT: Alison Rosa/HBO

Marian is intelligent, kind-hearted and open-minded, but she’s not the most interesting character in the show. Apart from Agnes and Bertha, that would be Peggy Scott (Denee Benton), a young Black woman who rescues Marian when her purse is stolen at the train station and who subsequently becomes Agnes’s secretary.

Peggy is no cipher, inserted just to break up the whiteness of the cast. She’s an aspiring writer from a middle class Black family in Brooklyn — Audra McDonald plays her mother Dorothy and John Thomas Douglas her pharmacist father Arthur — and she is aware of the racism around her but not acquiescent to it. And she’s certainly not going to let it get in the way of her goals.

She turns down, for instance, a respected newspaper that wants to publish one of her stories, but only if she changes the race of the lead character and conceals her own. And when Marian blunders badly, showing up at the Scotts’ well-appointed home with charity in the form of an old pair of boots, Peggy won’t let Marian off the hook for her racist assumption.

Benton, McDonald and Douglas are among a wealth of accomplished stage actors playing roles in “The Gilded Age,” including Kelli O’Hara as society wife Aurora Fane; Nathan Lane as Ward McAllister, the Southern lawyer who was Mrs. Astor’s henchman in enforcing the social order; and Michael Cerveris as George Russell’s valet, Watson.

Of course, this being a Julian Fellowes show, there is a “downstairs” to balance the “upstairs.” In this case, we get two sets of servants to follow, in the van Rhijn and Russell households.

Although everybody in “Downton Abbey” seemed benevolent by the sixth season, you’ll recall that a couple of the servants, Mrs. O’Brien and Thomas Barrow, were rather nasty pieces of work in the early going. That role here is occupied by Miss Turner (Kelley Curran), lady’s maid to Mrs. Russell, who’s keen to do some social climbing of her own.

And while “The Gilded Age” is certainly not an American “Downton,” if you miss the quips of the latter’s Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) you can take comfort in the witticisms delivered by Baranski.

It’s always hard to know how these things will land — who would have guessed at the mammoth popularity of “Downton” in its first season? — but “The Gilded Age” is a worthy addition to the period drama canon.

I happily consumed the five episodes made available for review and look forward to watching the rest.

Short Takes

A counsellor leads class at the Westover Treatment Centre. PHOTO CREDIT: TVO

Come Clean (Jan. 25, 9 p.m., TVO and TVO.org)

This documentary by Derreck Roemer and Neil Graham puts an achingly human face on addiction. It follows four patients through their 19 days at the Westover Treatment Centre in Thamesville, Ont., and checks in on them intermittently in the year after the program. Annie is a 40-something alcoholic whose relationship with her husband revolves around drinking; autoworker and mother of two Julie is hooked on cocaine; 20something alcoholic Bryanna was suicidal before she got to Westover; teenage coke addict Ryan is there as part of his probation after he was busted for selling drugs. They all show up on New Year’s Eve 2018 professing their eagerness to change, but the doc makes clear that addiction is a powerful foe. Annie, Bryanna and Julie share stories of the childhood violence, emotional and sexual abuse that fuelled their substance abuse. For Ryan, the sense of importance he gained selling drugs in his small town seems as addictive as the high he got from the cocaine. All four face obstacles when they leave Westover, whether it’s Annie’s husband’s continued drinking, or Ryan’s loneliness and aimlessness as he tries to stay straight. You might be surprised by who takes to sobriety the best and who crumbles, but you’ll also find poignancy in the setbacks and the victories.

Jana Morrison and Samantha Aucoin as Astrid and Lilly. PHOTO CREDIT: Syfy/Bell Media

Astrid & Lilly Save the World (Jan. 26, 10 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel and Crave)

Part of the appeal of this dramedy about a pair of high school friends who are forced to become monster hunters is watching Astrid (Jana Morrison) and Lilly (Samantha Aucoin) gain confidence in themselves with each gooey kill (besides dispatching the monsters, they have to harvest a specific body part from each). As plus-size best friends who are outcasts in their high school (which seems to be chock-a-block with skinny people), Astrid and Lilly are the main attraction of the series, which sees them accidentally open a portal to another dimension while trying to exorcise the “monsters” who mock them for their size. They’re the only ones who can close it again — and save humanity — with the help of their handsome but annoying guide Brutus (Olivier Renaud). This isn’t a show that’s going to change the world, a la “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” its most obvious influence, but it has its amusing moments. Having filmed in Newfoundland and Labrador, the series is full of Canadian actors, including Morrison, Aucoin, Renaud, Julia Doyle, who plays Lilly’s nemesis Candace; Spencer Macpherson as Astrid’s love interest Sparrow; and Geri Hall as Candace’s creepily religious mom Christine.

Odds and Ends

The TallBoyz, from right, Tim Blair, Franco Nguyen, Vance Banzo and Guled Abdi
with guest Paul Sun-Hyung Lee. PHOTO CREDIT: CBC

Comedy troupe “TallBoyz” returns for its third season (Jan. 25, 9:30 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem). Some of the sketches use humour to highlight serious issues like Toronto’s rental housing crisis, ongoing boil-water advisories in Indigenous communities and gentrification pushing out mom-and-pop businesses; others are just silly fun. The highlight in the season opener is guest star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee of “Kim’s Convenience.”

Prime Video debuts “The Legend of Vox Machina” (Jan. 28, Prime Video), the offshoot of a popular web series called “Critical Role,” which featured a group of voice actors streaming their “Dungeons and Dragons” campaigns. They reprise their roles in this animated show as a hard-drinking group of mercenaries for hire — a mix of humans, elves and one horny gnome — who call themselves Vox Machina and get conscripted to defeat a monster that’s terrorizing the kingdom of Tal’Dorei.

Netflix offerings this week include cliched action drama “In From the Cold” (Jan. 28), with Margarita Levieva (“The Deuce”) as a former Russian spy who has to work for the CIA when her ordinary single mom cover is blown; the mystery-spoofing miniseries “The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window” (Jan. 28), starring Kristen Bell; and “Getting Curious With Jonathan Van Ness” (Jan. 28), in which the “Queer Eye” grooming expert spins off his podcast of the same name.

Apple TV Plus has comedy murder mystery “The Afterparty” (Jan. 28, Apple TV Plus), which sounds like a hoot on paper given its cast of comedy vets but which, in all honesty, I found a slog after just one episode.

If you’re interested in watching people who sound like suckers for punishment in the romance department, Discovery Plus has “Love Off the Grid” (Jan. 30), in which urbanites try to give it a go with partners who live without conveniences like indoor plumbing, which would be a hard no for me.

Roku unveils its first original adult animated series, “Doomlands” (Jan. 28), a comedy from Josh O’Keefe about an outlaw, a bartender and other misfits whose habitat is a mobile pub in a wasteland.

Watchable Jan. 17 to 23, 2022

January 17, 2022 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Fanny: The Right to Rock (Jan. 17, Crave)

Members of Fanny in a screen grab from “Fanny: The Right to Rock.”

If you missed this documentary when it played the Hot Docs and Inside Out festivals last year — winning a $10,000 Rogers Audience Award at the former — now’s your chance to get in on one of rock and roll’s best kept secrets.

Fanny is the name of an all-female band that emerged in California in the late 1960s, put out five critically acclaimed albums, toured with some of the biggest acts of the day, gained fans in fellow musicians like the late David Bowie then fell off the radar, mainly unremembered and uncelebrated until this film started playing the festival circuit last year.

This doc by Montreal’s Bobbi Jo Hart — scored by Fanny’s own hard driving music — will likely leave you shaking your head at the oversight.

The group — sister guitarists June and Jean Millington and drummer Brie Darling, later drummer Alice de Buhr, keyboardist Nickey Barclay and guitarist Patti Quatro — had a lot of barriers to bust through: June, Jean and Brie were Filipina-American; June and Alice were lesbians; and they were all women trying to get ahead in a man’s world and on their own terms.

Footage of the band’s various concerts and TV show appearances — and photos of Fanny Hill, the house where they hung out with the likes of Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker, Mick Jagger, Bonnie Raitt and other musicians — is interspersed with interviews with critics and fellow rockers praising their contributions to the genre.

Fanny was the first all-female rock band signed to a major label, but while other all-female groups like the Go Go’s and the Runaways are getting recognition — the former having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November — Fanny has remained obscure. “Always, the ones that start it, they get fucked,” says Earl Slick, Bowie’s guitarist and Jean’s former husband.

