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Author: Debra Yeo (Page 28 of 29)

Watchable the week of July 5, 2020

July 5, 2020 /

Happy Canada Day and 4th of July! This week’s list is a “to be continued” situation since reviews of “Little Voice,” from Apple TV Plus, are embargoed until Monday morning. In fact, I’m running into embargoes more and more these days, so starting next week I’m going to transition “Watchable” from a Sunday to Saturday list, to a Monday to Sunday list since Mondays seem to be the day many of the embargoes lift. In the meantime …

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Above the Law (July 11, 8 p.m., CBC Docs POV and CBC Gem)

Godfred Addai-Nyamekye has been unable to work since being assaulted
by police in Calgary in 2013. PHOTO CREDIT: CBC

This doc is both infuriating and disheartening: infuriating because it shows lives lost or maimed through the actions of violent Calgary cops; disheartening because the stories the victims and their families tell are all too familiar to anyone paying attention to the news across North America.

In December 2013, Godfred Addai-Nyamekye, an immigrant from Ghana, was acting as a designated driver for his friends when their car got stuck in the snow. When police pulled up and told them to move on, Godfred explained that they’d tried to push the car to no avail. He was wrestled to the ground, handcuffed, driven away and dropped off in an industrial area he wasn’t familiar with, in minus 28 C temperatures, in a tracksuit. He repeatedly called 911 for help and when the cops finally responded he was punched in the face, kneed in the back and then HE WAS CHARGED with assaulting police. Sound familiar?

Godfred now suffers from post-traumatic stress, hasn’t been able to work because of his back injuries and a once promising future has been derailed thanks to a police officer’s anger management issues.

The only thing that likely saved Godfred from being convicted — because we all know who judges and juries believe when it’s the suspect’s word against officers’ — was a video from a police helicopter that clearly shows the vicious assault on Godfred.

Let’s move on to 2015. The same cop who assaulted Godfred is still on duty, despite Godfred filing a complaint against him, and is caught on video removing a handcuffed man from a cruiser, punching him from behind several times in the head and slamming him to the ground. The man, Daniel Haworth, who’d been arrested for breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s house, suffered a traumatic brain injury. He later died of a fentanyl overdose, which the cops say isn’t connected to the assault, except the brain injury caused memory loss, which led to Daniel being kicked out of drug treatment, so you can connect the dots.

At least in that case, officer Trevor Lindsay was charged with and convicted of aggravated assault, and was still awaiting sentence when the documentary was made.

The doc also profiles a third case, involving a man named Anthony Heffernan, a drug addict who’d had a relapse after a couple of years clean and had refused to vacate the hotel room he was in, which led to police being called. Anthony wasn’t armed, but apparently the five officers who responded found one drug-addled white guy such a threat that one of them had to shoot him in the head several times.

ASIRT, Alberta’s version of Ontario’s SIU, referred the case for charges against the officers, but the deputy minister of justice refused to prosecute, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence the use of force was “unjustified.”

I’ll just echo what Anthony’s brother, Grant, says in the doc: this is “complete bullshit.”

I’ll also quote Anthony’s father, Patrick: “This must never happen again in Calgary or Canada.” Except incidents like this are still happening across Canada and the United States and will continue to do so until somebody finds a way to rein in police violence.

Employable Me (July 5, TVO, 10 p.m.)

Ariana in “Employable Me.” The young woman has Down syndrome and is looking to land her first job.
PHOTO CREDIT: TVO

This is both doing good and feel-good television. The series, which is in its third season, features subjects with physical or neurological impairments who just want to work. Through interviews with them and their families, and professional assessments of their skills, it’s proven — both to potential employers and to viewers — that they are indeed employable. And if you’ve never interacted with someone who’s what society regards as disabled, you might learn a thing or two. The episode I watched featured an intelligent young man named Jordan on the autism spectrum, who is mad about trains; and a charming young woman with Down syndrome named Ariana with untapped people skills.

An Inspector Calls (July 7, BritBox)

From left, David Thewlis, Finn Cole, Ken Stott and Chloe Pirrie in “An Inspector Calls.”
PHOTO CREDIT: BritBox

The play on which this TV movie is based was first performed in 1945, but contempt for the poor and downtrodden is ever with us, perhaps even more so today than in J.B. Priestley’s time or the Edwardian era in which this is set.

The inspector of the title (David Thewlis) calls on a rich family in the midst of a self-congratulatory dinner: father Arthur Birling (Ken Stott) is expecting to be knighted soon and daughter Sheila (Chloe Pirrie) has just got engaged to the son of a rival captain of industry. But their smugness dissipates when the inspector, who gives his name as Goole, delivers news of a young woman who has just committed suicide. He then demonstrates how each member of the family, including mother Sybil (Miranda Richardson) and son Eric (Finn Cole), contributed to her downfall.

The victim, Eva Smith, who goes from being a worker in Birling’s factory to pregnant and utterly destitute, is played by the ever reliable Sophie Rundle (“Peaky Blinders,” “Gentleman Jack”), who’ll soon be seen in Acorn TV’s “The Nest.”

There’s a twist at the end that I won’t give away if you’re not familiar with the play.

Odds and Ends

Kim Cattrall as Davina Jackson in “Sensitive Skin .” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

Canadian actor Kim Cattrall, who will forever be known as Samantha from “Sex and the City,” stars as a woman coming to terms with aging in “Sensitive Skin,” a Canadian remake of a British series. It’s still viewable on Crave TV, but if you’re an Acorn subscriber, Season 1 will also be available there as of July 6.

Netflix has several debuts this week that I’d love to tell you all about, except preview episodes weren’t provided — not to me, anyway. They include “Stateless” (July 8), a drama set in an immigration detention centre in Australia co-created by Cate Blanchett and starring Yvonne Strahovski of “The Handmaid’s Tale”; “Down to Earth With Zac Efron” (July 10), a travel documentary about finding healthy, sustainable ways to live; and “The Twelve” (July 10), a Dutch drama about jurors adjudicating the disturbing case of a woman charged with murdering her own daughter and her best friend.

“Tough as Nails” (July 8, 8 p.m., Global and CBS) was created by U.S. “Amazing Race” host Phil Keoghan. The contestants are Americans who do physically demanding jobs and whose strength, endurance and mental toughness are tested in a series of “real-world” challenges until one is left standing.

Potatoes and cheese curds hit the spot on ‘Canada’s Drag Race’

July 3, 2020 /
From left, Anastarzia Anaquway, Kiara, Lemon, Ilona Verley, Kyne and Scarlett BoBo wait to be judged in the maxi-challenge on Night 1 of “Canada’s Drag Race.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

SPOILER ALERT: DON’T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED EPISODE 1 OF “CANADA’S DRAG RACE.”

Hey RuPaul, we didn’t fuck it up.

“Canada’s Drag Race” is finally here and the debut was fun, bitchy, naughty, sparkly, snarky and sometimes weird.

It had everything you’d want from a “Drag Race” episode: fabulous, witty judges; an interesting, varied group of queens; eye-popping costumes and entertaining challenges — plus a sequinned maple leaf entrance to the werk room and gold moose antlers.

