Kaity, Ariel and Gabi wait for Zach Shallcross to hand out the roses on “The Bachelor.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC
Do you remember the good old days of “The Bachelor” when what happened in the fantasy suites stayed in the fantasy suites?
Yes, it was all nudge, nudge, wink, wink, doors closing and lights going out, to give the impression that the Bachelor was doing the horizontal mambo, but nobody was bonking and talking back then so we didn’t end up with scenes like we had Monday night where Zach had sex with one woman and felt compelled to tell another woman about it.
At first glance it seems like a ridiculous — and yes, selfish — thing to do and I’m not saying it isn’t. But it also seems like absolute confirmation that Kaity Biggar will be the last one standing after next week’s season finale.
After all, Zach told host Jesse Palmer that “everyone” needed to be aware that he had broken his no-sex vow with Gabi Elnicki, but it sure looked like Ariel Frenkel went home without knowing bupkis about Zach and Gabi’s night in the sack.
If that was indeed the case — and it wasn’t just the editing out of a conversation — then Zach clearly wanted to fess up specifically to Kaity so she wouldn’t be blindsided after he proposed to her.
Hold that thought while we examine how we got into this mess.
Zach lays down the fantasy suite law with Jesse Palmer: No sex!
It started with Zach having the much promoted conversation with Jesse about how there would be “no sex of any kind” in the fantasy suites, which in and of itself raises questions. So no second or third base then?
He said having sex could “muddy the situation” and that was “not how a healthy engagement should start.” But then, couldn’t you just have sex only with the woman you planned to propose to? So many questions.
Also, Zach confirmed he did not have sex with Rachel Recchia in their fantasy suite, not that I’m surprised. Jesse talked about how Zach “got your heart ripped out of your chest” on that overnight and Zach acknowledged that he learned things about Rachel that night “for the worse.” And we would all love to know what that means.
But never mind, it was time for Zach’s overnight date with Ariel. And let’s be honest: we knew he was going to have a whoopsie on one of this dates and we figured it was going to be with her.
Ariel and Zach check out a Thai night market before spending the night together.
I mean the woman is hot. Plus Zach kept talking in his voice-over about their physical chemistry: “When I kiss Ariel my body just gets hot, omigod, turn on the AC please.”
But despite Ariel eating bugs with the man at a night market in Thailand and sharing that she was falling in love with him, there was no boom in the room, just some making out in their private pool.
A still chaste Zach left Ariel in her adorable pyjamas after they fed breakfast to each other.
And then it was Gabi’s turn and she was in her head, as they say.
Did Zach and Ariel really pass right by her window on their way to dinner, with Ariel in that amazing strapless dress? I don’t know, but even a ride to a private island in a pirate ship during her date couldn’t lift the cloud of Gabi’s self-doubt.
She told Zach that getting the second fantasy suite date was stressing her out. She even left him alone on the beach to cry to a producer that she felt disgusting and ugly.
Having cried and sweated her makeup off, Gabi lays it on the line for Zach.
“I was never good enough in my previous relationships. I was not enough and I was cheated on. I was chosen second,” she told Zach.
But Zach told Gabi that things were “special” with her and reassured her so tenderly I began to think maybe she was going to be the last one standing after all, especially given the way they kissed and cuddled each other in bed the next morning.
The “cuddle sesh” to which Gabi alluded turned out to be a euphemism, however.
Zach spilled the beans to Jesse: he and Gabi had sex.
“I feel terrible because I’ve essentially gone against my word,” Zach said.
He added, “I think every woman needs to be at least aware of what actually happened this week because I don’t want there to ever be any secrets,” as Jesse tried to keep the look of incredulousness off his face.
Did Zach really need to tell Kaity or anyone else though? I mean, it would be an elephant in the room down the road for sure. I’m just not convinced the right time to get honest was before he and Kaity got anywhere near their own fantasy suite.
Nor was Gabi pleased when Zach paid a visit to her room before his date with Kaity to say he was going to be “fully transparent” with everyone else about what she thought was just between them.
Oh yeah, and Zach told Gabi he was falling in love with her, to add another layer of confusion to the proceedings.
But there was Kaity, excited about spending all day and night with Zach.
Zach and Kaity paddle the mangrove forest before the waters got rough.
We’ll leave aside the fact that Zach’s talk about “full transparency” coincided with him and Kaity paddling a glass-bottomed boat through the mangrove forest. And speaking of coincidence, Zach came clean to Kaity during a rain shower while thunder rumbled in the background. And is there money in the “Bachelor” budget for those kinds of special effects?
Zach didn’t name names but told her he had been “intimate.”
And she reacted . . . exactly how you would expect her to react. “Crushed” was the word she used. It’s not that she didn’t realize Zach might have sex with someone else, but she didn’t want to hear about it and I’m with her on that.
Zach tried to patch things up by telling Kaity he could see it being “us” at the end and she was “so special,” and he found it hard to see her upset.
“Like, what did you expect Zach? Do you think I was gonna be like yay?” Kaity asked.
Well, duh. Zach finally seemed to start clueing in that honesty isn’t always the best policy, “Catholic guilt” notwithstanding.
Still, despite Kaity saying she felt distant from him and wondering aloud how she would spend the night with him after his revelation, she kept touching him throughout their conversation. So it wasn’t a shock when Kaity showed up for their fantasy suite and declared that relationships weren’t “always rainbows and butterflies” and they would get through this.
If there was any sex during their overnight, nobody was saying boo about it.
There’s not much to tell about the rose ceremony. It was obvious even during last week’s hometowns that Ariel was the odd woman out.
Zach walked her to the waiting van, telling her she was “the most intriguing, interesting, beautiful, respectful, mature, intelligent woman I’ve ever met.”