Racism, sexism, personnel changes, lack of income and the physical demands of constant touring and promotion wore them down. By the time the band got its sole chart hit — “Butter Boy” in 1975, inspired by Jean’s romance with Bowie — Fanny had already broken up.

But in 2018, the 60-something Millingtons reunited with Darling as Fanny Walked the Earth — yes, there’s a dinosaur joke in there — to make a new album of the same name.

June quips that now they’re bucking ageism as well as the other isms, but the doc captures their excitement as they record the album and prepare to tour.

And then disaster strikes just a week before the first live show — I won’t tell you what happens, you’ll have to watch for yourself.

Nonetheless, the film ends on an optimistic note.

In Rolling Stone, Bowie called them “one of the most important female bands in American rock (that) has been buried without trace.”

This film is that trace. Regardless of whether Fanny hits the road again — a quest no doubt made much more difficult by the COVID-19 pandemic — millions of new fans have discovered their music.

Now, it’s time for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to step up and give them their due.

Short Takes

The Skymaster 2469 in its hangar. It disappeared with 44 passengers in January 1950.
PHOTO CREDIT: Red Trillium Films Inc.

Skymaster Down (documentary Channel)

How could a large, four-engine airplane carrying 44 people disappear without a trace? That’s the mystery explored in this documentary by Andrew Gregg, who learned about the tragedy of the Skymaster while in the Yukon in 2018 working on another film. The American C-54 left Anchorage, Alaska, on Jan. 26, 1950, bound for Great Falls, Montana, with eight crew and 36 passengers, mostly U.S. servicemen but including a pregnant woman and her 19-month-old son. The crew checked in with the radio operator in Snag, Yukon, shortly after takeoff and that was the last anyone heard of them. Did the plane sink into Lake Wellesley? Did it crash into a mountain or a glacier? Was it buried beneath ice and snow? The massive, official search lasted a few weeks but never found anything, nor have members of the volunteer Civil Air Search and Rescue Association in the Yukon, who have never stopped looking. By including interviews with family members of people who disappeared, Gregg makes it clear this is more than just a tantalizing puzzle but is still rawly emotional for those whose fathers, uncles and aunt went down with the plane. The doc debuted on the documentary Channel Sunday but will rebroadcast Jan. 18 at 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.; Jan. 23 at 8 a.m., 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.; and Jan. 28 at 9 p.m.

Also, on the subject of documentaries, “The Nature of Things” has “In Your Face” (Jan. 21, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem), by Josh Freed, about the science of the so-called human “superpower” of face recognition.

Jason Bateman and Laura Linney in Season 4 of “Ozark.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Of Netflix

Ozark (Jan. 19, Netflix)

I would love to tell you what I think of the first half of Season 4 of “Ozark” since I have watched all seven episodes but, for reasons that remain obscure to me, Netflix has decided to embargo reviews until Tuesday. I think it’s safe to say that if you’ve followed this show about a family that gets sucked into a menacing criminal underworld as money launderers for a drug cartel after they flee Chicago for the Ozarks, you will definitely want to see how the story ends (the final seven episodes will drop at a yet to be announced future date). I also think it’s safe to say that if you’ve watched the trailer for Season 4 you can guess that the Byrdes — Marty (Jason Bateman), Wendy (Laura Linney), Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and Jonah (Skyler Gaertner) — have a dangerous path to tread to the freedom they seek. New characters this season include Javi (Alfonso Herrera), nephew of cartel boss Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), and private detective Mel Sattem (Adam Rothenberg).

Rick Glassman, Sue Ann Pien, Albert Rutecki and Sosie Bacon in “As We See It.”

As We See It (Jan. 21, Prime Video)

Here’s another show I’m not allowed to review because of an embargo. “As We See It” is about three roommates on the autism spectrum, played by actors who are also reportedly on the spectrum. Harrison (Albert Rutecki) has issues with just leaving the apartment building; Violet (Sue Ann Pien) has a job at an Arby’s and a preoccupation with finding a boyfriend; and Jack (Rick Glassman) is a computer programmer who can be blunt to the point of insulting. If you’ve watched the trailer or any of the other series associated with creator Jason Katims (“Friday Night Lights,” “Parenthood,” “About a Boy,” “Away”), you already have an inkling that the show is going for heartwarming. Sosie Bacon (“Mare of Easttown”) plays the roomies’ aide, Mandy.

Odds and Ends

1980s series “Fraggle Rock” gets a reboot in “Back to the Rock.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

I’ve never watched a minute of “Fraggle Rock,” but if you’re a fan of the cave-dwelling Jim Henson puppets, Apple TV Plus has “Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock” debuting on Jan. 21. The same day, its supernatural thriller “Servant” returns for its third season.

PBS has a couple of shows concerned with animals this week. “Animals With Cameras” (Jan. 19, 8 p.m.) features creatures from bats to koalas going about their business while fitted with cameras, while “Alaskan Dinosaurs” on “Nova” (Jan. 19, 9 p.m.) looks at evidence that dinosaurs lived in the Arctic Circle.

Sticking with the animal theme, Animal Planet has Season 4 of “Dr. Keri: Prairie Vet” (Jan. 21, 10 p.m.), in which Keri Hudson-Reykdal and her team care for critters in rural Manitoba.

Finally, Crave has Season 6 of “Billions” (Jan. 23, 9 p.m.). The Damian Lewis-less high finance show returns with Paul Giamatti’s Chuck Rhoades battling yet another billionaire, Corey Stoll as Mike Prince.

‘The Bachelor’ hits a new low as woman mocks another’s ADHD

January 11, 2022 / Debra Yeo

Clayton Echard on the group date that hatched the season’s first villain.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos except screen grabs John Fleenor/ABC

Can we stop pretending that “The Bachelor” has anything to do with helping people find love?

That some of the franchise’s stars form lasting relationships is down to luck and their own ability to make connections. Sure, the show throws people together, but its abiding interest is in manufacturing as much drama as possible to attract viewers, advertising dollars and social media mentions.

What that means for viewers is that we’re subjected to toxic spectacles like Monday night’s, in which one contestant bullied and belittled another, making fun of her medical condition.

I guess the only saving grace is that the contestant in question, Ohio recruiter Shanae Ankney, was picking on another white woman, Colorado real estate adviser Elizabeth Corrigan, unlike the last crappy Bachelor season when the white bullies targeted women of colour. (Which doesn’t negate the fact that all the focus on Shanae and the other blond villain, Cassidy Timbrooks, diverted attention from contestants of colour.)

It would be easy to lay all the blame on Shanae, who truly acted like a horrible human, but let’s not pretend the people who cast her were ignorant of her villain potential or that that’s not exactly the reason she made the cut.

I suspect she’ll get through the next rose ceremony, which we won’t see for at least two weeks, since Bachelor Clayton Echard’s ability to judge character seems about as sound as his ability to find a word other than “fun” to describe his every activity.

All right, on with the recap.

First off, the producers want us to be really excited that they’re back filming at the “Bachelor mansion,” lovingly captured in a couple of swooping drone shots as dramatic orchestral music played.

“Ohmigod!” the contestants kept yelling as they explored. Like, weren’t they just there for the Night 1 cocktail party?

Then host Jesse Palmer came along to introduce himself and remind everyone he used to be the Bachelor. “I know that this thing can work,” he said, completely glossing over the fact that he broke up with the woman he picked shortly after his season finale and married someone years later who has nothing to do with the franchise.

Whatever, at least he fulfilled his key duty of dropping off the first date card.

Teddi, Ency, Melina, Gabby, Kira, Mara, Sierra, Genevieve, Serene and Cassidy were off to do something that “dreams are made of.”

However, the dream belonged to the little girl whose birthday party they were there to set up. Or maybe it was all Cassidy’s dream since she was thrilled that her childhood idol Hilary Duff, a.k.a. “Lizzie McGuire,” was there.

Hilary Duff fulfilled her contractual obligation to pretend to be excited to see Clayton.

Duff is a trained actor so she was able to say with a straight face that she was “super excited” that Clayton was the Bachelor. Then she put the women to work building all the party paraphernalia.

All except Cassidy, who declared, “I’m not here to build a dollhouse, I’m here to build a relationship” and lured Clayton to the pool for a makeout sesh.

You think he gave a shit that Cassidy wasn’t pulling her weight in the party prep? This dude could still hardly believe he was the Bachelor. He wasn’t going to say no to some pushy woman practically dry-humping his leg and sticking her tongue down his throat.

And a word to the sound editor who let us hear the noises every time Clayton smooched someone: ewwwwwwwww.