We even have a villain after just one episode. Say hello to Kyne, more on her below.

“RuPaul’s Drag Race” namesake RuPaul Charles was there in spirit and on video, welcoming the Canadian queens to the family. “It’s aboot time, eh?” Ru joked, which is kind of cute but, honestly, I’ve never pronounced “about” as “aboot” in my life. I will cop to saying “eh” occasionally.

Anyhow, I didn’t miss RuPaul thanks to Brooke Lynn Hytes. Brooke, who has a great rapport with her fellow judges, Stacey McKenzie and Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, truly is the Queen of the North. She’s also the Queen of the Quip.

She had some gems during the mini-challenge, which had the queens climbing a fake-snow-covered ramp (ahem, the Rocky Mountains) while carrying a checkered flag, then posing for celebrity photographer Matt Barnes as a high-powered fan nearly blew their false eyelashes off. 

“I do love a built-in glory hole,” said Brooke as Ilona Verley put her flag pole through the giant ring in her nose. “I think I’ve seen this porn: Sid Vicious, ‘White Christmas,’” Brooke quipped as Scarlett BoBo writhed and squealed atop the ramp. And, of French-Canadian queen Rita Baga: “Her tuck is separatiste.” 

Kyne was judged to have the best photo and won the challenge. The 21-year-old is from Kitchener, Ont., not exactly known as a drag hot spot, but if you thought she’d be a bit humble around veterans like Toronto’s Tynomi Banks and Montreal’s Rita Baga, think again.

“I’ve taught 100,000 people how to do drag in my videos and I’m here to teach 11 more,” boasted Kyne, the self-declared “queen of social media.”

A little trash talking is a good thing; if you’re not bragging about yourself, why are you on “Drag Race”? But confidence started to look more like arrogance after Kyne’s victory, as she boasted that she was also going to win the maxi-challenge: a runway show in which the queens had to create costumes out of fabric and props with Canadian themes.

BOA made good use of the potatoes in her “Anne of Green Gables”-themed box
on Night 1 of “Canada’s Drag Race.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

Kyne talked back to the judges when they didn’t gag over her disco “Yukon gold digger” outfit.

When guest host Elisha Cuthbert said it wasn’t her favourite, Kyne snarked, “Well, it’s my favourite look tonight.” She also rolled her eyes hard while the judges praised Toronto queen BOA (which stands for Bitch on Arrival), who made it into the top three with her “Man of Green Gay-bles” outfit. Back in the work room, Kyne loudly complained, “We are living in a world where BOA beat me!”

Well, yeah, duh. BOA put potatoes on her tits and Kyne thought sewing gold balls to her bell bottoms was the height of creativity? Puhleeze.

Kyne’s brattiness did not go unnoticed by the judges. “There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance,” Brooke told Kyne when she declared her safe. “We all suggest you find it.”

What are the chances? We’ll find out next week, although the promo of her telling Brooke Lynn she “forgives” her doesn’t look promising.

My personal favourite outfit was Victoria queen Jimbo’s “Rain-blow It Up” dress of many colours. Honourable mention goes to BOA’s potatoes, Tynomi Banks’ sock accessories and the crab legs on Priyanka’s shoes. But Rita Baga won with her “Quebec-Froid” snow queen outfit, complete with real cheese curds. There’s no doubt it was the most coherently themed look. Brooke affectionately described Rita as a “campy Quebecois queen.”

Forced to lip-sync for their lives were Lemon and Juice Boxx, who are both from Toronto although Lemon lives in New York.

No way I saw that coming for Lemon, given her level of experience as a New York queen, but she got stuck with a box of sports paraphernalia for her costume – thanks to Kyne – for which she had no affinity. She tried hard, but the look didn’t gel.

Juice Boxx got tripped up by her lack of sewing skills. Her Flintstone-esque top and skirt with bits of broken CDs glued to them looked basic and unfinished.

Lemon put her Alvin Ailey dance school training to use during the lip sync, to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “I Really Like You.” I thought Juice Boxx had a lot of heart, but it’s hard to compete with two splits. Juice Boxx sashayed away with a smile on her face and the C-word on her lips, but she said it with love.

Until next week …

Watchable the week of June 28, 2020

June 28, 2020 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Welcome to Chechnya (June 30, 9 p.m., HBO)

Grishna, right, and boyfriend Bogdan (not their real names) wait tensely for a flight to take off
as they flee Russia in “Welcome to Chechnya.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

I had forgotten about the 2017 HBO TV interview in which Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov denied that gay men were being tortured in the Russian republic because there were no gay people there.

This documentary by Oscar nominee David France (“How to Survive a Plague”) is a harrowing and heartbreaking repudiation of that nonsense, and a reminder as we finish Pride Month here that gay rights are non-existent in other parts of the world.

France profiles the work done by the Russian LGBT Network to rescue residents at risk of torture and death at the height of the state-sponsored purge of homosexuality in Chechnya.

France posed as a tourist to obtain his guerrilla footage and digitally altered the faces of his subjects in post-production to protect their identities. We go inside a Moscow safe house where gay refugees anxiously await the visas that will allow escape to safe countries (for one man, it becomes too much; he slits his wrist and his house mates must tend the wounds themselves since calling an ambulance is too risky).

We also ride shotgun during the nerve-wracking rescue of a young woman from Grozny whose uncle has threatened to expose her as a lesbian unless she has sex with him. And we watch the scrambled flight from Russia of a man and his entire family after Chechen agents discover where they are hiding: their tension as they wait for the plane to take off is nearly unbearable.

The words of the survivors in this doc are not the only evidence of the detention and torture of gays and lesbians; chilling videos of people being raped and beaten are sprinkled throughout. One of the most distressing shows a man preparing to drop a flagstone on the head of a lesbian relative.

Even one of the rescuers, Olga Baranova, has to flee Russia when her own identity is exposed as she tries to help a young woman who’s being sent back to Chechnya.

One brave victim, Maxim Lapunov, filed a criminal case against Russian authorities, becoming the only person to speak publicly about his detention and torture, but it was briskly dismissed by Russian courts. He has since filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights.

The good news is that the Russian LGBT Network resettled 151 people in the first two years of the purge, 44 of them in Canada with the help of Toronto’s Rainbow Railroad.

But as exhausted rescuer David Isteev says at the documentary’s end: “This story needs a proper ending and that’s still very far away.”

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (June 28, 10:05 p.m., HBO)

Late author Michelle McNamara, the protagonist of “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,”
with husband Patton Oswalt. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

True crime documentaries are still a popular genre with good reason and the story of the Golden State Killer, also known as the East Area Rapist, is among the most fascinating cases.

Former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo is expected to plead guilty Monday to 13 rapes and 13 murders, just a fraction of the sexual assaults and other attacks attributed to him between between 1974 and 1986.

But this documentary series is not as much about DeAngelo as it is about Michelle McNamara, the author and blogger who obsessively researched the case in a bid to unmask the killer — an obsession that contributed to her death in 2016 from an overdose of prescription drugs combined with an undiagnosed heart condition.