And we were treated to the rather bizarre sight of Kaity basically telling Gabi she knew she’d had carnal knowledge of the man they were both hoping to snag. This show, honestly.
“I feel like I’m wearing like an A on my chest. Scarlet letter over here,” said Gabi, and I’m pretty sure she was referring to the 1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne novel “The Scarlet Letter” and not the 2010 Emma Stone film “Easy A.”
Gabi wasn’t feeling all that chuffed about having a rose, especially since Zach avoided making eye contact with her.
How will it all turn out in next week’s “stunning” finale, to use Jesse’s word? Probably exactly how we expect with some bumps along the way.
You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
That’s not to say the characters in this drama don’t speak to each other, but its actors also give a master class in the power of looks, gestures and pauses.
Lester (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) is an 11-year-old boy whose mother has died of cancer, leaving him to move in with his uncle Ken (Brian J. Smith) on his farm.
Lester doesn’t have the words to express his bereavement, nor does Ken to bridge the gulf between the two of them, although not for lack of trying. Lester prefers to be alone, whether he’s drawing comics in his room, or running around in a cape and mask imagining he can fly.
Ken, who’s gay, snatches brief solace with a man (Daniel Maslany) he met at the co-op.
Then there’s Lou (Stephen McHattie), a cranky senior who lives alone and who’s staring down dementia. He keeps getting pulled viscerally into his past, when he and his brother Vince (Ryan Bruce) played hockey in Toronto.
Lou’s niece Anne (Molly Parker), a day nurse, tries to help him but has troubles of her own, including an uneasy relationship with her husband, Doug (Rossif Sutherland).
Anne is also an aunt to Lester through his estranged father, Jimmy (Kevin Durand), a former hockey play whose career was ended by a head injury and who now works as a mechanic one town over.
These are ordinary people doing ordinary things, but ones with clear inner depths as well as secrets.
It’s obvious from the three episodes I screened that great care has gone into every aspect of this series from the script written by Lemire and Eilis Kirwan, to the directing (Andrew Cividino), to the magnificent acting and the beautiful cinematography (James Klopko).
To see actors of the calibre of Parker and McHattie practise their craft is something to be savoured, but there is excellent work all around.
This is a quiet, measured show, but one that stays with you. The ordinary, as it happens, can be quite extraordinary.
Episode 1 will have already aired by the time you read this (my fault for forgetting to include it in last week’s Watchable list), but you can catch up on CBC Gem.
CBC Gem also has the tween “Murdoch Mysteries” spinoff “Macy Murdoch” (March 23); the comedy “You’re My Hero” (March 24), about a 20-something with cerebral palsy; and Season 3 of “The New Wave of Standup” (March 24).
Courtney Eaton, Sophie Nelisse and Jasmin Savoy Brown in Season 2 of “Yellowjackets.” PHOTO CREDIT: Kailey Schwerman/Showtime
Yellowjackets (March 24, Crave)
The overarching question about “Yellowjackets” is whether this drama about a high school girls’ soccer team turned feral after surviving a plane crash in the wilderness is still the audacious, unsettling, clever show that won raves for Season 1.
The answer is yes; “Yellowjackets” still goes there in Season 2.
Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to tell you much about where “there” is because so many of those details are on a spoiler list released by Showtime.
You will get some answers about topics like Javi’s disappearance, Shauna’s baby, what really happened to adult Travis and the cannibalism, but you won’t get them from me. You’ll have to watch.
The season opens in the mid-’90s with the girls still in the woods two months after Jackie (Ella Purnell) froze to death. Winter has fully set in. They’re cold and hungry, and a rift is developing between those like Van (Liv Hewson), Misty (Samantha Hanratty) and Travis (Kevin Alves) who believe Lottie (Courtney Eaton) has mystical powers, and skeptics like Shauna (Sophie Nelisse), Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) and Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown).
In the present, adult Misty (Christina Ricci) is still trying to find the disappeared Nat (Juliette Lewis), whom you’ll recall was kidnapped last season just as she was about to kill herself; the police are sniffing out Shauna’s (Melanie Lynskey, who continues to be a marvel) involvement in the disappearance of artist Adam Martin, whom she killed in Season 1; and Taissa (Tawny Cypress) realizes that she didn’t leave the violent, sleepwalking version of herself behind in the woods when estranged wife Simone alerts her to the bloody dog’s head shrine in their basement.
“Yellowjackets” continues to give us one of the most kickass female acting ensembles on TV, both the older and younger versions, but the adult survivors are separated for the first half of the season, which slows the momentum somewhat in that timeline.
Still, it gives some of the men in the cast more to do.
Shauna and husband Jeff (Warren Kole) become delightful partners in crime, expanded to a family unit when daughter Callie (Sarah Desjardins) finds out what her mother’s been up to.
And Misty meets her match in Walter (new addition Elijah Wood), a fellow musical theatre-loving citizen detective who helps her find Natalie: “a bored Moriarty looking for his Sherlock.”
When Shauna, Taissa, Nat and Misty are reunited with adult Lottie (Simone Kessell), now the leader of what may or may not be a cult, and adult Van (Lauren Ambrose), the resolutely single manager of a video rental store, the pace promises to pick up in the remaining episodes (six were made available for review).
This season, the series leans more into the idea that something supernatural infiltrated the girls’ consciousness in the woods and that it wasn’t just a case of losing their grip on sanity after 19 months of deprivation. And the grown-up survivors begin to fear that whatever it was has followed them into the present.
Given that creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson have planned a five-season arc for the series, we’re likely to get as many questions as answers out of Season 2, but so far it’s still a ride worth taking.