Clearly Cassidy’s behaviour annoyed the hell out of the other women, which was the point — even Hilary Duff thought she was acting like a cow — but Clayton rewarded her for her boldness. He didn’t even care that she dropped birthday girl Maya’s cake.

Clayton and schoolteacher Serene Russell with the “small people.”

Forget the fact he claims to be jonesing to have a family and that Serene, a third grade teacher, had the most obvious connection with the children who attended the birthday bash.

Serene told Clayton at the after-party how teaching had made a difference in her life and enabled her to do something meaningful. Cassidy — who told the children, “I spend as little time around you small people as possible” — told Clayton at the after-party how pulling him first and kissing him had made her feel really confident, Yeah, I can see how that deserved the group date rose and to theoretically put Cassidy another step closer to being the mother of Clayton’s future brood.

Luckily, we got a palate cleanser with the one-on-one date with someone who actually seemed nice, Susie.

“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed the bubbly wedding videographer, jumping up and down with excitement when she realized she and Clayton were about to take her first ever helicopter ride (yep, the helicopter rides are back) — making sure to swoop close to the mansion to stir up the other women’s envy.

Clayton and Susie Evans enjoy the good life on a yacht.

Susie mentioned as they flew over the coast that she loved the water, which was fortuitous because the helicopter landed on a yacht, where she and Clayton shared bubbly and kisses in a hot tub and even went for a swim.

Then it was time for Susie to sing for her supper, or rather to spill her guts to prove she was worthy of the date rose.

Luckily, she had some trauma to share. Her father had been seriously ill the year before, like organs shutting down ill. Susie teared up as she recalled him holding his grandson, her brother’s child, for the first time when he got out of hospital.

During his long recovery in the ICU, “there wasn’t a day went by that my mom didn’t, like, sleep in the little chair by his bed. Seeing my mom by my dad’s side was very powerful and I want that for myself,” Susie said.

Can’t say I’m convinced that Clayton is the one who can give that to her, but she got the rose nonetheless, bestowed by Clayton as they were serenaded by Canadian country singer Amanda Jordan.

Then it was time for Blonds Behaving Badly Part 2.

Marlena, Elizabeth, Kate, Sarah, Lyndsey, Rachel, Tessa and Shanae were on the second group date.

Shanae — who for some bizarre reason was calling herself “Shanaenae” — had already been coached by her pal Cassidy on how to stand out by being aggressive, so she was raring to go.

She was the first to run up to Clayton, greeting him with the now traditional jump up and wrap your legs around him move — do they make all the women demonstrate that when they cast them? — but she missed out when the contestants walked into a “classroom” to learn about “red flags” by playing “Never Have I Ever” with comedian Ziwe and Elizabeth took the seat next to Clayton.

Elizabeth Corrigan stole a march on Shanaenae by sitting next to Clayton.

Shanae’s jealousy and insecurity were stoked even further when Ziwe teased that Clayton and Elizabeth were “just flirting it up right in front of me. I love it. Love this connection.”

An obstacle course was next and Shanae seemed to take Ziwe’s exhortation to “fight for love as they fought on the beaches of Normandy” a bit too seriously, grabbing Elizabeth’s boob and shoving her down into a pool of goo as the women hopped from one piece of foam bread to another in a “breadcrumbing” challenge (yeah, no, it doesn’t make sense to me either).

Sarah Hamrick gets “alone” time with Clayton, goo and all.

But it was wealth management adviser Sarah who won the prize of alone time with Clayton, which meant sitting off to the side on a couch, drinking bubbly and smooching while Shanae stared and fumed.

That meant it was “all or nothing” for Shanae at the after-party in her quest to win the date rose, but when Elizabeth stole him for alone time first, Shanae had a mini meltdown and then concocted a bullshit story about how Elizabeth was two-faced — all because she didn’t look at Shanae as Shanae was speaking to her during a group conversation.

Clayton, who wouldn’t know a red flag from his ass, sombrely summoned Elizabeth to get her side of the story. As the other women tried to figure out what was going on, Kate asked Shanae point blank, “You didn’t say anything?” Shanae shook her head no.

Pardon me, but saying one thing to Clayton and lying that you didn’t to the other women seems like the definition of two-faced, no?

Elizabeth is a grown-up, so she took Shanae aside to try to clear the air and explained that the reason she didn’t look at Shanae during their conversation with Ency is because she has ADHD and “it’s really hard for me to have multiple auditory inputs. I was probably just really trying to concentrate on what Ency was saying to me.”

Shanae Ankney playing “Never Have I Ever”: “I have” made a complete ass of myself would be my guess.

But Shanae just kept banging on about how it was “two-faced” and she was hurt.

Thank heavens Clayton didn’t give Shanae the date rose. It was a close call as he blathered on about how thankful he was that she could be open with him since being in a relationship meant having to have “those tough conversations.” Boy, is he going to feel like a fool now that he’s seen the episode.

The rose went to Sarah instead, which Shanae took as a cue to keep lashing out at Elizabeth. Now she was claiming that Elizabeth was being two-faced because she had told Shanae during their chat that she loved her. Just for the record, what Elizabeth actually said was, “I 100 per cent validate you as a person and would love to move forward and continue forging a relationship.”

Shanae outed Elizabeth’s ADHD to the rest of the women and said as she stormed off, “Fake, fake, fake, ADHD my ass, 100 per cent.”

Even her mentor in villainy Cassidy was telling Shanae to drop the beef, but she wouldn’t let it go, taking Elizabeth outside for another chat during the rose ceremony cocktail party and questioning whether she really had ADHD.

“I have ADHD,” said Shanae. “Everyone, I mean fucking little kids have ADHD and I think you’re using that as an excuse.”

Elizabeth, who would have been within her rights to push Shanae into the pool at that point, calmly told her she was ending the conversation and walked away.

But Shanae continued the belittling in her confessional, saying sarcastically, “I don’t know if anyone has heard, but she has ADHD and it’s really bad. I don’t want to ever upset her again because I feel terrible. She has ADHD,” and then she laughed.

Note that not only did the producers choose to air this nonsense, they underscored Shanae’s insulting comments with jaunty music like it was a funny joke we should all be laughing at.

It was a new low for a franchise that has been crawling on its belly for quite a while now.

But hey, it was time to shift the focus back to the other villain.

Despite already having a rose, Cassidy sought Clayton out for alone time so she could simper at him and smooch him and tell him what a good kisser he was. And then she boasted to the other women about how much Clayton appreciated her being “unrelenting” in her pursuit.

That was too much for Sierra — another contestant we don’t really know much about since the evil twins have been taking up all the oxygen. Cassidy had confided to Sierra that she had a boy toy back home who she’d been FaceTiming while she was in the hotel waiting for the season to start. And he couldn’t wait for Cassidy to get home so they could watch the unnamed reality show she was on together.

This ain’t a she said, she said. Those sneaky producers got the conversation on tape.

Sierra Jackson breaks the bad news to Clayton about his favourite mouth-to-mouth partner.

Sierra, a recruiting co-ordinator from Dallas, told Clayton about Cassidy’s “friend with benefits” and Clayton went off to brood while Sierra told Cassidy what she’d done.

The episode ended with Clayton asking Jesse, “Has anyone ever taken a rose back before?” and one of those annoying “TO BE CONTINUED” captions — note the all-caps, which are the show’s, not mine.

Remember the good old days, like last month during Michelle’s season, when every episode ended with a rose ceremony?

We’ll be waiting two weeks, until Jan. 24, to find out whether Cassidy gets ousted and whether Shanae’s reign of idiocy continues.

In the meantime, you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Watchable Jan. 10 to 16, 2022

January 10, 2022 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: After Life (Jan. 14, Netflix)

Tony Way, Diane Morgan and Ricky Gervais in “After Life” Season 3. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix

Throughout the first two seasons of “After Life,” Ricky Gervais’s gentle gem of a comedy, the question was whether his character, Tony, could ever recover after the death of his wife, Lisa, from breast cancer.

In this third and final season, Tony seems to have decided to go on living, but it puts the lie to the somewhat ridiculous idea of “closure.” Some losses can’t be gotten over. Maybe it’s enough, as Tony tells his brother-in-law Matt (Tom Basden), just to be content once in a while, but also to recognize you’ll never be able to replace what you had.

Gervais told Deadline in January he was never going to end the series with a “happily ever after” for Tony and he doesn’t, not in the way that a more mainstream comedy might, with Tony moving on into a new relationship.