Her book “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” on which this limited series is based, was published posthumously in 2018 — just a few months ahead of DeAngelo’s arrest — thanks to McNamara’s husband, comedian Patton Oswalt; her researcher and fellow true crime obsessive Paul Haynes; and journalist Billy Jensen.

The series is part true crime survey, part McNamara biography and part love story, but it also gives voice to DeAngelo’s victims, who are still visibly struggling with the trauma inflicted on them.

Say I Do (July 1, Netflix)

From left, Gabriele Bertaccini, Thai Nguyen and Jeremiah Brent prepare
to celebrate their handiwork in “Say I Do.” PHOTO CREDIT: Netflix

This series is basically “Queer Eye” for weddings, but with three gay experts instead of five: interior designer Jeremiah Brent, fashion designer Thai Nguyen and chef Gabriele Bertaccini. But what it most reminds me of is “I Do, Redo,” the Canadian show that was banished from all Bell Media platforms after star Jessica Mulroney was caught misusing her white privilege against a Black social media influencer. The Canadian series featured couples redoing marred first weddings whereas “Say I Do” mainly features pairs marrying for the first time, but the beats are very similar: couples facing hardships, dream weddings pulled off in just days, emotional bonding between brides and grooms and experts. Non-spoiler alert: There will be tears.

“I Do” is one of several shows Netflix is releasing this week, including a revival of the classic documentary series “Unsolved Mysteries” (July 1); fantasy drama “Warrior Nun” (July 2) and “The Baby-Sitters Club,” based on the beloved young adult novels (July 3).

Malory Towers (July 1, 11 a.m., Family Channel)

From left, Ella Bright, Zoey Siewert and Danya Griver in “Malory Towers.”
PHOTO CREDIT: WildBrain Television

You don’t necessarily have to be a tween girl to enjoy this adaptation of the British novels by Enid Blyton, set at a 1940s English boarding school by the sea. The setting is suitably picturesque and the girls pursue their adventures — midnight feasts, telling ghost stories, playing lacrosse, swimming at the rock pool — with a cheerful earnestness that isn’t cloying. The series was partly shot in Toronto and co-stars Canadian actor Zoey Siewert as jokester Alicia.

Hamilton (July 3, Disney Plus)

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Phillipa Soo in the movie version of “Hamilton.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Disney Plus

The monster hit musical “Hamilton” faced a double whammy when the coronavirus hit: it was forced offstage when theatres closed, including here in Toronto, and this movie version had its release curtailed. But its streaming debut should be a boon for Disney Plus, given the insane popularity of the theatrical version, as well as for anyone who’s always wanted to see it and could never score tickets. I haven’t watched the movie, shot in 2016 in New York, but I was lucky enough to see the musical live in Toronto and can vouch for how entertaining is. The bonus here is that you get to see the original Broadway cast, including creator Lin-Manuel Miranda in the starring role.

Cottagers & Indians (July 4, 8 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem)

Drew Hayden Taylor directs and narrates the documentary “Cottagers & Indians.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC

Indigenous author, playwright and filmmaker Drew Hayden Taylor gives the documentary treatment to a longstanding dispute that he has already explored in theatrical form. In a nutshell, Indigenous man James Whetung is seeding huge swaths of Pigeon Lake with wild rice, a traditional Indigenous staple that was virtually wiped out over a century ago due to non-Indigenous development; cottagers like Larry Wood say the rice is impeding their enjoyment of the water and even endangering people since boats have to travel very close to shore to avoid it. The doc makes clear that reconciliation is a complex and difficult process — although Hayden Taylor illustrates that there are places in Canada where Natives and non-Natives are making it work. What’s frustrating is that the doc ends without a resolution in sight, despite the proposal of what seems like a reasonable compromise.

Odds and Ends

Judges Stacey McKenzie, Brooke Lynn Hytes and Jeffrey Bowery-Chapman in “Canada’s Drag Race.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Bell Media

If you love “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” drag queens or just fun, escapist TV, then do tune into “Canada’s Drag Race” (July 2, 9 p.m., Crave). I haven’t yet seen a full episode, but I did get to check in with the resident judges about what to expect. You can read about it here.

“Robot Chicken” returns for a 10th season of stop-motion comedy (June 28, midnight, Adult Swim). “The Sommerdahl Murders” (June 29, Acorn) combine Danish crime drama with marital discord. “Hanna” (July 3, Amazon Prime Video), about a young woman with extraordinary fighting skills, returns for a butt-kicking second season.

Watchable the week of June 21, 2020

June 21, 2020 /

Perry Mason (June 21, 9 p.m., HBO)

Matthew Rhys as the title character in “Perry Mason.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

It’s clear from the opening moments of this adaptation, which feature a murdered infant with his eyelids gruesomely sewn open, that we’re not in 1960s TV-land anymore.

Forget the upstanding courtroom lawyer played by Raymond Burr in the 1957 to ’66 TV series, this Perry Mason is a rumpled, cynical private detective practising his sleazy trade in 1930s L.A. at its noirest. (In the first episode, he’s employed to take tawdry photos of a Fatty Arbuckle-esque actor caught in flagrante delicto with a starlet, with a side of whipped cream.)

The good news is that Perry, played by the very able Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”), doesn’t stay a sad-sack loser for the entire eight episodes because, really, how many more anti-heroes does TV need? His innate decency spurs him to do the right thing for a woman who’s being railroaded in the murder case thanks to corrupt, brutish cops and a venal district attorney (Stephen Root), and lands him in the defence lawyer role better known to TV viewers and readers of Erle Stanley Gardner’s books.

This version of Mason may not be familiar, but the genre – dark, gritty crime drama – certainly is. Think “L.A. Confidential,” “True Detective,” “Bosch,” a more modern depiction of L.A.’s criminal underbelly; even “Boardwalk Empire,” which shares a director with “Mason,” Timothy Van Patten. The supernatural “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels” also comes to mind, since both shows are set in the L.A. of the ’30s and include an Aimee Semple McPherson-like evangelist.

In “Mason,” that role, of Sister Alice, is played by Canadian Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”), part of a cast stacked with ringers, including John Lithgow, Juliet Rylance, Chris Chalk, Lili Taylor and Shea Whigham.

Rylance (“The Knick”) and Chalk (“Gotham”) take on roles that existed in the original series, Della Street and Paul Drake, but here the characters have new identities that allow for 21st-century context: Della, still a legal assistant, is something of a budding feminist while Paul, now a Black police officer, chafes at racism and corruption within the force.

The episodes certainly can meander, mostly in aid of Perry’s back story – we get flashbacks to his World War I service, attempts to reach out to his estranged son, sex scenes with his lover (Mexican actor Veronica Falcon) – but the acting and the central plot are interesting enough to keep it watchable.