Watching the first episode of this miniseries about the 1993 standoff between federal agents and followers of self-proclaimed messiah David Koresh, what stands out most is the waste of lives on both sides. The three-part series gives a detailed account of the event, which began with a botched ATF raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, over illegal weapons, and ended 51 days later with a fire and the discovery inside of 75 bodies, 25 of them children. The story is told via interviews with eyewitnesses — including law enforcement, media and surviving followers of Koresh — never before seen police and news footage, and recordings. In the 30 years since, blame has been apportioned to both sides — the ATF pressed ahead with the raid despite knowing Koresh had been warned and Koresh reneged on promises to let his followers leave, for example — but it’s a tragedy no matter whose side you’re on.
Netflix also has conspiracy series “The Night Agent” (March 23); and Season 4 of dating show “Love Is Blind” (March 24).
If anyone wonders whether Kiefer Sutherland has still got it, this thriller series suggests the answer is a firm yes. The British-born Canadian actor plays John Weir, an expert in corporate espionage who finds himself the victim of a frame-up for murder after a seemingly perfect job goes very, very wrong. There are twists upon twists as Weir untangles who targeted him and why. The show exemplifies John’s governing principle of “trust no one” since viewers quickly learn that nothing they think they know is as it seems. And that is the fun of it. Sure, the plot requires suspension of disbelief — there’s a scene in which Weir infiltrates a police station, for instance, that utterly defies belief — but the entertainment value makes up for any incongruities. Sutherland, at 56, isn’t quite the action star he used to be — a fact the series winks at with one particular fight scene — but he inhabits the role of the highly intelligent, paranoid, world-weary Weir with aplomb. And despite trusting no one, he finds himself with a couple of helpers, including Meta Golding (“The Hunger Games”) as a lawyer who gets pulled into the plot after a seemingly random meeting with Weir (or was it?) and Charles Dance as a person from Weir’s past. Also along for the ride are Rob Yang (“Succession”) as a U.S. Treasury investigator embroiled in the case; Jason Butler Warner (“Ozark”) as a childhood friend and former partner of Weir’s; and Enid Graham (“Mare of Easttown”) as an FBI agent on Weir’s trail. “Rabbit Hole” makes the argument that a polarized, post-truth world is ripe for exploitation and that power resides with those who control the data. There’s a reason Weir only uses cash and burner phones. Whether that strikes you as plausible fact or pure fiction, there’s enjoyment to be had watching Weir unravel the threads.
Odds and Ends
Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin in Season 4 of “Succession.” PHOTO CREDIT: HBO
Surely, one of the most, if not the most anticipated debut of the week is Season 4 of “Succession” (March 26, 9 p.m., Crave). The last time we saw the highly dysfunctional Roy family, father Logan (Brian Cox) had just pulled the rug out from under his kids Kendall, Shiv and Roman with the help of son-in-law Tom (Matthew Macfadyen). I got a look at the first new episode but, since nothing can be written about it until Wednesday, I will just say this: Hell yeah! Crave also has the Canadian documentary “And Still I Sing” by Afghan-Canadian Fazila Amiri (March 21) about two women competing on the TV show “Afghan Star” when the Taliban takes over; and the movie “Clerks III” (March 24, Starz) from Kevin Smith.
Prime Video’s new releases this week include “The Power,” a series about teenage girls around the world suddenly being able to, um, electrocute people?; boxing movie “Perfect Addiction”; and “Reggie,” a documentary about Black baseball star Reggie Jackson. All debut March 24.
Speaking of documentaries, TVO has “First to Stand: The Cases and Causes of Irwin Cotler” (March 21, 9 p.m.), about the former politician and human rights champion.
The main Disney+ offering this week is “Up Here” (March 24), a romantic comedy series set in 1999 New York City, in which the lovers (Mae Whitman and Carlos Valdes) express their innermost thoughts in song.
Finally, Showcase and STACKTV have Season 2 of “Bel-Air” (March 20, 9 p.m.), the reimagining of the Will Smith breakout series “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” although it looks like Smith is no longer involved behind the scenes.
NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified the times where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste. The Odds and Ends section includes shows that I have not watched.
Ariel, Charity, Kaity and Gabi await their fates on the hometowns episode of “The Bachelor.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC
Twenty-seven seasons in, it’s no surprise that brothers, fathers and other family members might want to ask the Bachelor tough questions when their sisters and/or daughters bring him home for vetting.
What is shocking is that families continue to wholeheartedly give those sisters/daughters their approval to pursue this total stranger when three out of four of them are essentially being strung along.
Does anybody really believe that at this late stage of the game, emphasis on “game,” Zach Shallcross doesn’t know to whom he plans to propose?
My guess is that it’s going to be Kaity — and no, I never read spoilers if that’s what’s floating around out there — which means Gabi, Ariel and Charity were just around to fill the mandated number of hometown dates and, likewise, fantasy suites next week.
On Monday, it was Charity’s turn to get handed into an SUV with a declaration that she deserved love that Zach couldn’t give her. And to be honest, it seemed obvious back when Charity got her one-on-one in Estonia that Zach wasn’t going to pick her.
But still, her perfectly lovely family was subjected to having to entertain and feed Zach while he pretended there was a chance in hell she might be the one.
Sitting with Charity’s brother Nehemiah, Zach called Charity “this incredible and special woman,” which is exactly the kind of language he uses for someone he’s about to send home.
Zach visits Charity Lawson in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia.
Asked by Nehemiah what set Charity apart from the other three, Zach said “we felt almost immediately comfortable with each other” and he “didn’t have any doubt that she’s looking for exactly what I’m looking (for), which is forever love.” Neither answer sounds like what you say about the woman of your dreams.
Nonetheless, after Charity had heartfelt, touching and tearful conversations with her brother, her father, her mother and her friends, Charity’s mom Vickie told her that “as far as Zach, that’s nothing but a good thing.”