He still watches videos of Lisa (Kerry Godliman) morning and night and drinks way too much, polishing off a bottle or two of wine every evening with his dog Brandy by his side.

But he also makes even more room in the heart that he hides under his misanthropic facade to care about other people: Matt; Anne (Penelope Wilton), the widow he bonds with as they visit their late spouses’ graves; Emma (Ashley Jensen), the nurse who took care of his late father; Lenny (Tony Way), the photographer Tony works with at the Tambury Gazette; new Gazette employee Coleen (Kath Hughes); even people who’ve annoyed him, like advertising rep Kath (Diane Morgan).

Fictional Tambury is still full of misfits — including sad sack Brian (David Earl), paperboy and aspiring actor James (Ethan Lawrence) and postman Pat (Joe Wilkinson) — who are the source but not the butt of jokes. Gervais, who wrote and directed the entire series, highlights the humanity in characters that the rest of the world would see as losers.

That’s especially true in the final episode, in which we get a glimpse of what might be better times ahead for these flawed but fundamentally decent people.

“After Life” is sentimental without being saccharine and irreverent without being mean, poking fun at the human condition while also making astute observations about life, death and grief, all laced with a generous helping of profanity and bawdy humour.

It makes you laugh, cry, cringe and think deep thoughts, and any show that does all that is worthy of attention.

This week, Netflix also has Season 2 of “Cheer” (Jan. 11); stop-motion special “The House” (Jan. 14) and supernatural drama “Archive 81” (Jan. 14).

Short Takes

Meaghan Rath and Aaron Abrams with their TV kids Logan Nicholson and Mikayla SwamiNathan. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Bell Media

Children Ruin Everything (Jan. 12, 8 p.m., CTV and CTV.ca)

The conceit of this new Canadian comedy — which carries the distinction of being created by Kurt Smeaton, a writer and producer of proven TV properties like “Kim’s Convenience” and “Schitt’s Creek” — is right there in the title. Urban, west-end Toronto parents Astrid (Meaghan Rath, “Being Human”) and James (Aaron Abrams, “Hannibal”) are missing the carefree days before they spawned adorable little hellions Felix (Logan Nicholson) and Viv (Mikayla SwamiNathan). Another complication is that Astrid is supposed to be going back to work to help with the family’s finances but finds herself wanting to have another baby which, when you consider the cost of living in Toronto, takes you into truly fictional territory. The children are cute, if bratty; Rath and Abrams are likeable leads, and I can say after watching three episodes that the show has some laugh-out-loud funny lines. It also benefits from a strong supporting cast, including Nazneen Contractor (“24”) and Dmitry Chepovetsky (“ReGenesis”) as Astrid’s Type-A sister and hipster brother-in-law; Veena Sood (“Corner Gas Animated”) as her helpful but not too helpful mother; Ennis Esmer (“Blindspot”) as James’s bachelor friend and co-worker; and Lisa Codrington (“Letterkenny”) as his child-unfriendly boss.

Denzel Washington as the title character in “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

The Tragedy of Macbeth (Jan. 14, Apple TV Plus)

If you think you know everything there is to know about the Shakespeare play “Macbeth,” about a Scottish general’s decline from glory to ignominy after he decides to seize the crown for himself, I would urge you to watch this version, written and directed by Joel Coen. Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand bring a commanding gravitas to the roles of Macbeth and his scheming wife, due not only to their professional abilities but their ages: Washington is 67, McDormand 64. I’ve always thought of the characters as younger; for me, aging them up adds another layer to the ambition that brings about their downfall, of people determined to grasp power while they still have the chance. The supporting cast includes a well-chosen mix of Americans and Brits, including English actors Bertie Carvel and Alex Hassell as Banquo and Ross, Irishman Brendan Gleeson as Duncan, Americans Corey Hawkins and Moses Ingram as Macduff and Lady Macduff, and American-British actor Kathryn Hunter, truly menacing playing all three witches. The black-and-white film is also visually striking, with its stark sets and dramatic interplay of light and shadow, while the soundscape adds to the sense of doom that permeates the proceedings.

Liev Schreiber as Ray Donovan. PHOTO CREDIT: Jeff Neumann/Showtime

Ray Donovan: The Movie (Jan. 14, 9 p.m., Crave)

I admit I lost track of “Ray Donovan” the series after Season 5, but I was still game to see how things would end for fixer Ray (Liev Schreiber), his father Mickey (Jon Voight) and the rest of the damaged Donovan family. This movie, a gift to fans after the show was abruptly cancelled in 2020, picks up where Season 7 left off — and this is your spoiler alert if you’re not up to date — with Ray burying the body of the man he murdered, Jim Sullivan, who raped his sister Bridget, which led to her suicide all those years ago. Meanwhile, Ray’s daughter Bridget (Kerris Dorsey) buries her husband Smitty, killed in a shootout between Jim’s son Declan and Ray’s half-brother Daryll (Pooch Hall); and Mickey is on the run with the valuable stock certificates that led to that shootout. Ray follows Mickey to Boston, presumably to kill him, and as he tracks Mickey’s movements he flashes back to the past, to the troubled relationship with his father that has haunted him his entire life. I won’t spoil things by telling you how it turns out, but there is a neat circularity to the way that what happens to Ray as the movie ends echoes teenage Ray’s betrayal of Mickey, which got Mickey sent to jail. There is some hope of healing for the Donovan clan, including brothers Terry (Eddie Marsan) and Bunchy (Dash Mihok), but at the cost of Ray having to fix things once again.

Odds and Ends

Alvin Ailey performing in the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Jacob’s Pillow/Licensed from Harvard (John Lindquist rights)

This week’s “American Masters” (Jan. 11, 9 p.m., PBS) is about Alvin Ailey (1931-1989), namesake of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, still a going concern more than six decades after Ailey founded it. This doc examines not only his life and work as a dancer and choreographer, but his importance as a Black artist bringing Black experience to the stage.

Crave has “Peacemaker” (Jan. 13), the DC Comics “Suicide Squad” spinoff starring John Cena as the title character, a muscle-bound dolt who kills to achieve peace. Superhero series are not generally my thing, but this one benefits from the casting of Danielle Brooks of “Orange Is the New Black” and Rizwan Manji of “Schitt’s Creek”; the CGI eagle sidekick is fun; and, at the very least, you have to watch the cast dance during the opening credits. Crave, via HBO, also has “Somebody Somewhere” (Jan. 16, 10:30 p.m.), starring comedian Bridget Everett, which unfortunately I wasn’t able to screen.

Speaking of superheroes, if you want to check out Oscar winner Chloe Zhao’s swing at the genre, the Marvel movie “Eternals” is on Disney Plus on Jan. 12.

Prime Video, formerly known as Amazon Prime Video, also has a movie debut, the animated sequel “Hotel Transylvania: Transformania” on Jan. 14.

Ryan Reynolds fans might want to tune into CBC on Jan. 14 at 9 p.m. when he assumes narration duties from David Suzuki on “The Nature of Things” for an episode that takes a humorous approach to what you can do to “Curb Your Carbon” and fight climate change.

For those of you who like reality shows about cars, History Canada has a new original, “Lost Car Rescue” (Jan. 13, 9 p.m.), in which classic car hunters travel into the wilderness in search of lost pieces of vehicular history.

Super Channel Fuse has Season 3 of “American Gods” (Jan. 16, 10 p.m.), which focuses on Shadow (Ricky Whittle), as well as the British import “The Teacher” (Jan. 16, 9 p.m.), not to be confused with the American miniseries “A Teacher,” although they’re both about female teachers who sleep with their teenage, male students.

Finally, Acorn has Season 2 of “Queens of Mystery” (Jan. 10), about three crime-writing sisters and their detective niece who, duh, solve mysteries. I found the pilot episode charming when I screened it many moons ago, so I’ll put this on my ever expanding list of shows I want to catch up on.

Bachelor Clayton starts his ‘journey’ with two rejections

January 4, 2022 / Debra Yeo

Clayton Echard started his “journey” as “The Bachelor” on Monday night.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos except screen grabs John Fleenor/ABC

It’s been confirmed: there is at least one person who isn’t a member of the production team who wanted Clayton Echard to be the Bachelor.

Luckily for Clayton, it’s the woman who got his first impression rose and also his first kiss on Monday’s season premiere.

Teddi, a surgical unit nurse from California, told Clayton she picked him out as her ideal Bachelor from photos of Michelle Young’s “guys” because, as she told her sister at the time, “I think he’s really cute and he has such a kind smile.”

So Teddi got her wish. The rest of us? Well . . .