Lucy Worsley’s Royal Myths & Secrets (June 21, 8 p.m., PBS)

Historian Lucy Worsley does her best impression of Queen Elizabeth I giving her famous speech at Tilbury in “Royal Myths & Secrets.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of PBS

I confess I’ve been devouring books about royals since I was a child, with a particular soft spot for England’s Queen Elizabeth I. She happens to be the first subject of this three-part docuseries featuring historian Worsley, the chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, which is the charity that manages the places where the kings and queens of England once lived. Don’t let Worsley’s animated demeanour and penchant for playing dress-up fool you; she knows her stuff. Each episode explores fallacies involving three queens. Besides Elizabeth, the subjects include Queen Anne (yes, the one played by Olivia Colman in “The Favourite”)  and Marie Antoinette. 

Late Night in the Studio (June 26, CBC Gem)

Nobu Adilman plays a CBC archivist in the comedy “Late Night at the Studio.”
PHOTO CREDIT: CBC Gem

This comedy series is a perfect pre-Canada Day watch if you’re looking for something that makes slyly and gently subversive fun of Canadian culture. The conceit is that Nobu Adilman (writer, actor, podcaster, Choir! Choir! Choir! co-founder) is a CBC archivist — sharing hidden gems from the vaults. Each 12-minute episode reveals another totally fake program: an adventure series starring a young David Suzuki; a cartoon about a talking doughnut hole that looks suspiciously like a Timbit; a cheesy 1980s soap opera set in Regina, Saskatchewan; a 1970s children’s show that teaches some unusually harsh lessons; and a 1960s Christmas special in which all holiday traditions get equal billing. The CBC itself takes some ribbing. Worrying that “Late Night” isn’t getting enough viewers to stay on the air, Adilman quips, “Then again, this is the CBC.”

We’re Funny That Way: A Virtual Pride Special (June 26, 8 p.m., CBC Gem)

Two-spirit Mohawk singer Shawnee performs in “We’re Funny That Way: A Virtual Pride Special.”
PHOTO CREDIT: CBC Gem

Like everything else that involves crowds of people, Pride celebrations have been driven online by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the annual We’re Funny That Way Festival, which showcases queer comedians and other performers. Truthfully, standup routines need a crowd for the jokes to land properly, but musical performances translate well to the virtual realm, and the special includes songs from Shawnee, Lucas Silveira, Kate Rigg and drag queen Miss Conception. Gavin Crawford also hits the mark with an impression of “Little Edie” in “Grey Gardens.”
And Carolyn Taylor of “Baroness von Sketch Show” turns a haircut into performance art, while a sketch involving comedians Colin Mochrie and Debra McGrath and their trans daughter Kinley aims straight for your heart.

Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2 (June 26, Disney Plus)

Kristen Bell records the song “Some Things Never Change” for the film “Frozen 2”
in the docuseries “Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2.” PHOTO CREDIT: Disney Plus

I have never watched either of the “Frozen” movies, but I still found this behind-the-scenes look at the making of the sequel watchable. Starting 11 months before the movie hit theatre screens, this docuseries invites you into the creative process and gives you a sense of the very detailed work that goes into making a big-budget animated film. The big names are well-represented, including actors Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel, directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, and songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, but also unsung heroes like animators Wayne Unten and Malerie Walters, and storyboard artist Marc E. Smith.

Odds and Ends

Dr. David Langer in a special episode of the docuseries “Lenox Hill.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix

A special ninth episode of “Lenox Hill” (June 24, Netflix) revisits the Manhattan hospital where the first eight episodes were shot in 2019 just as the coronavirus pandemic begins to lay waste to New York City, which became the epicentre of COVID-19 in the United States.

“Isolation Stories” (June 23, BritBox) is a hybrid of traditional drama with DIY TV-making. Actors play characters who are dealing in various ways with the pandemic. The actors, including Sheridan Smith, Eddie Marsan, Robert Glenister and more, got remote guidance from the directors and shot the scenes themselves with the help of their families.

A couple of different specials pay tribute to the people helping get the world through the coronavirus crisis. First up is “United We Sing: A Grammy Tribute to the Unsung Heroes” (June 21, 8 p.m., Citytv and CBS). Hosted by Harry Connick Jr., it features a plethora of musicians and actors. “Global Goal: United for Our Future – The Concert” (June 27, 8 p.m., CTV, Crave) celebrates all those who are working on COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines, including scientists, health workers and activists. The celebrity guest list won’t be announced until sometime this week.

If you’re excited about the July 2 preview of “Canada’s Drag Race,” you can get a sneak peek at the queens who are competing on “Drag Ball Presented by Crave.” It streams June 27 at 8 p.m. on the Drag Race on Crave YouTube channel and the Pride Toronto Twitch channel. Performances by all 12 of the contestants are promised along with messages from judges Brooke Lynn Hytes, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman and Stacey McKenzie, and “secret” celebrity guests. I’ll have an interview in the Toronto Star with all the judges ahead of the premiere, but you can read my previous interview with Brooke Lynn and the stars of CBC Gem’s “Queens” here.

CBC Gem series ‘Queens’ spotlights the queens of Toronto

June 19, 2020 /
Jada Shada Hudson as drag queen Paper in the comedy series “Queens.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Queens

There’s suffering for your art and then there’s shivering for your art.

Toronto drag queen Jada Shada Hudson recalls doing the latter while shooting the CBC Gem series “Queens,” which debuts today, June 19, back in December.

“It was really, really, really chilly,” Jada said about the outdoor shoot. “And my outfit was not really winter. There were some girls, they were wearing scarves and mittens and everything, and I am there in a plastic jacket. But it was so fun to be a part of this project.”

“It wasn’t so bad that first day of filming when it was so freezing and I got to just lie around in that fur jacket,” joked her co-star, fellow Toronto queen Champagna.

“Whenever we were shooting outside everyone came rushing back into Crews (Church Street bar Crews & Tangos) to warm up,” added Justin Gray, who created the series. “Shoes came off because their feet were wet and hairdryers went to their feet, so it just smelt like warm, warm socks.”

Gray, a.k.a. drag queen Fisher Price, fell into drag performing a few years back after taking a breather from trying to break into the film and TV industry. And the more he performed, the more “little fun ideas” he started getting about the people and situations he encountered. “And then it snowballed into wanting to write this silly, campy whodunit … By taking myself out of the film world for a little bit I kind of found myself right back in it,” he said, chatting on a Zoom call with Jada, Champagna and their “Queens” co-stars Allysin Chaynes.

The six-part series takes place the day of the fictional Miss Church Street pageant in Toronto’s Gay Village. Someone is trying to sabotage the pageant, putting obstacles in the paths of the various contestants. In the case of Paper, Jada’s character, it starts with a visit to a strip club followed by a trip to the emergency room.

For Naomi, played by Allysin, a visit to the mall to exchange a bronzer ends up with her getting locked in a makeup store during a gas leak. Luckily, she has a bottle of wine and her insecurities to keep her company.

Allysin spent 13 hours shooting that scene overnight at a mall. Then she and Justin grabbed a few hours sleep, put their drag on and headed to the Beaver, their home bar on Queen Street West, for a show.

“We really honestly don’t know how we did it,” Justin said. “We shot basically a feature film in seven days, including multiple lead actors, several locations and dealing with winter weather as well.”