Charity felt confident enough to tell Zach after an evening of line dancing that she was falling in love with him. And when she said she 1,000 per cent could see herself engaged to Zach you just knew her goose was cooked.
Hers was actually the third date of the episode; Gabi’s was the first.
And in keeping with the “Gabi is weird” narrative she and Zach attempted to tap a maple tree in the woods of Pittsford, Vermont, which devolved into a silly bit of sexual innuendo when Zach stuck his finger in the hole and said things like, “Oh, it is wet in there.”
Good lord.
Gabi Elnicki has Zach taste test maple syrup and no, it didn’t end well.
The maple syrup tasting didn’t go much better when Zach picked the fake pancake syrup as his favourite over the three genuine articles. And you’d think Gabi would have learned her lesson about Zach and maple syrup after forcing him to drink it on Night 1 and getting a less than enthusiastic reaction.
The one type of sugar Zach seems to go all in for is on Gabi’s lips. Last week they were kissing against a wall; this week it was a tree.
They disengaged eventually so that Zach could meet Gabi’s father, mother, sister and two brothers.
Big bro Evan wanted to know Zach’s full intentions. That “comfort” word came up again, but Zach also said Gabi was “someone I could see a future with,” which he more or less repeated to mom Stephanie.
Stephanie reserved judgment whereas father Kevin was more optimistic, having fallen in love with Gabi’s mom in a day after meeting her in a lunchroom — although I doubt he was dating three other women at the same time.
Gabi told Zach she could see a future with him but also cried because “this hurts.”
“We’re gonna get through this,” Zach reassured her and I suspect they will, at least until final two.
From the woods to the metropolis, Zach’s next date was with Ariel in New York City.
So no maple syrup, but there was pizza, a beef tongue sandwich, gefilte fish and espresso martinis.
Zach and Ariel Frenkel eat some carbs in Lower Manhattan.
Zach seemed enthused over learning about Ariel’s Jewish heritage — her parents, she said, fled the Soviet Union due to antisemitic persecution and built a life to be proud of in New York — less so about meeting the brother who had offered to beat up her ex-boyfriends.
Brother Bobby definitely had questions and his first one really seemed to stump Zach.
“At the end of the day, my sister’s the one choosing you, so why should she choose you?”
“Great question,” said Zach, which is what people usually say when they have no idea how to answer.
“Great answer,” retorted Bobby as Zach hemmed and hawed. He eventually came up with his “big heart” and being “a pretty good cook.” And that was not a great answer.
Nor could he tell Bobby Ariel’s birthday or her middle name, but he doesn’t need to know those things to kiss Ariel, which seems to be Zach’s main interest.
Ariel’s father Feliks who, alas, did not bring up orgies, said that Zach seemed very nice but, given Ariel was just one of four women, “Why am I expected to be 100 per cent when the other answer could be 25 per cent?” Why indeed?
Nonetheless, he told Ariel he trusted her judgment. And she seemed to trust Zach, telling him she was definitely falling for him.
“I’m gonna let myself enjoy these emotions and be intensely happy,” she said.
Frontrunner Kaity got the very last date, which was also kind of in Zach’s hometown since he too lives in Austin, Texas.
Kaity could hardly be expected to show him around, especially since she had been there just a few weeks, so instead they went grocery shopping and bonded over cinnamon cereal.
Zach and Kaity Biggar enjoyed running errands in Austin.
Then Kaity took Zach to her house where he put together an Ikea bookshelf, screwed in lightbulbs and set up her mattress.
He was not at all put off. “If it’s Kaity and I at the end of this, this is gonna be a great insight into what life would look like,” Zach said, although presumably he wouldn’t be putting furniture together every week.
Mind you, we were led to believe it could all be for naught since Kaity said she couldn’t be with Zach without the approval of her mother, who had raised her after her father and stepfather both split.
Did her mother, Anne, give the OK? What do you think?
Anne couldn’t help but notice how “handsy” Zach and Kaity were with each other after they arrived. And Zach gave Anne more assurances than he’d given any other parent, saying he could “100 per cent see a future with Kaity” and could “absolutely see myself falling in love with her.”
Yep, Kaity for the win.
Speaking of 100 per cent, that’s how much Anne said she would support Kaity being with Zach moving forward. So Kaity told Zach she was falling in love with him.
There was nothing left to do at that point but for Sean Lowe to have another of his totally voluntary and not at all contractual visits with Zach (at least Sean didn’t have to see Zach stripped to his pecs again although there was yet another gratuitous Zach shower scene at the start of the episode).
Zach pretended he didn’t know whom he was going to send home and Sean made sympathetic comments about how brutal that was going to be, “but I’m proud of you so far.”
Zach also got moral support from host Jesse Palmer with not one but two hugs before he went into the mansion to break Charity’s heart.
After walking her out, Zach told Charity he’d been sick to his stomach all day.
“I know you don’t want to hear this from me, but you deserve all the love and I couldn’t give it to you. I’m grateful to know you,” Zach told Charity before handing her into the SUV and then crying as it pulled away.
Charity was gracious and tearful but also kind of pissed once she was alone.
“It makes no fucking sense to me,” she said. “I can’t give you the love you deserve. Like I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what it frickin’ means.”
Maybe she got to ask Zach that question during “The Women Tell All,” which airs Tuesday night at 8 p.m. on Citytv. I’m afraid I won’t be recapping that one. I’ve got too much to do this week for double “Bachelor.”
Next week it’s the “no sex, OK, yes sex” fantasy suites episode when Zach apparently gets intimate with someone and upsets everyone else. And does what happens in the fantasy suite not stay in the fantasy suite anymore?
Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt and Jason Sudeikis in Season 3 of “Ted Lasso.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV+
“Ted Lasso” has certainly earned its reputation as one of the sunniest shows on television, but Season 3 reminds us that where there is sun, there’s also cloud.
It opens with Ted (Jason Sudeikis) dejectedly dropping son Henry off at Heathrow for his flight back to the U.S. and then, during phone therapy with Dr. Sharon (Sarah Niles), wondering “what the heck I’m still doing here.”
If this does turn out to be the final season of “Ted Lasso,” which has yet to be confirmed, that opening could be the first hint of a series-ending return to the States for Ted.
In the meantime, there’s work to do for AFC Richmond now that the football (soccer) team has climbed back into the Premiere League.
Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) is particularly obsessed with winning and proving wrong all the prognosticators who expect Richmond to bottom out, not to mention getting one over on slimy ex-husband Rupert (Anthony Head) and his top-rated West Ham United.
That team, of course, is coached by “Wonder Kid” Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed), who took a heel turn in Season 2, angrily leaving the Richmond coaching staff and betraying Ted by outing his panic attack to the media. As played by the very capable Mohammed, Nick is not fully at ease with the way he treated Ted but, encouraged by the despicable Rupert, leans into his meanness.
Given Apple’s strictness about not revealing spoilers, I’m guessing I’m not allowed to tell you about the new blood on the Richmond team or what happens when the team starts playing its Premiere rivals.
Nor can I reveal what I know about the most pressing personal issues from last season, including what happens between player-turned-coach Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and girlfriend Keeley (Juno Temple); or between Rebecca and her younger lover, player Sam Obisanya (Toheeb Jimoh).
When he’s not playing this season, Sam is focused on getting his Nigerian restaurant off the ground while Keeley is trying to get the hang of being her own boss now that her PR firm is up and running.
There’s also a focus in the first four episodes on player Colin Hughes (Billy Harris) while journalist Trent Crimm (James Lance), formerly of the Independent, makes a reappearance.
And, of course, old favourites like Higgins (Jeremy Swift), Jamie (Phil Dunster), Dani (Cristo Fernandez) and Sassy (Ellie Taylor) are still in the mix, while new characters are introduced.
Based on the episodes that were made available for review, this third season is making full use of its ensemble and, with relationships well established, there’s added emotional resonance between the characters.
One suspects that Ted’s unresolved feelings about Nate’s betrayal, and vice versa, will make up a key part of the season, but there’s plenty of plot to go around for the other characters as the trend toward longer episodes continue.
Whether that’s a strength or a weakness as the season continues remains to be seen. But given the skill with which the cast portrays these people and the affection with which viewers like me regard them, I’d guess the former.
Apple also has “Extrapolations” (March 17), a near-future drama about the effects of climate change on everyday lives with an all-star cast that includes Meryl Streep, Sienna Miller, Kit Harington, Edward Norton, Matthew Rhys, Marion Cotillard, Murray Bartlett and many more.
Zephryn Taitte and Leonie Elliott as Cyril and Lucille Robinson in “Call the Midwife.” PHOTO CREDIT: BBC/Neale Street Productions/Olly Courtenay
Call the Midwife, Sanditon, Marie Antoinette (March 19, 8, 9 and 10 p.m., PBS)
I have grouped these series together because Sunday is a sort of period drama-palooza for those of us who admire this form of television.
First up is “Call the Midwife,” a show I have long enjoyed for the way it handles serious social and medical issues with the sort of gentle touch its midwives lovingly apply to their patients, with dollops of interpersonal drama and humour.
It’s as reliable and enduring as Nonnatus House, home base of the religious and lay nurse-midwives who minister to the economically disadvantaged London district of Poplar. It’s 12 seasons in now and appears to still be going strong.
Case-of-the-week birth stories are the backbone of the series, but this season appears likely to have a particular focus on Jamaican midwife Lucille (Leonie Elliott). Her depression over last season’s miscarriage hasn’t completely lifted as the season begins and is deepened by homesickness and racism as the poisonous anti-immigrant proselytizing of Enoch Powell infiltrates the district and even the delivery room.
There’s also a new nun shaking up the order of things at Nonnatus House, Sister Veronica (Rebecca Gethings), while Trixie (Helen George) plans her wedding to Matthew (Olly Rix).
Crystal Clarke as Georgiana Lambe and Rose Williams as Charlotte Heywood in Season 3 of “Sanditon.” PHOTO CREDIT: Joss Barratt/Red Planet
“Sandition,” meanwhile, debuts its third and final season. I know this series based on the last, unfinished novel of Jane Austen isn’t universally adored, particularly by viewers disgruntled over the departure of actor Theo James and, thus, love interest Sidney Parker. Sure, Austen probably intended Charlotte (Rose Williams) and Sidney to end up together, but she didn’t have to contend with an actor who no longer wanted to be on a show.
It opens with Charlotte returning to Sanditon for the grand birthday party of friend Georgiana Lambe (Crystal Clarke), who’s about to come into full possession of her vast fortune. Charlotte is accompanied by farmer fiancé Ralph Starling (Cai Brigden), a man for whom she’s clearly settling after the death of Sidney and her brushoff by Colbourne (Ben Lloyd-Hughes).
Colbourne, meanwhile, returns to his estate along with daughter Leo (Flora Mitchell) and niece Augusta (Eloise Webb), only to have his dreams of reuniting with Charlotte dashed at Georgiana’s ball — although I’d stay tuned on that point.
Villain Sir Edward Denham (Jack Fox) is still enduring a punishing course of rehabilitation ordered by his aunt, Lady Denham (Anne Reid), but ever the rake, has spotted another heiress to exploit.