If you were hoping we’d learn something in the season opener that would justify why Clayton, 28, was chosen before Michelle’s season had even aired, you likely came away disappointed.

Clayton’s own explanation for why he’s the man is “because I truthfully believe in this process I think more than anybody else” — which is a pretty nifty trick after appearing on one season of “The Bachelorette” in which he was basically wallpaper.

Also, you know, he cried when he got those (possibly fake) letters from Michelle’s students after their one-on-one date. The producers weren’t going to let us forget that.

On Monday we found out that, um, Clayton’s tall, he has dimples, he used to play football, he’s “a Midwest guy who doesn’t really like the spotlight” from Eureka, Missouri. And he really, really wants to get married and have kids, so much so he tried to give his first impression rose to an emotionally unavailable woman who was still traumatized about her ex-fiance.

Like, what the hell was that?

Salley Carson, whose job description is “previously enagaged,” visits Clayton in his room.

Could the producers really be Machiavellian enough to cast a woman who was engaged to be married a month before filming began, just so she could break up with Clayton before the season had even started, stoking his fear of rejection?

Honestly, I wouldn’t put anything past them at this point.

It turns out Salley from Virginia was supposed to have been getting married the weekend she was in L.A. filming, so she wanted to go home and be with her family instead of, you know, competing with 29 other women for the attention of some dude she’d never met. “Ever since I’ve been here I’ve been an emotional wreck,” she said.

But first she decided to tell Clayton what was going on, and Clayton decided there was chemistry between them and offered her a rose.

After a tearful conversation with somebody back home, Salley rejected the rose, telling Clayton she liked him, but “my heart is just not ready.”

It all felt so manipulative, from the fact Salley was there in the first place to her showing up at Clayton’s room — why the hell would she need to tell him she was leaving if he hadn’t met her yet? — to her getting to keep her cellphone to Clayton’s bright idea to give her a rose.

Salley wasn’t the only woman who rejected Clayton on Night 1.

Clayton and Claire as their “tailgate party” was interrupted.

Claire, a spray tanner from Virginia Beach, started loudly proclaiming that Clayton wasn’t the guy for her after their one-on-one time turned into a “catastrophe,” in her words.

I don’t know what happened. Initially, the football fanatic was “super excited” about spending time with Clayton at the tailgate party the producers had set up for her. Was she mad that Mara interrupted? Was it the fact that Claire beat Clayton at cornhole? Did he not show enough appreciation for the chicken wings with ranch sauce she loves so much she put them in her “bachelorette biography”?

Claire said Clayton was “100 per cent too nice for me.”

“I dont need ‘Hi, I love America and I am a sweetheart,'” she complained.

And then it struck me: Claire is all of us.

After schoolteacher Serene tattled to Clayton that Claire was telling people she hated him, Clayton confronted Claire before walking her out. No, she didn’t hate him, she said, “I feel like we just haven’t, like, clicked.”

Exactly! Bachelor Nation doesn’t hate you, Clayton, but we clicked a lot more with Rodney, Olu, Brandon and even Rick.

When Clayton stepped back into the mansion to explain why he’d ousted Claire, he invited other women to leave too if they weren’t that into him.

“Oh hush, we’re not going anywhere,” said Cassidy, an executive assistant from L.A. who was one of several women Clayton kissed on Night 1.

Clayton bestows the first impression rose (or maybe the second?) on Teddi Wright.

His first makeout sesh (or at least the first one we saw) was with Teddi, who revealed in her intro package that she’s a virgin. So if she turns out to be one of the two or three women that Clayton confesses to having sex with, hoo boy!

Clayton said, not once but twice, that Teddi made him “feel some type of way” — the type of way that makes you hand over a rose, I guess. Bonus points for the fact that Teddi hadn’t just broken off an engagement.

Clayton also locked lips with doctor Kira, who showed up in lingerie and a lab coat and told Clayton she was going to give him a full body physical; Eliza, a marketing manager who spent her childhood in Berlin and asked Clayton in German if she could kiss him; Cassidy, who made her entrance in a miniature car, which was then run over by pickup truck-driving hell raiser Shanae; and Rachel, a flight instructor whose shtick was to have a 63-year-old retiree named Holly get out of the limo first and then introduce her. (Listen, as a fellow 60-something, let me just say Holly really pulled off that dress.)

And while we’re talking about wacky entrances, human resources specialist Hunter brought a snake; real estate agent Kate invited Clayton to hold one of her “nips,” as in a mini bottle of booze; architectural historian Jill brought an urn that she said contained the “ashes of my ex-boyfriends”; Jane, a self-proclaimed cougar at 33 (!), drove up in a vintage convertible; ICU nurse Gabby brought a pillow with Clayton’s face on it because, you know, she wanted to sit on Clayton’s face; real estate adviser Elizabeth brought a whip, which she used on Clayton’s butt; and Samantha showed up in a bikini and a bubble bath, prompting Rachel to say, “Mom, can you pick me up from the Bachelor mansion? I’m scared.”

With the one notable exception we’ve already discussed, the women seemed to eat up Clayton’s aw shucks, “I’m just a guy from a small town,” I can’t believe I’m the Bachelor demeanour. He even spilled his drink while making his toast to potentially falling in love, etc. etc.

Clayton also had a cheerleader in newbie host (and doppelgänger) Jesse Palmer, although it’s worth noting that while they’re both football players, Jesse is a Canadian, born in my hometown of Toronto. “I got your back buddy. You are not doing this alone,” Jesse told Clayton.

As daylight peeked through the mansion windows, Clayton finally handed out 21 roses and I’m not going to list all the names because we won’t remember most of them.

Tessa, another human resources specialist and one of the women of colour in the group, toasted to “the most supportive and beautiful group of women I’ve met in my whole life,” while Cassidy shouted out “everyone’s support and kindness” and looked forward to “getting to be friends.”

You could almost hear the chuckles of glee from the editing room since the next thing we saw was a montage of crying and/or arguing women, along with Shanae getting in someone’s face, grabbing and throwing away a trophy (it’s not quite a flight jacket in the pool, but beggars can’t be choosers).

Since drama increases in inverse proportion to the boringness of the Bachelor, I will paraphrase the great Bette Davis in “All About Eve”: fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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

Watchable Jan. 3 to 9, 2022

January 3, 2022 / Debra Yeo

First off, wishing everyone a safe and comfortable 2022. This week, there are multiple new and returning shows I enjoyed, so I’m listing them in order of premiere date and forgoing the Show of the Week.

Son of a Critch (Jan. 4, 8:30 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem)

Claire Rankin, Mark Critch, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Colton Gobbo and Malcolm McDowell
in “Son of a Critch.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC

Give Mark Critch and Tim McAuliffe credit: they’ve taken an awfully well worn TV trope, the coming-of-age comedy, and given it a charming, quirky spin all its own in the autobiographical “Son of a Critch.”

Based on comedian Critch’s memoir, it follows 12-year-old Mark (British actor Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, “The Haunting of Bly Manor”) as he grows up in 1980s St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Mark is simultaneously a naif and an old soul, living with his radio reporter dad Mike (Critch), his stay-at-home, full-time gossip mom Mary (Claire Rankin), older brother Mike Jr. (Colton Gobbo) and grandpa Pop (Malcolm McDowell, yes, that Malcolm McDowell).

Cherub-faced Mark listens to Dean Martin, is “asthmatic with fallen arches and no hand-eye co-ordination” and shares a bedroom with his granddad. (“Nothing gets you out of bed faster than being mooned by an octogenarian,” narrator Critch says in one of the show’s laugh-out-loud lines.) So he’s ripe for picking on when he gets bused across town to the Catholic junior high school — although it’s hard to say who’s tougher, the bullies or the nuns. (Petrina Bromley of “Come From Away” plays one of them.)

Newbie actors Sophia Powers and Mark Rivera play Mark’s frenemy Fox, who comes from a family of bullies, and friend Ritche, the only Filipino kid in school and a fellow outcast.

The comedy is sharp but not cruel, and Ainsworth makes a sweetly appealing protagonist. I came into this one a little skeptical but came out a fan.

Run the Burbs (Jan. 5, 8:30 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem)

Roman Pesino, Zoriah Wong, Rakhee Morzaria and Andrew Phung in “Run the Burbs.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC

If TV comedies were judged just on the likability of their lead actors, Andrew Phung would have a runaway hit on his hands in “Run the Burbs.”