Besides the three queens I talked with, the show also stars Toronto drag performers Baby Bel Bel, Ivory Towers, Quick Lewinsky, Lucy Flawless and Lucinda Miu.

Allysin Chaynes as drag queen Naomi in the CBC Gem series “Queens.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Queens

“It was such a fun thing to be a part of and such a cool thing to put your name on, and have yourself represented in a very interesting part of Canadian queer history,” said Allysin.

“It’s also a testament to a drag performer writing a show about drag performers starring drag performers,” she continued. “Justin really understands where we’re all coming from story-wise in terms of what he’s written, but can also understand how much each of us has been honing our individual public personalities over however long we’ve been doing drag.”

Allysin came to drag out of art school, OCAD University to be precise, where she had been using drag makeup as part of her practice. Champagna was looking to vent her creative energy after finding limited success as a queer, male actor. Doing drag, “all the doors started opening,” she said. And Jada, who sings and dances, had been performing as a man in talent shows in the Village but got talked into trying drag after losing a contest to a drag performer at Crews & Tangos.

Her drag name is borrowed from two Black performers she admires, actor Jada Pinkett Smith and singer Jennifer Hudson. Champagna’s flowed, if you’ll pardon the pun, from “a really drunk-ass night” with friends and, yes, champagne. And Justin picked his after being in a Codeine-induced haze in a hospital waiting for surgery and spotting a kids’ Fisher-Price play phone.

Champagna as drag queen Elaina in comedy whodunit “Queens.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Queens

Allysin shares her name, a play on 1990s grunge band Alice in Chains, with “a five-foot-tall Romanian porn star. I think I’m beating her in Google results now, which is really exciting. And hopefully this show helps more. My life’s goal is just to outrank her on Google.”

All the queens were excited to share “Queens” with the world. Besides checking it out on CBC Gem, you can go to pridetoronto.com as part of its Pride Month “Feature Fridays” for a special screening of “Queens” and panel party with the cast beginning tonight at 9 p.m.

“I’m intensely proud of the crew and cast that we have together for this project,” Justin said. “It filled me with so much happiness to have a heavily LGBT, POC crew as well as having seasoned veterans that have been working in Canadian television for years now that were strong allies and really pulled all the strings they could to make a lot of things for the show possible.”

“Justin won’t say this about himself … but we could not have asked for a better script, a better series or a better showrunner,” added Allysin. “It’s refreshing to have a queer series, and especially a queer series about drag, that is not necessarily about each one of our personal hardships or upbringings or adversities that we face. It’s us being viewed as people who work in a job and have experiences.

“It was a dream to work on,” she said. “We got to wake up every day and get paid to go hang out with our friends and say funny things written by one of our friends.”

Note: If you’d like to read more about “Queens,” go to thestar.com to read my Toronto Star interview with the cast as well as Brooke Lynn Hytes of “Canada’s Drag Race.”

Watchable the week of June 14, 2020

June 14, 2020 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Beecham House (June 14, 10 p.m., PBS)

Saiyami Kher as Khamlavati and Tom Bateman as John Beecham in “Beecham House.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Masterpiece

It’s inevitable that whenever a new period drama comes to PBS, viewers think wistfully of “Downton Abbey.” Alas, “Beecham House” is not an heir apparent to that beloved show.

It has some upstairs-downstairs dynamics, a regal setting and a cast member in common (Lesley Nicol, a.k.a. Mrs. Patmore), but it lacks its predecessor’s heart and soul.

It was co-created and directed by Gurinder Chadha, who’ll forever be known for giving the world “Bend It Like Beckham,” but the Indian characters here serve less as well-rounded people in their own right than as means of advancing the plot for the white characters.

Hunky British actor Tom Bateman (“Vanity Fair”) stars as John Beecham, an Englishman in late 18th-century Delhi, India, who has quit the rapacious East India Company and set up house in a beautiful Indian mansion with his half-Indian infant son.

John, though seemingly honourable, has a serious case of white saviour syndrome. He abhors his previous employer’s treatment of the native population and aims to set up a trading network with fair pay for the Indian artisans who supply the goods, but various obstacles intervene. They include a French general (Gregory Fitoussi, “World War Z”) and Indian emperor (Roshan Seth, “Gandhi”) who think he’s a British spy; an interfering mother (Nicol) who wants him back in England and is predictably xenophobic about Indian culture; a wastrel of a brother (Leo Suter, “Sanditon”); a duplicitous business partner (Marc Warren, “State of Play”); and an English governess and potential love interest (Dakota Blue Richards, “Endeavour”) who doesn’t trust him. 

So yes, there’s a lot going on, including a couple of love triangles and a mystery involving the mother of Beecham’s child, but the various plot lines and relationships don’t get enough breathing space over six episodes for us to become truly invested in the characters. Since the show was cancelled after one season in the U.K., that’s perhaps beside the point.

It’s not devoid of charm, particularly the locations in Rajasthan, India, so if you’re in the mood for a period soap opera with beautiful scenery, sets and costumes, this might fit the bill.

Grantchester (June 14, 9 p.m., PBS)

Lauren Carse as Ellie Harding and Tom Brittney as Will Davenport in “Grantchester.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Kudos/ITV/Masterpiece

I confess the last time I watched “Grantchester” James Norton (“Happy Valley”) was still in the lead. But, as Season 5 begins, new vicar Will (Tom Brittney, “Outlander”) seems to have settled into a nice rhythm solving crimes with detective Geordie (Robson Green).

On the surface, it’s TV comfort food with its 1950s setting in verdant Cambridgeshire, but it touches on serious issues such as homophobia, women’s rights, PTSD and sexual exploitation, and that’s just in the first two episodes of the new season.

Its life lessons are delivered with a gentle touch, a spark of humour, a minimum of gore and a healthy does of humanity.

Besides Brittney and Green, Tessa Peake-Jones returns as Mrs. Chapman and
Al Weaver as Leonard, and Lauren Carse provides a love interest for Will as nosy local reporter Ellie.

Mae West: Dirty Blonde on American Masters (June 16, 8 p.m., PBS)

American movie star Mae West at the height of her fame in 1933.
PHOTO CREDIT: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Mae West’s bump and grind physicality and double entendres might seem quaint these days given the varied sexual menu available in both movies and television. But in 1930s Hollywood she pushed the envelope about as far as it could go and became rich and famous in the process.

This doc makes the case for West as a proto-feminist and savvy businesswoman. She invented her blond, buxom, man-eating persona at a time when women weren’t expected to be overtly sexual, let alone own their sexuality. And she became the highest paid actress in America and helped pull Paramount Pictures out of bankruptcy.

She was no social justice warrior, but she put men in drag onstage in the play “The Drag” in the 1920s and gave Black women speaking roles in her 1930s films. She was jailed on obscenity charges in 1927 for the play “Sex,” in which she played a prostitute.

Mae’s movie supremacy lasted just a few years before Hollywood caved in to calls for censorship from religious groups and established a production code administration that vetted scripts in advance. She was replaced at the top of the food chain by Shirley Temple.