And speaking of villains and heiresses, Georgiana’s duplicitous Season 2 wooer Lockhart (Alexander Vlahos) is back in the picture while Georgiana concocts a “Bridgerton”-like scheme with the help of newcomer Lord Montrose (Edward Davis) to fend off fortune hunters.
It remains to be seen whether Charlotte and Georgiana get their happy endings, which in an Austen novel usually means marrying for love.
Louis Cunningham as Louis XVI and Emilia Schüle as “Marie Antoinette.” PHOTO CREDIT: Caroline Dubois/Capa Drama/Banijay Studios France
Talk of marriage brings us to the final series in the trifecta, “Marie Antoinette.”
It’s a French-British co-production that deals, at least initially, with the early days of the famous French queen (played by Emilia Schüle), who was just a teenager when she was sent from her native Vienna to France to marry the future Louis XVI (Louis Cunningham), himself still an adolescent.
This series leans into the tribulations of the new dauphine, separated from everything she loves in Austria (including her beloved pug), thrust into the petty viciousness of the French court, married to a boy who, as the show tells it, won’t even speak to her let alone have sex with her. (In real life, it took seven years for the young couple to consummate their marriage; not sure how long it takes in the series, not having got that far yet.) That latter point put Marie Antoinette in political danger since the whole point of the marriage was for her to produce a French heir.
The series does, as other critics have pointed out, move slowly and might not suit viewers uninterested in the nitty gritty of French court life. Personally, in the couple of episodes I watched, I appreciated Schüle’s portrayal of a naive teenager at the mercy of people more interested in their own pursuits of power than in a young girl adrift.
Short Takes
U2’s the Edge, left, and Bono, right, with Dave Letterman at the Los Angeles premiere of “Bono & The Edge: A Sort Of Homecoming, With Dave Letterman” PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Bono & the Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, With Dave Letterman (March 17, Disney+)
You could argue that U2 is not the musical juggernaut it used to be; that Bono has long been identified more with activism than music; that a show of this nature is inherently self-serving — U2 does have a Las Vegas residency coming up, after all. None of that takes away from the charm of this hybrid interview documentary/travelogue/concert special. Former talk show host Dave Letterman makes the trip to Dublin, his first (what took him so long?), to hang with Bono and the Edge of U2 (Larry Mullen Jr. was off recuperating from surgery, Adam Clayton was making an art film, apparently). Yes, there’s a little bit of mythologizing going on, from Bono and the Edge themselves as well as commentators like photographer Anton Corbijn, journalist Fintan O’Toole, musician Glen Hansard (“Once”), record exec Jimmy Iovine and drag queen Panti Bliss. But the special reminds us that these Dublin lads have been friends and band mates for an astonishing 47 years, since meeting at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, and that their music is inextricably linked to their roots in the Irish capital: from its overwhelming Catholicism to the violent spillover of Northern Ireland’s “Troubles” to its transformation into a more peaceful, tolerant, secular place. And speaking of that place, Letterman gets to do some travelling around the city — a locale I personally find delightful and spend time in every year, having extended family there. He even takes a chilly dip at the famous Forty Foot swimming spot, inspiring a new song. The highlight is the music and if you have been or still are a fan of U2 it will bring back potent memories. Bono and the Edge play stripped down versions of hits like “Vertigo,” “Bad,” “Beautiful Day” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in an intimate concert at the Ambassador Theatre. There’s also past concert footage — including legendary gigs like Red Rocks and the post-Sept. 11 Super Bowl halftime show — and a jam session with local musicians at McDaids pub. It’s all good craic, so it is.
Disney+ also has the film “Boston Strangler” (March 17), starring Keira Knightley as the reporter who connected the 1960s murders and broke the story about the serial killer.
Bob Odenkirk as Hank Devereaux in “Lucky Hank.” PHOTO CREDIT: Sergei Bachlakov/AMC
Lucky Hank (March 19, AMC/AMC+)
First things first, Hank Devereaux is not Saul Goodman, not that he was ever going to be. Bob Odenkirk’s new series is about a college English professor in a working-class Pennsylvania town rather than an Albuquerque con artist turned lawyer whose clients are drug kingpins. It concerns itself with topics like the pettiness and thin skins of academia, on the part of both faculty and students, and the disquietude of a middle-aged man with daddy issues and a sense of unfulfilled potential. Nonetheless, Odenkirk shows that his masterful blending of comedy and drama in “Better Call Saul” was no fluke. As Hank, he brings a lived in authenticity to this flawed man who can’t seem to get out of his own way. In the first of two episodes, the only ones made available for review, Hank is goaded by a student into a rant about the mediocrity of the student’s work and the college that employs him, which leads to a short-lived revolt in his department. In the second, he can barely contain his envy of a former friend whose writing career has gone stratospheric while Hank’s own stalled after one novel. Also excellent is Mireille Enos as Hank’s extremely sensible and patient wife, Lily. She and Odenkirk give a credible portrayal of a comfortable middle-aged marriage. “Office” alum Paul Lieberstein and Aaron Zelman (“Criminal Minds”) developed the series. Look for Canadian Nancy Robertson of “Corner Gas” in a guest role as Hank’s fellow professor Billie.
Odds and Ends
Dominique Fishback stars in “Swarm.” PHOTO CREDIT: Prime Video
To my mind, one of the most anticipated shows this week is “Swarm” (March 17, Prime Video), the horror series from Donald Glover and Janine Nabers starring Dominique Fishback as a darkly obsessed fan of a Beyonce-like singer. Since reviews were embargoed, though, I didn’t screen it. Prime also has “Class of ’07” (March 16) which, like “‘Swarm,” sounds intriguing but is also embargoed. It’s about a group of women trapped at their 10-year high school reunion by a tidal wave and is described as “‘Lord of the Flies’ in cocktail dresses.” Also on Prime “Last Light” (March 17), which marks the return to series TV of “Lost” star Matthew Fox, playing a father separated from his family by a crisis with the world’s oil supply.