A fan favourite in the dearly departed “Kim’s Convenience,” the Calgary-born Phung has spun his own life experience into this sitcom, co-created with his best friend, Scott Townend. Here, the Vietnamese-Canadian actor is Vietnamese-Canadian suburban dad Andrew Pham.

Whereas the actor is raising young sons in Toronto in real life, the TV dad is stay-at-home nurturer to adolescent, queer daughter Khia (Zoriah Wong) and son Leo (Roman Pesino), while his extremely smart South Asian wife Camille (Rakhee Morzaria) works in HR and is an Instagram chef on the side.

You could call it an aspirational comedy, not in the sense that the Phams are rich or famous, but that we should all be so lucky to have a bond like this family’s. It’s not that the Phams aren’t saccharine sweet, thank goodness, or joined at the hip, but their interactions are shot through with love and respect.

The plots, at least in the two episodes made available for review, stick close to the family’s suburban home: the neighbourhood block party is jeopardized by the local bylaw enforcer (Aurora Browne of “Baroness von Sketch Show”); Andrew and Camille finagle their way into the new neighbours’ pool during a heat wave; Khia has complicated feelings when her former best friend Mannix (Simone Miller) moves back to the ‘hood; Andrew frets when Leo goes to sleep-away camp.

Phung and his team have assembled a capable cast with some comedy ringers, including Ali Hassan, Chris Locke, Samantha Wan and the late Candy Palmater.

I’m rooting for this one.

You can read my Toronto Star interview with Andrew and Scott here.

Women of the Movement (Jan. 6, 8 p.m., Global TV)

Adrienne Warren as Mamie Till Mobley, mother of Emmett Till, in “Women of the Movement.”
PHOTO CREDIT: James Van Evers/ABC

In 1955, Mamie Till Mobley did something that seems unthinkable in Jim Crow-era America: defied authorities in Mississippi to publicly display the mutilated body of her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, murdered by white men in that state because he had dared to smile and whistle at a white woman.

That act of defiance and her subsequent national speaking tour in support of justice for Emmett and other Black Americans are credited with sparking the U.S. Civil Rights movement.

This limited series, part of a planned anthology by Marissa Jo Cerar (“The Fosters,” “The Handmaid’s Tale”), is squarely focused on Mamie, played affectingly by Tony Award-winning theatre actor Adrienne Warren.

Mamie’s grief and determination are the conduit through which the story of Emmett’s murder is told, as well as the subsequent trial, which saw the killers go free after the woman whose encounter with Emmett (Cedric Joe) spurred the lynching lied about it on the stand. The jury never heard the testimony, but the series portrays the lie about a lascivious Emmett putting his hands on Carolyn Bryant (Julia McDermott) as tainting the jury nonetheless, after it circulated through Sumner, Mississippi.

(The doc says in a postscript that Carolyn recanted her story, a claim also made by author Timothy Tyson in 2017, although Carolyn, still alive at 88, has refused to confirm that.)

A charge of kidnapping against Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam in a different county never got prosecuted after two senators leaked a story about Emmett’s father being executed during World War II for allegedly raping two women (author John Edgar Wideman has suggested Louis Till was framed and I have little trouble believing that to be true).

While Mamie is the main focus, the series also portrays the people who helped her through the darkest days of her life, including NAACP members Medgar Evers (Tongayi Chirisa) and Ruby Hurley (Leslie Silva), the Black press, civil rights leader Dr. Theodore Howard (Alex Desert), her mother Alma (Tonya Pinkins), and her boyfriend and later husband Gene Mobley (Ray Fisher). Canadian actor Gil Bellows plays a small but important role as prosecutor Gerald Chatham.

There was never any justice for Emmett, despite the killers admitting the crime in a self-serving Look interview less than a year after the trial. And one could argue, thinking about modern-day lynchings and trials in which the killers of Black people have been set free, that justice is still an elusive target for Black Americans.

“Women of the Movement” tells a powerful story and, I would wager, not a universally known one; the least we can do, like the thousands of people who lined up to see Emmett Till’s body, is not look away.

Global also has a new American medical drama, “Good Sam” (Jan. 5, 10 p.m.), about a young surgeon who’s in competition with her surgeon father.

Short Takes

Laurence Leboeuf, Hamza Haq, Ayisha Issa and Jim Watson in “Transplant.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Bell Media

Transplant (Jan. 3, 10 p.m., CTV and CTV.ca)

Good news for fans of this Canadian medical drama: if you warmed to Dr. Bashir Hamed (Hamza Haq) and his colleagues at Toronto’s fictional York Memorial Hospital last season, you’re going to enjoy catching up with them in Season 2. The show continues to judiciously mix its medical stories with glimpses of the private lives of the doctors. This season, with Dr. Bishop (John Hannah) sidelined by a stroke, they all have to adjust to divisive acting chief of emergency medicine Dr. Novak (Gord Rand). Mags (Laurence Leboeuf) is still struggling with work-life balance; Theo (Jim Watson) is still torn between his job in Toronto and his family in Sudbury; June (Ayisha Issa) is still weighing whether to apply for the chief resident job; Bash is still trying to prove himself in the ER while struggling with PTSD from his experiences in Syria and the return of a woman from his past. The good news is that the friendship between the doctors is growing, which makes the characters that much more endearing. You can read my Toronto Star interview with the main cast here. CTV also has “The Cleaning Lady” (Jan. 3, 9 p.m.), a new American show about a Cambodian doctor who comes to the U.S. for medical treatment for her son but ends up becoming a cleaning lady for the mob, and I haven’t seen it, but I hope it’s better than that description sounds.

Meredith MacNeill and Adrienne C. Moore in “Pretty Hard Cases.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC

Pretty Hard Cases (Jan. 5, 9 p.m., CBC)

My favourite team of female detectives is back for a second season. And unlike Season 1, when Samantha (Meredith MacNeill) and Kelly (Adrienne C. Moore) were still skeptical of each other, they’re functioning like a team. Sam even has a nickname for them, Skelly, which doesn’t mean she escapes Kelly’s teasing. This year, besides tackling crime together they’re both grappling with their love lives. Sam’s judgmental mother Judy (Sonja Smits) comes for an unplanned visit, complicating Sam’s budding romance with Naz (Al Mukadam), and Kelly continues to have feelings for Nathan (Daren A. Herbert), but he’s still dating Gabrielle (Sera-Lys McArthur). The season’s main criminal focus involves a primarily Black neighbourhood that Kelly feels is being overpoliced by Guns and Gangs, but a shooting there brings even more pressure and the arrest of a suspect whom Kelly believes is innocent. That’s the serious side; on the fun side, Karen Robinson (“Schitt’s Creek”) continues to be a delight as Unit Commander Shanks, and the world’s least helpful but most entertaining homicide detectives are back in Tricia Black and Miguel Rivas. You can read my Toronto Star interview with Daren A. Herbert here. Also returning to CBC and CBC Gem are “Workin’ Moms” Season 6 (Jan. 4, 9 p.m.); “Still Standing” Season 7 (Jan. 5, 8 p.m.); “Coroner” Season 4 (Jan. 6, 8 p.m.); and “Arctic Vets” Season 2 (Jan. 7, 8:30 p.m.).

Helen Alderson (Rachel Shenton), Tristan Farnon (Callum Woodhouse) and James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) in “All Creatures Great and Small.” PHOTO CREDIT: Helen Williams/Playground Television

All Creatures Great and Small (Jan. 9, 9 p.m., PBS)

Season 1 of this period drama was my favourite comfort food TV of 2021. That’s not to say this adaptation of the James Herriot books about being a Yorkshire veterinarian is always comfortable. As in real life, some of the animals treated by James (Nicholas Ralph), Siegfried (Samuel West) and Tristan Farnon (Callum Woodhouse) die and the humans who own them face hardships. And as the second season opens in 1938, we know the Second World War is on the horizon. Still, the natural beauty of the Yorkshire setting, the quality of the acting and the attention to detail in the production make this world a pleasure to escape to. This season, James has to decide between staying in Yorkshire or going home to Glasgow to practise there. And, of course, he still has unfinished business with Helen (Rachel Shenton). He’s not the only one dealing with affairs of the heart, as Siegfried, Tristan and even Mrs. Hall (Anna Madeley) have admirers.

Odds and Ends

“Sopranos” completists might want to check out the prequel movie “The Many Saints of Newark” (Jan. 7, Crave), starring the late, great James Gandolfini’s son Michael. Also on Crave via HBO are Season 2 of teen drama “Euphoria” (Jan. 9, 9 p.m.) and televangelist comedy “The Righteous Gemstones” (Jan. 9, 10 p.m.).