But the documentary makes clear that West never lost her self-confidence or her drive. She took her act to Las Vegas in the 1950s, and continued to play the blond bombshell into her 70s and 80s in movies like “Myra Breckinridge” and “Sextette.” She died in 1980 at the age of 87.

Odds and Ends

Jennifer Pudavick, Brittany LeBorgne, Heather White and Maika Harper in “Mohawk Girls.”
PHOTO CREDIT: CBC file photo

“Mohawk Girls” (June 16, 9 p.m., CBC) was billed as an Indigenous “Sex and the City” when it debuted on APTN in 2014, but Tony Wong wrote in the Toronto Star at the time that it also examined “issues of racism, sexuality and culture in a frank and oftentimes subversive way that would not be out of place on edgier cable” – although sex and love are definitely on the minds of its four protagonists as they navigate life on the rez.

I didn’t get to see the documentary “Dads” (June 19, Apple TV Plus) in advance, just the same trailer as everybody else, but it looks sweet enough. If you want to see famous fathers talking about the highs and lows of being dads – and probably shed some tears along with them – then check it out. It’s directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, daughter of filmmaker Ron Howard, who of course is included in the doc.

More than once, conservative lawyer Roy Cohn is described as “evil” in the documentary “Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn” (June 19, 8 p.m., HBO) and the film does nothing to disabuse us of this notion. That’s probably no surprise given that it was made by Ivy Meeropol, granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, whom Cohn sent to the electric chair for allegedly selling the Soviets secrets about the atomic bomb.

Watchable the week of June 7, 2020

June 7, 2020 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: I May Destroy You (June 7, 10:30 p.m., HBO)

Michaela Coel as Arabella in “I May Destroy You.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Natalie Seery/HBO

Given the world’s focus on #BlackLivesMatter, there’s an undeniable timeliness to this series; it was created by Black U.K. artist Michaela Coel (“Chewing Gum”) and its key cast members are Black. But its focus is not Black oppression, although that is touched upon, but how Coel, as Arabella, and her fellow Black millennials navigate their relationships with sex – particularly various forms of sexual violence.

When we first meet Arabella, she’s leaving her Italian boyfriend to return to London and sweating the deadline for a first draft of her new book. When she ditches the writing to go party with a friend, her drink is spiked at a bar and she is raped. She later experiences another violation in a consensual relationship.

Throughout the series, Arabella navigates the fallout of that, in ways that are both healthy and unhealthy, with the help of friends Terry (Weruche Opia) and Kwame (Paapa Essiedu), a gay man dealing with sexual trauma of his own.

It can be uncomfortable viewing at times, particularly when the characters engage in self-defeating behaviour, but it is also compelling viewing. Coel, who wrote and produced the show as well as starring in it, makes us care about these people. We want to see them come out the other side of their pain.

While the subject matter is sombre, the series has moments of lightness, joy and even comedy. And Coel is extremely watchable.

The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons – Ever! (June 8, 8 p.m., ABC and Citytv) 

Oh, the drama! Surely you haven’t forgotten Tierra Licausi and her reign of villainy on Sean Lowe’s “Bachelor” season. PHOTO CREDIT: Francisco Roman/ABC

As I’ve mentioned on my “This Is Me” page, I got my start as a TV writer covering reality TV, and I have written about “The Bachelor” and its spinoffs longer than any other show. So you better believe I’ll be watching Warner Bros’ and ABC’s latest attempt to keep us hooked on the “Bachelor” franchise.

With “The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart” gone and mainly forgotten, and shooting of “The Bachelorette” delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, producers have repackaged the, well, greatest seasons of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” into three weekly hours of highlights.

I wasn’t able to see any of the episodes in advance, but they will include commentary from host Chris Harrison, who shot his segments with his son behind the camera at his own home, and call-backs to the stars of the seasons.

It all begins with Sean Lowe, the man I feel quite confident calling the most popular Bachelor ever and the only one in 24 seasons to have married the woman he proposed to in the season finale.

I have a feeling drama-starved “Bachelor” fans will be on board with this one.

CORRECTION: I originally wrote that Harrison was shooting at the Bachelor mansion, based on information in the Starweek TV guide. If you’ve watched the show, you’ve already noticed this wasn’t the case.

Odds and Ends

Natasia Demetriou as Nadja, Kayvan Novak as Nandor and Matt Berry as Laszlo in the season finale of “What We Do in the Shadows.” CREDIT: Russ Martin/FX

I’m looking forward to the Season 2 finale of vampire comedy “What We Do in the Shadows” (June 10, 9 p.m., FX) but also sad to see it go since it could be a while before shooting starts on Season 3. This episode promises surprise guest stars and I can’t wait to see how they’ll top Mark Hamill from earlier in the season or Tilda Swinton in Season 1.

Netflix has a bunch of stuff debuting this week, including Volume 6 of “Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj” on June 7; teen drama “Curon,” medical docu-series “Lenox Hill” and Brazilian zombie thriller “Reality Z” on June 10; and two crime dramas, “The Search” from Mexico and “The Woods” from Poland on June 12.

HGTV Canada has the socially distanced series “Design at Your Door” (June 11, 10 p.m.), in which homeowners receive virtual advice on their redesigns from HGTV experts, including former “Brady Bunch” kids Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb.

CTV Life Channel presents three wedding-related shows on June 9: the third season of “Where to I Do?” (9 p.m.), Jessica Mulroney’s “I Do, Redo” (9:30 p.m.), which previously ran on the main CTV channel, and the Canadian debut of “Bridezillas” (10 p.m.).

Watchable the week of May 31, 2020

May 31, 2020 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Quiz (May 31, 10 p.m., AMC)

Matthew Macfadyen as Charles Ingram and Sian Clifford as Diana Ingram in “Quiz.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Frost/AMC/ITV

I’m a sucker for anything with Matthew Macfadyen in it (see “Ripper Street,” “Howards End,” “Succession” and lots more). Here he plays English army major Charles Ingram, who’s accused along with his wife and another man of cheating on the TV game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

Macfadyen is joined by other notable U.K. actors, including Sian Clifford (“Fleabag”) as wife Diana, Michael Sheen (“Masters of Sex”) as “Millionaire” host Chris Tarrant , Helen McCrory (“Peaky Blinders”) as the Ingrams’ lawyer, Elliot Levey (“Silent Witness”) as “Millionaire” creator David Briggs and Mark Bonnar (“Line of Duty”) as producer Paul Smith.

The case, in both real life and on the series, turned on the idea that Diana Ingram and another aspiring contestant who was in the studio audience, Tecwen Whittock (Michael Jibson), used coughing to point Charles toward the correct answers as he played his way to the $1 million-pound prize.

The three-part series is both an absorbing courtroom drama and a pop-culture primer. It takes us through the creation of “Millionaire” for the ITV network in 1998 and how a subsection of the British population became obsessed with the show.

If you don’t know the outcome of the actual case I won’t spoil it for you, but you will likely find yourself conflicted about the couple’s innocence or guilt.

Parasite (June 2, 7:30 p.m., Crave)

Choi Woo-shik, Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin and Park So-dam in “Parasite”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of TIFF

This South Korean movie by celebrated director Bong Joon Ho became the first foreign-language film to win the Best Picture Oscar earlier this year. But I’m recommending it for another reason, because it’s entertaining from start to finish with plot twists I can almost guarantee you won’t see coming.