CTV takes a page out of the “Virgin River” book with “Sullivan’s Crossing” (March 19, 7 p.m., CTV/CTV.ca), about a woman pulling up stakes for a bucolic location in which she meets an annoying but alluring stranger. B.C.’s Morgan Kohan stars as neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan, who leaves Boston after a professional crisis to take refuge in Sullivan’s Crossing, the Nova Scotia campground run by her estranged father, Sully (Scott Patterson), where she meets Cal (Chad Michael Murray of “One Tree Hill”). The show is based on the book series by “Virgin River” author Robyn Carr and shares an executive producer with “Virgin River” in Roma Roth.
Now the Netflix slate: the doc “Money Shot: The Pornhub Story” (March 15); cutthroat competition series “The Law of the Jungle” (March 15); Season 2 of fantasy series “Shadow and Bone” (March 16); and choreography competition series “Dance 100” (March 17) are among the releases.
Paramount+ has the “The Journey With Andrea Bocelli” (March 14), a docuseries about the popular singer; docuseries “Monster in the Shadows” (March 17), about the 2012 disappearance of Alabama teen Brittney Wood; the Elegance Bratton film “The Inspector” (March 17); and the comedy special “Jinkx Monsoon: Red Head Redemption” (March 17).
Finally, W Network and STACKTV have “The Best Man: The Final Chapters” (March 16, 9 p.m.), which reunites the cast of the 1999 film.
NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified the times where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste. The Odds and Ends section includes shows that I have not watched.
From left, Ariel, Kat, Charity, Kaity and Gabi with Zach Shallcross and host Jesse Palmer at the rose ceremony in Budapest, Hungary. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC
This is what “The Bachelor” producers think of the women on this show. After Greer was released from her COVID quarantine, they made her fly to another country just so Zach could break up with her.
If Zoom was good enough for a rose ceremony, surely it was good enough to let Greer know she didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting a hometown date, which apparently everyone but Greer knew. Or she could have just disappeared like Logan did on Rachel and Gabby’s season.
But no, we needed to see the mascara streaking down her cheeks as she sat next to Zach in his Budapest hotel suite.
If there was a word or phrase of the week, it wasn’t “best friend,” which made a reappearance, or even “flabbergasted,” which Zach pulled out on his date with Kaity; it was “insecure,” which is how most of the women felt at some point during the episode.
Well, not Kaity. Everything seemed to be coming up roses for Kaity — pun intended — after she got the first Hungarian one-on-one, her second of the season.
Kaity Bigger looks at Zach Shallcross with adoration as he reads the love “poem” he typed.
She and Zach rode the Budapest Castle funicular — another new Bachelor word! — and wrote the world’s worst “poems” to each other on an old typewriter on the castle grounds, which had not at all been planted at a lookout point by “Bachelor” producers.
They learned important facts about each other, like her favourite colour is purple and his original family name was Shacklecross. And if old English names were derived from what people did for a living, I’m not sure I want to know what that one’s about.
By the time they had their non-dinner at Budapest’s oldest bathhouse, Zach was telling Kaity she made him feel “so special and safe and flabbergasted,” and Kaity was telling Zach he made her feel “that safety, that security, that stability” she’d been missing in her other relationships.
That emphasis on reliability made sense when Kaity explained that her father had left when she was young and the man who raised her also left when she was in Grade 8. And she started to cry and, for once, Zach didn’t start comparing her experience to something in his own life.
“Wow, I mean, that’s, I mean, not easy and I, I, I can’t fathom that, you know, it’s just,” he said.
So eloquently put. But he could have said goo goo, ga ga and Kaity would still have been beaming when he handed over the date rose, which guaranteed her a hometown date.
Next up was the group date. Ariel, Charity, Gabi and Kat were sent to the Kalman Imre Theatre, which was “dark and very scary” inside, according to Charity. She didn’t know the half of it.
Ariel, Charity, Kat and Gabi with Zach and mentalist Labib Malik on the group date.
Zach was hanging with a magician named Labib Malik, who claimed to be able to read minds.
At the very least, his tricks — including making a red heart appear to transfer from Zach’s hand to Gabi’s — enabled us to enjoy Gabi’s swear word substitutions, like “holy shiitake mushroom” and “what the front door.” Malik also asked the women to think of words and then wrote those words down on a chalk board, and he never missed.
What was less fun for the women was when Malik, warning them he’d know if they were lying to him, made comments and asked questions designed to make them feel like they were blowing it with Zach.
So Gabi was told that people found her confusing; Ariel was told she was keeping people from knowing “the true you”; Charity was induced to say she had a hard time trusting herself after her previous horrible relationship; and Kat was outed for having considered quitting “The Bachelor.”
Kat, Gabi and Charity were all in tears at the after-party at various points. Ariel seemed to be the only one who wasn’t losing her shiitake mushrooms.
All we really knew at this point was that Zach had to give Ariel a hometown date so we could meet the father who told her, “Ariel, you can’t do the show. I know what they do there, orgies. You will walk into a room and they will force you to get naked.”
Charity assured Zach that although she hadn’t forgiven herself for staying too long in her abusive relationship, “I have no doubt with you, none at all,” which seemed to work for Zach.
Gabi confessed her “super ADHD” to Zach and “all the weirdness that goes on in my brain,” but Zach assured her that her personality was “fun to be around.” And he reinforced that with wall smooching, which is like regular smooching, but you do it pressed up against a wall.
With Kat on the other hand, Zach was nervous that when the mentalist asked her if she wanted Zach to meet her family, she replied, “I think so.” A crying Kat dug the hole deeper by telling Zach there were days she felt like she “just couldn’t do it” and “when things get hard I want to leave and give up.”