Netflix has a reality series called “Hype House” (Jan. 7) about “the world’s biggest social media stars.”

Amazon Prime Video has the George Clooney-directed movie “The Tender Bar” (Jan. 7), which sounds like a coming-of-age tearjerker starring Ben Affleck.

If you’re a fan of “A Discovery of Witches,” Season 3 debuts Jan. 8 on Sundance, Shudder and AMC Plus.

CORRECTION, Jan. 5, 2022: Edited to correct the credit on the “Women of the Movement” photo.

Michelle picks, leaving one man ‘broken’ on ‘The Bachelorette’

December 22, 2021 / Debra Yeo

Michelle Young on the beach in Mexico on proposal day on “The Bachelorette.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos except screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHO MICHELLE PICKED ON THE BACHELORETTE FINALE, STOP READING NOW!

You could say Michelle Young’s season finale was a textbook end to a “Bachelorette” season in the sense that she dropped the guy who seemed perfect for her and kept the one who was raising red flags.

That producers made it look like Brandon Jones stood a chance of getting the girl is another feather in their caps, I suppose, although it did seem inevitable that someone so heart-on-his-sleeve sincere was bound to be disappointed.

And oh boy, was he disappointed. On a scale of one to 10, the emotional brutality of that breakup was like a 20.

It always seems so pointlessly cruel to let a dude walk up in his best suit, an engagement ring burning a hole in his pocket, give a flowery speech declaring his love and then have the Bachelorette tell him sorry, I’m just not that into you.

You have to assume she knows where her heart lies before she hits the beach, or wherever the proposal happens, so why not head off the unlucky runner-up at the pass?

Well, for the drama, that’s why. And on Tuesday, we got to watch a solid eight minutes of agony, both his and hers, as Michelle told Brandon — just after he told her she was the “missing piece” he’d been searching for his entire life — that her heart had taken her in another direction.

But don’t worry, Brandon told host Kaitlyn Bristowe on “After the Final Rose” that he’s doing good and that he wants Michelle and Nayte Olukoya to be happy, and he seemed like he meant it.

As for Nayte, yes, I was as skeptical as the next person. How does a dude who claims never to have been in love before, who comes from an emotionally constipated family, make a lifetime commitment to someone he’s known for mere weeks when no one else seems to believe he’s ready for it?

Well, Michelle is a really smart woman and if she says Nayte is in it for the long haul, who the hell are we to doubt her?

In any event, the producers seem to have so much faith in the relationship that they gave Michelle and Nayte a $200,000 down payment for a house on “ATFR” — in Minnesota naturally, you think she was going to move for a guy?

Let’s just hope they patronize a different grocery store than the one used by Joe Coleman and his family.

Anyway, let’s backtrack and recount how Michelle got to her happy ending.

If you’d tuned in just for the “meet the family” part of the finale you would have been shocked as hell that Brandon lost.

Has a family ever loved a member of the final two as much as Michelle’s family loved Brandon? It seems unlikely.

They had already met him, of course, during that one-on-one in Minneapolis when her parents “surprised” Michelle and Brandon in the hot tub in her folks’ backyard. And Brandon charmingly brought dad Ephraim a pair of swim trunks to replace the ones he’d borrowed that day.

Brandon couldn’t have answered his and mom LaVonne’s questions any more agreeably if he’d had somebody from production coaching him on the sidelines.

No, he wouldn’t be threatened by Michelle finishing her master’s degree and becoming a school principal. “My mom in my family is the powerful woman.”

Yes, he was in love with Michelle, “the most incredible woman I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

Yes, he’d be thrilled to move to Minnesota. “I just want to marry her so bad.”

LaVonne Young bestows a welcome-to-the-family kiss on Brandon Jones.

LaVonne bestowed not one, but two cheek kisses on Brandon and beamed, “I would be so happy if you’re here in the end.”

Brandon was the “best friend” that Mom and Pop wanted her to marry.

And Nayte’s time with the Young fam? Awkward, at least the way it was edited.

He was vague about moving to Minnesota, telling Michelle’s sister Angela, “The thing about me is I’m all about the adventure. I’ve moved so many times in my life.”

To LaVonne, he said things like, “My mind and heart are definitely pointing at Michelle,” not exactly a declaration of undying love.

LaVonne told him point blank she didn’t think he was ready to get engaged and shared that sentiment with Michelle, which had Michelle saying she had to “reassess” things with Nayte.

Naturally that meant that when it came to the final dates with the final two, Brandon got the chill zooming around on Jet Skis date and Nayte got the uncomfortable “sacred ritual to make you spill your guts” date.

Brandon got the sun, fun and surf date; Nayte not so much.

There’s no point rehashing all the smiles, smooches and declarations of Brandon’s true, true love on his date. The most significant part — other than Brandon gifting Michelle with the sweatshirt he’d been wearing when they had their fantasy suite food fight — was her telling Brandon she was in love with him too.

Up till that point, the fact Michelle was already “in love” with Nayte but just “falling” with Brandon made the ending seem like a foregone conclusion.

I would never accuse Michelle of telling a fib — she seems far too principled for that — but what a gift to production! Despite Nayte having been the clear favourite for weeks, maybe Brandon did have a chance of being the last man standing or so it seemed.

Raul guides Michelle and Nayte in telling each other how they feel.

On their date, Michelle took Nayte to a “sacred place” where a shaman named Raul got them to waft smoke on each other and share their innermost feelings, although he sensed a “blockage” in Nayte.

Well duh, the man had already confessed to being raised in a home where emotions weren’t expressed and “I love you” wasn’t said. It takes more than sacred smoke to counteract that. And I get that you have to go beyond platitudes if you’re planning to marry somebody, but this show makes almost a fetish of the concept of “vulnerability.”

Michelle said in her voice-over that if Nayte stopped trying to pull down his walls it would be a “deal breaker.” Dunh dunh dunh.

Luckily, Nayte was more forthcoming when he and Michelle were alone in his suite. “All I do, all I do is think about life with you, that’s all I do,” he told her. “I think what’s scary is just looking at you right now knowing like, hey, I might wake up tomorrow and just never be able to see you again, you know? That’s scary as hell.

“So as crazy as it is for me to get down on one knee, I am more than ready to do that with you because I want this to be forever, you know?”

She did know. She left Nayte’s room saying, “I think my heart is telling me that this is my person.”

So Brandon was a goner then except, conveniently, there was a letter from Brandon waiting when Michelle got back to her suite — and I don’t blame the conspiracy theorists out there for suspecting production wrote it for him.

It talked about how “a world without you is a world I fear to face” and how he’d always place her happiness above his and he’d love her forever and he’d always see her, etc. Just the sort of thing you want to read the night before you dump someone.

So the narrative the next day, as Nayte and Brandon picked out engagement rings, was that Michelle was confused and her heart torn.

Production threw one more red herring our way by having Michelle say in voice-over as we watched her walk barefoot across the sand to the proposal platform that she was following her heart and was “never going to feel unseen again,” a clear callback to the words in Brandon’s letter.

But of course it was Brandon’s SUV that pulled up first.

Michelle and Brandon tearfully embrace after she dropped her bombshell.

There were so many heartbreaking moments to choose from as Michelle broke up with Brandon, while reassuring him that she still loved him — at least the ones we could hear since the crashing waves drowned out much of the sound, leading viewers to scramble to turn on closed captions.

“Giving you my heart was worth it. It’s something I’ll never regret,” said Brandon while struggling to hold back tears. But tears there were, many, on both their parts.

“I’m just so broken,” he said and there was nothing fake about that.

Michelle had dried her tears by the time Nayte arrived, vowing to make sure she was “always chosen first, seen now and today, tomorrow and for the rest of our lives.”

“I love you with my entire heart,” Michelle told him, adding that her soul mate “is definitely standing right in front of me.”

Yes, of course Nayte proposed to Michelle.

Nayte got down on one knee, pulled out the pear-shaped Neil Lane sparkler he’d chosen, and they were engaged and giddy with happiness.

“This is my soul Nayte,” declared Michelle.

A mariachi band serenaded them, and Kaitlyn and Tayshia Adams ran down the beach cheering to congratulate them (I must say I always get a kick out of that part).

So are they still happy and in love?

It sure looked that way on “After the Final Rose,” which Kaitlyn hosted solo since Tayshia had been exposed to COVID-19.

Michelle reassured Kaitlyn and everybody else that not only was Nayte continuing to let his guard down in their relationship, “he’s more vulnerable than me.”