I won’t give anything away beyond saying it’s about a family of impoverished grifters in Seoul who ingratiate themselves with a rich family. Trust me when I say you will find yourself rooting for the swindlers.

This airing is part of the “Stay at Home Cinema” program from the Toronto International Film Festival and Crave. Before the movie, you can go to tiff.net at 7 p.m. for a livestreamed chat between TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey; Sharon Choi, an aspiring director who was Bong’s interpreter during his four trips to the Oscars stage in February, and Tom Quinn, co-founder of the film’s North American distributor, NEON.

And if you’re willing to check out some homegrown award winners, “Antigone,” which just won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Film, is airing June 5 at 7 p.m. on Crave as part of “Quebec Cinema Month.” I confess I haven’t seen this one, but the Toronto Star’s former movie critic Peter Howell highly recommends it.

One more movie option: Hollywood Suite is showing award-winning films all summer in a program it calls “The Best of the Best.” It kicks off June 1 to 7 with Oscar Best Picture winners, including “Patton,” “Moonlight,” “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “All About Eve,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “The Hurt Locker” and “Out of Africa.”

Trackers (June 5, 11:30 p.m., HBO)

PHOTO CREDIT: Cinemax/YouTube

I suspect the pandemic-mandated halt in TV production is going to mean even more international programs on North American networks and streamers as supplies of domestic shows dry up. If they’re of the calibre of this South African-made drama, that’s fine with me.

“Trackers” is based on a 2011 novel by South African author Deon Meyer and was adapted for TV by Meyer, Brit Robert Thorogood (“Death in Paradise”) and a team of South African writers.

There are many strands to this thriller, including terrorism, diamond smuggling, black market animal importation, Cape Town gangsters, and investigations by the CIA and the South African intelligence service. The plot lines unspool and intertwine skilfully and suspensefully, without anyone hammering you over the head with exposition. And the series is populated with interesting characters of varied ethnicities (dialogue is subtitled in both Afrikaans and English) and locations in and around Cape Town that are unfamiliar to North American eyes.

Shoot to Marry (June 6, 9 p.m., Super Channel Fuse)

Filmmaker Steve Markle and hat maker Heidi Lee in Markle’s documentary “Shoot to Marry.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Shoot to Marry

This documentary is the closing night movie of the Canadian Film Festival and won an Audience Award at the Slamdance Film Festival in January. Toronto director Steve Markle (“Camp Hollywood”) set out to heal his broken heart, after his girlfriend of four and a half years rejected his proposal, by filming interesting women – and potentially finding a new love among his subjects. No spoilers here, but Markle did indeed meet some interesting women, among them delightfully quirky hat maker Heidi Lee (above), a sex club owner, a professional cuddler, a heart transplant recipient, a fire spinner, a butcher, a wrestler, a lumberjack, a dominatrix, a tattoo artist and more. The doc is by turns funny, cringe-worthy, heartwarming and illuminating.

Odds and Ends

Jodie Comer as Villanelle and Sandra Oh as Eve Polastri in “Killing Eve.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Radford/BBCAmerica/Sid Gentle

I have really enjoyed this season of “Killing Eve” and, in particular, the work of Jodie Comer as assassin Villanelle. Season 3 concludes May 31 at 10 p.m. on CTV Drama Channel. Two other series are also wrapping their seasons on the main CTV channel on May 31: “I Do, Redo” at 7 p.m. and “Mary’s Kitchen Crush” at 7:30 p.m.

A number of series are beginning their seasons this week, including “Fuller House: The Farewell Season” June 2 on Netflix; Season 4 of “13 Reasons Why” and Season 5 of “Queer Eye,” both June 5 on Netflix; and Season 5 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars” on Crave June 5 at 9:30 p.m.

Finally, Canadians are getting in on the celebrity commencement ceremony trend with “We Celebrate: Class of 2020” (June 6 at 8 p.m. on CTV and everywhere CTV content can be found). Among those shouting out all the students who won’t be getting real-life graduations due to COVID-19 are talk-show host Lilly Singh; a whack of musicians including Alessia Cara, Shawn Mendes, Selena Gomez, Joe Jonas, Arkells, Meghan Trainor and more; athletes like Penny Oleksiak and P.K. Subban; actors like Jacob Tremblay and Natalie Portman; even Muppets Miss Piggy and Gonzo.

Transplant’s Laurence Leboeuf loves smart, ‘spazzy’ Dr. Mags

May 26, 2020 /
Laurence Leboeuf as Dr. Magalie “Mags” Leblanc in “Transplant,”
which concludes its first season on May 27. PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

When the doctors and nurses of the fictional York Memorial Hospital are gathered around an emergency patient, calling out instructions and reaching for life-saving equipment, to actor Laurence Leboeuf it’s a bit like a ballet.

She plays Dr. Magalie “Mags” Leblanc in CTV’s “Transplant,” which ends its first season Wednesday, May 27 at 9 p.m. And she uses the word “ballet” a couple of times during our interview to describe the process of making the show’s medical scenes look and feel believable.

“Transplant” is about Dr. Bashir Hamed (played by Hamza Haq), a Syrian refugee who becomes a resident in the ER of a big Toronto hospital after saving the life of his future boss, Dr. Bishop (Scottish actor John Hannah), in an accident. Mags is one of his fellow ER residents.

As with all medical TV shows, Haq, Leboeuf and their cast mates have to convincingly fake a variety of medical procedures. For the really big traumas, the cast would spend hours rehearsing at weekend “boot camps,” Leboeuf said.

“At the beginning of rehearsal, sometimes I would start and after five minutes I was like, ‘This is never gonna happen. There’s too much to do,'” Leboeuf said over the phone from her hometown of Montreal, where “Transplant” shoots. “Then the puzzle comes together and, at the end, it’s super rewarding when the ballet happens and you’re like ‘Wow, that’s cool, we did that.'”

Not only did the actors have to learn medical jargon (with the help of consultants Dr. Zachary Levine and nurse “Magic Mike” Richardson), they had to learn to use it convincingly, to time it to their movements as they manipulated fake medical equipment and to, well, you know, act while spouting words like “pericardial effusion” and “sternotomy.”

Add the fact that English is not Leboeuf’s first language and it’s that much more of a challenge.

“I wanted Mags to speak really, really fast: to not think, like she knows everything; she’s read all the books, there’s no delay in her mind,” Leboeuf said. “So sometimes, with English being my second language, it was harder for me to put it into my mouth.”

Mags has been one of the most challenging and rewarding roles that Leboeuf has played. It’s the first time in a more than two-decade career that the 34-year-old has been a lead in a TV series.

She has played a doctor before, in the Quebec series “Trauma,” although that character was an “extremely troubled” surgeon “who was seeing her dead father and stuff like that.” Leboeuf has switched back and forth between French and English TV and movies, including “Being Erica,” “Durham County,” the English remake of “19-2” and the limited series “The Disappearance.”