“I really can say I’ve never been with somebody who makes me feel so beautiful truly inside and out,” Michelle said.

Perhaps, most importantly, mom LaVonne and the rest of the Young clan had fallen in love with Nayte too. And LaVonne was now “besties” with Nayte’s mom. They were in the live studio audience, which went from unmasked to masked about 40 minutes in after viewers complained about the lack of COVID precautions on Twitter.

So simmer down, doubters. Nayte might not have been your pick, but he and Michelle seem as happy as any couple who got together on a dating show can be. Plus he’s Canadian, so I have to support him, eh?

Now, for Brandon. And I apologize for the length of this recap, but damn you to hell three-hour finales!

Brandon and Michelle reunite for the first time since their breakup.

He was gracious while speaking with both Kaitlyn and Michelle, saying he’d always love Michelle but was thankful she’d found her person.

The only hint of frustration came when he said he felt “like a little bit my love was overlooked” and found it confusing that “you really had to push Nayte to that point . . . you never had to push me.”

Maybe we’ll see Brandon again on “Bachelor in Paradise” next summer, although part of me feels like he’s too pure for it.

Speaking of seeing people again, Kaitlyn also brought out the next Bachelor, Clayton Echard, “a man who does need an introduction because nobody knows who he is.”

That’s not true, though. We all know who Clayton is, at least on a surface level. We just don’t understand how he got to be the Bachelor.

Kaitlyn had Clayton read mean tweets about himself, some of which viewers thought were fake.

I will say that Clayton was a good sport. “I kind of wanted this too,” he said in response to the tweet “All I want for Christmas is for Rodney to be the Bachelor. #SantaSucks.” And he laughed really hard at one that read, “I hope Clayton uses protection in the fantasy suites, otherwise 9 months later there are gonna be a lot of baby Shreks running around.”

We also saw the steamy, bitchy, tear-filled promo for Clayton’s season, the one that gives away all the drama by revealing that he told all of the final three he loved them and was “intimate” with at least the final two.

Who am I kidding? I may not be excited about it the new season, but I’ll be recapping it, starting with the Jan. 3 premiere. So check back here Jan. 4 and, until then, have a safe, happy holiday.

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

Fantasy suites turn bros into foes and The Bachelorette is in love

December 15, 2021 / Debra Yeo

From left, Nayte Olukoya, Joe Coleman and Brandon Jones await their fate on “The Bachelorette.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Craig Sjodin/ABC.

Sorry Chris Sutton, but you know who sure seems to have it in the bag after Tuesday’s episode of “The Bachelorette.”

Michelle Young and her final three — Nayte Olukoya, Joe Coleman and Brandon Jones — went to Mexico for fantasy suite dates, but she told only one of those men she was already in love with him. That would be Nayte.

And yes, you’d be forgiven for thinking this takes the mystery out of next week’s finale, in which she’ll chose between Nayte and Brandon. Michelle’s feelings for Nayte were clearly more advanced, notwithstanding that she told Brandon she was “falling in love” with him.

Still, we’ve been promised a “shocking conclusion you’d never expect,” so I guess those of us who aren’t up on the spoilers will wait and see.

Her choice is between a man who says he’s never been in love before and whose own stepdad doubts he’s ready to get engaged, and a man who says he’s so ready you feel like telling him to slow his roll.

Brandon got the first date on Tuesday, which he interpreted as a sign of favour from Michelle. And he couldn’t wait to “literally rip out my heart, throw it on the table and say, ‘Just do what you want with it, because it only beats for you at this point.'”

Obviously, he didn’t “literally” do that, but figuratively? Oh yes, indeed.

That night, after their daytime horseback riding and beach smooching, he told Michelle he loved her three times before they’d even cleared the dinner table.

“I’m just so sick of keeping it in because I want you to know I will always, always put you first, always till I take my last breath I will put you first,” Brandon said.

That seems pretty intense for an “I’m still one of three guys left” date, but Michelle wasn’t put off by it.

She reiterated that she was falling in love with Brandon and told him she could see a future with him. “I’ve never met somebody who has made me feel so safe, has made my heart feel so safe. I’m really excited about that, I’m not gonna lie.”

Brandon feeds Michelle an empanada in bed.

They were still on the same page the next morning, even though Brandon shoved an empanada practically up Michelle’s nose, leading to a food fight in bed (ugh, the poor cleaning staff).

“We’re playful, we have so much fun together whether we are kissing, have empanada sliding down our faces or are having a heart to heart: this relationship seems like it has it all,” Michelle said.

One thing Brandon didn’t count on in his glee at getting the first date was the stress of having to sit in the hotel on the nights that Michelle had her other dates, picturing what she was up to with the other two men.

It’s a particularly mean tradition to have the final three all stay in the same suite so they can watch each other roll in the morning after they’ve spent the night with the Bachelorette.

Luckily, none of the men went into the gory details, but you could cut the tension with a knife. “Now we kind of went from bros to foes,” said Nayte.

Joe was the next bro-foe up for a date.

The narrative going in was that Michelle had to learn more about Joe to decide if she could picture a life with him. I’m not entirely sure how ziplining helps with that, but Michelle dug the fact that the normally reserved Joe screamed as he was doing it and showed his “goofy side.”

“Today was, I think, a big day for me because I saw the energetic, upbeat Joe; I saw the relaxed, adventurous side,” Michelle said. If you say so. She also called Joe a 1,000-piece puzzle “and I like puzzles.” Hmmm.

If nothing else, it was the most picturesque date. How can you beat the image of them smooching as the sun sets with a hungry horse nudging them?

Joe and Michelle seemed to vibe at dinner over their shared desire to make a difference in the world, which seemed like a good thing — until you recall she had a similar conversation with Matt James on their “Bachelor” date and they didn’t end up together either.

While Joe and Michelle were bonding, Brandon was back at the hotel quietly freaking out over the fact his woman was out with another man: “You kind of get into your head, thinking ‘Oh, maybe she’s already got the person picked out she wants to be with.'”

Well, yeah, duh, of course she does. The fiction that she’s still trying to decide between three men at this point is just a ridiculous requirement of the format.

Brandon might have taken comfort from knowing that when Michelle woke up with Joe the next day she told him, “I hope you know how much I care about you and how much you mean to me.” The thing is: Joe was already on the L-word train; Michelle was still on the platform.

Nayte, meanwhile, had correctly surmised that it was better to be last than first in the date order. “I would want, personally, my closest connection to be the last guy,” he told Brandon.

Nayte Olukoya was No. 1 in the soul-mate stakes.

Michelle validated that, as they enjoyed cruising on a catamaran, by saying in her voice-over, “When I’m with Nayte I feel how you’re supposed to feel when you’re with your soul mate, when you’re with your favourite person.”

But were her feelings for Nayte stronger than his were for her? Was he ready to get engaged?

Never one to beat about the bush, Michelle told Nayte at dinner, “So falling in love is one thing, being in love is another thing and then engagement is another thing. Which of those are you ready for?”

“I mean, all three,” Nayte said. “I know I trust myself, I trust you and I trust that I’m really falling in love with you.”

Good enough, off to the fantasy suite.

Nayte upped the ante the next morning, telling Michelle, “I’m falling in love with you, I’m in love with you.”

“I am definitely in love with you too,” Michelle replied.

After that, it was no surprise that Nayte was cocky as hell going into the rose ceremony — annoying but not surprising.

Brandon, on the other hand, seemed hella nervous, enough to pull Michelle aside before she could start handing out the roses.

It played well into the production tricks suggesting Michelle was going to send him home. In her voice-over she said she was going to break the heart of “someone who continued to put me first,” basically taking the words right out of Brandon’s mouth. And then she wiped tears from her eyes as Brandon told her, “I will be here for you regardless of what happens to me.”

We were also supposed to think that Brandon’s “Hail Mary,” as Nayte called it, had changed Michelle’s mind about who to send home. Not a chance. If you parse everything she said to Brandon and to Joe on their separate dates it was clear the latter was a goner.

And go he did, expressing his shock.

Michelle told Joe she was still falling in love with him and really had seen a future with him, and she cried an awful lot after his SUV drove away. So much for her “little slice of home.”

Next Tuesday, it’s the three-hour finale (ugh), with the promo suggesting that Michelle’s dad is worried about Brandon becoming jealous and her mom doubting Nayte’s readiness for an engagement, but you know how deceptive those promos can be. We’ll see what’s what next week.

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

Author: Debra Yeo (Page 12 of 29)

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Fantasy suites turn bros into foes and The Bachelorette is in love

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