Mags has been special, though. “I love playing Mags,” said Leboeuf. “I love her quickness and her spazziness and her awkwardness and her brain. When I first read the script I was just like, ‘Yeah, I love this character already.’ I could actually be playing her for a while if we get the chance. She is that interesting.”

And just for the record, the workaholic Mags is “just so the opposite of who I am,” Leboeuf said. “I enjoy doing nothing; I love having  a social life outside of my job, although I love what I do.”

As I write this, Bell Media has not yet said if “Transplant” is getting a second season. I would, however, be astonished if it didn’t given that the show has been a ratings hit here at home – drawing more than 1.7 million viewers in early May, according to the most recent Numeris ratings available – and has been picked up by NBC to air in the U.S.

Leboeuf says that last bit of news is “so rewarding.”

“When you’ve worked hard on a show, and we’ve all believed in it and we’ve all loved it and we’ve  all thought we were doing a great show, so just to have that validation not only within Canada but now kind of internationally that’s just really, really rewarding.”

Leboeuf has given some thought to why medical dramas are such an enduring part of our TV landscape.

“Medical shows are like an endless well of amazing stories to tell,” she said. “Always there’s sorrow and rejoicing and courage and life-saving and sacrifices. We see the family struggles, we see the doctor struggles, we see the human part of it.”

And with plot lines that touch on everything from anti-vaxxers to mental illness to racism to drunk driving to gender dysphoria, Leboeuf sees “an endless well of amazing stories, human stories” to draw on.

Assuming “Transplant” does get the go-ahead for more episodes, Leboeuf is itching to get back to work with the cast mates who’ve become “an instant family,” once it’s considered safe for TV production to resume during this COVID-19 pandemic.

In the meantime we’ve got Wednesday’s season finale to look forward to.

“It’s a great cliffhanger, something big’s happening. It’s a great episode,” she said.

Watchable the week of May 24, 2020

May 24, 2020 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Normal People (May 27, CBC Gem)

Daisy Edgar-Jones as Marianne and Paul Mescal as Connell in “Normal People.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Hulu via CBC Gem

There’s something to be said for a literary adaptation that makes you eager to watch the next episode even when you’ve already read the book and have a general idea where the plot is going. That’s how I feel about the TV version of Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel of the same name.

Part of that could be down to the fact that Rooney co-wrote the series alongside Alice Birch, a story editor on “Succession,” but the lion’s share of the praise goes to young leads Daisy Edgar-Jones (“War of the Worlds”) and Paul Mescal. 

The book and show follow prickly rich girl Marianne and popular working class bloke Connell as they become secret lovers in high school in Sligo, Ireland, and then weave in and out of each other’s lives at college in Dublin and beyond.

Edgar-Jones and Mescal bring Marianne and Connell to gloriously complicated life, making the bond between them palpable and believable.

This is one of a number of interesting shows coming out of Ireland lately, including “Dublin Murders” (Sarah Greene and Leah McNamara from that series play small but significant roles in “Normal People”) and “Dead Still,” which I wrote about here last week. (To see my Toronto Star story on that show, go to thestar.com and search for Dead Still.)

Space Force (May 29, Netflix)

Steve Carell as General Mark Naird in “Space Force.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Aaron Epstein/Netflix

If you go into this comedy expecting a military version of bumbling boss Michael Scott from “The Office” you’ll be disappointed. Steve Carell, who created “Space Force” with “Office” co-creator Greg Daniels, plays Mark Naird relatively straight. He’s a highly decorated four-star general who’s rigidly devoted to duty, as well as his wife and daughter, but saddled with the daunting mission of putting “boots on the moon by 2024” – a directive delivered by the unnamed U.S. president via Twitter. The comedy is informed by real-life situations – a military space branch created by a president who delivers policy on the fly, a U.S. rivalry with China, a cosy relationship with Russia – that veer off into ludicrousness, such as the method, which I won’t spoil here, by which Naird and his team try to save a satellite that the Chinese have sabotaged. I only had time to screen two episodes and the characters didn’t quite gel for me, including John Malkovich as science adviser Dr. Mallory, Ben Schwartz (“Parks and Recreation”) as social media adviser Tony Scarapiducci, Alex Sparrow (“UnREAL”) as Russian liaison Bobby Telatovich and an underused Lisa Kudrow (“Friends”) as Naird’s wife Maggie. 

Raising the Dead: Re-examining Night of the Living Dead
(May 29, 9 p.m., Hollywood Suite)

Hollywood Suite pays tribute to the movie “Night of the Living Dead” and
to late director George A. Romero. PHOTO CREDIT: Hollywood Suite

If you’re a fan of horror movies and, in particular, the work of zombie godfather George A. Romero, you might enjoy this look back at his seminal 1968 movie “Night of the Living Dead.” In this Hollywood Suite original documentary, film aficionados reflect on how the movie about a zombie invasion revolutionized the genre and established a “zombie bible” for film and TV projects to come. Plus people who worked on the film, including producer and sound engineer Gary Streiner and Kyra Schon, who played child zombie Karen Cooper, reflect on the man himself. The doc will be followed by screenings of “Night of the Living Dead” and Romero’s 1978 followup “Dawn of the Dead.”

Rescuing Rex (May 30, 9 p.m., TVO)

Toronto resident Harrison and his dog Nigel, who was rescued in Texas and brought to Toronto by Redemption Paws. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of TVO

I’d keep tissues nearby while you watch this documentary, which will alternately break and gladden your heart. It follows two rescue operations, Toronto’s Redemption Paws and Taiwan’s Mary’s Doggies, both of which do the difficult, heart-wrenching work of getting unwanted dogs off the streets or out of overcrowded shelters and into the arms of new owners in Toronto . Yes, the dogs in the doc by Leora Eisen will melt your heart (Nigel, above, was a particular favourite of mine), but the film doesn’t soft-pedal the human cruelty that lands these animals on the streets or in shelters, often after being abused, or the fact that not every rescue has a happy ending. It also airs on TVO June 2 and June 4 at 9 p.m., and can be streamed any time at tvo.org.

Odds and ends

I really wish I had been able to preview “The Walrus and the Whistleblower,” a new doc about Phil Demers, a former animal trainer who was sued for $1.5 million after speaking out about what he saw at the Marineland animal park in Niagara Falls. Alas, I never got a screener, but I’m sure it’s worth watching nonetheless. It airs May 28 at 8 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem as part of “Hot Docs at Home,” as well as on documentary Channel at 9 p.m.

CTV’s “Transplant,” which has become a hit here in Canada and will soon be seen in the U.S. on NBC, ends its first season May 27 at 9 p.m. I interviewed Laurence Leboeuf, who plays the driven Dr. Mags Leblanc, and will post that interview here later this week.

Also this week, two talent competitions begin new seasons on May 26: it’s No. 15 for “America’s Got Talent” (Citytv at 8 p.m.) and No. 4 for “World of Dance” (CTV at 10 p.m.). And if you like watching ridiculously fit people doing ridiculously hard things, Season 2 of “The Titan Games” begins on May 25 (Global at 8 p.m.).

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