She tried to turn it around by assuring Zach she saw a forever future with him, but the pained look on his face said forever was only going to last until the next rose ceremony.
Gabi got the rose — come on, wall kisses — which unleashed more tears from Kat.
Then it was time for Greer to get punked.
She walked to Zach’s hotel bubbling with excitement and optimism about seeing him again.
Zach and Greer Blitzer chat in his hotel suite for the first time since her COVID confinement.
After some small talk about the weather and COVID and such — and why do you have your hand on her knee if you’re about to break up with her? — Greer uttered the fateful words: “I guess I was just wondering, like, where you’re at.”
Bottom line: “To give a hometown rose I need to feel 100 per cent confident that I can see a future and I don’t feel that,” Zach said.
Well, duh. Greer never stood a chance, not without getting a one-on-one date. At this point they should just stop giving out first impression roses on “The Bachelor” because they’re nothing but stinkweeds.
Greer got the consolation prize of being told she was “an incredible woman” and a couple of hugs. Welcome to Budapest!
Speaking of one-on-ones, there are two types when it comes to second dates: the ones that shore up relations with a frontrunner, which is what Kaity got; and the ones where you take out someone on the bubble, which is what Brooklyn got.
It’s not a hot tub, but Zach and Brooklyn Willie share some water kisses.
All the bike riding, the hot air balloon riding, the smooching in the pool of yet another bathhouse as people clapped and yelled “Kiss! Kiss!” (also totally not rigged by “Bachelor” producers) was for naught.
At their non-dinner, Brooklyn got emotional talking about the family she expected him to meet, including her mom and the dirt bike-riding grandpa who raised her after her father skedaddled and who, let’s be honest, might have given Gabby’s Grandpa John a run for his money.
Zach excused himself from the table and was this one of those drama-inducing fakeouts?
It wasn’t. An emotional Zach told Brooklyn that her family “know the love that you do deserve,” but there was something blocking his connection with her and “I want you to know that you do deserve the love I can’t give you.”
They parted with tears on both sides while, back at the hotel, the other women cried and group-hugged when Brookyn’s suitcase was taken away.
Despite last week’s disagreement between Brooklyn and Kat, the women are obviously close, which explains I guess why we never got a two-on-one this season: not enough animosity in the house, fake or otherwise.
There was nothing left but the rose ceremony and don’t tell me you’re surprised that Kat got sent home, and Charity and Ariel got the last two roses.
“Why?” Kat asked Zach.
Despite their strong connection in the Bahamas — which if I’m being honest seemed mostly physical to me — “over the past couple of weeks it changed and I couldn’t see a confident future in us,” Zach said.
There was another teary handoff to the van of doom and, after Kat was driven off complaining “It’s not fair,” host Jesse Palmer came out to hug and comfort Zach. And maybe I’m a sucker, but I found that very touching.
Next week is a twofer, with hometowns (and a couple of very protective brothers, oh boy) on Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv and “Women Tell All” Tuesday at 8 p.m. You can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Confessions of Frannie Langton (March 8, BritBox)
Karla-Simone Spence and Sophie Cookson in “The Confessions of Frannie Langton.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of BritBox
Period dramas are certainly not the overwhelmingly white entertainments they used to be, but it’s still rare to have one led by a Black female character.
So “The Confessions of Frannie Langton” is already atypical in that its focus is Frannie (Karla-Simone Spence), a former slave who becomes a servant to a white aristocrat and his wife in Georgian London when she is handed over to them by her previous owner. (It’s based on the award-winning novel by Sara Collins, who also wrote the show.)
Throw in the fact its plot is driven by a love story between two women and it’s definitely not your average costume drama.
Oh, and did I mention it’s also a murder mystery?
When we first meet Frannie, she’s being dragged out of the bed of her mistress, Marguerite (Sophie Cookson), accused of murdering both the woman and her husband, George Benham (Stephen Campbell Moore).
Did Frannie do it? She says not, but she also can’t remember what she did or didn’t do in her laudanum-induced state. In any event, it’s clear that even if innocent she’ll never get a fair trial in late 1820s London where, despite the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807, Black people are still regarded as less than human.
As the series builds to the trial it also teases out Frannie’s story: how she was separated from her mother as a child in Jamaica to live with John Langton (Stephen Mackintosh) and his wife; that she became an assistant to Langton, a sort of plantation Dr. Mengele, experimenting on slaves to prove the superiority of the white race.
Whatever else Frannie might have done, these are the memories that haunt her, and Benham is complicit in them as the person who funded Langton’s work while pretending innocence of what he was really up to.
But Frannie doesn’t see herself as a victim.
“The thing you need to understand is that I’m fed up with people like you deciding who I am or what I am as soon as you take one look at me,” she tells the lawyer representing her at trial, and her character could just as well be talking to the TV audience.
Frannie is intelligent, feisty, forthright and plays the system to her advantage as well as she can in her circumstances. But her Achilles heel is her love for Marguerite, who despite her whiteness has as little control over her circumstances as Frannie does.
The passion between the women is palpable and believable, and never portrayed lasciviously. But Marguerite is not an escape for Frannie; in her own way she’s as heedless of Frannie’s well-being as Benham and Langton, and her disregard hurts Frannie more.
This obliviousness is well portrayed in the story of Olaudah, a four-year-old slave boy whom Benham renames Laddie and gives to Marguerite as a distraction after a miscarriage. The couple eventually discards him and, when they encounter him again as an adult, played by Patrick Martins, he’s seething with resentment of them.
Olaudah has carved a niche for himself in white society as a boxer, as has Sal (the wonderful Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn), who runs a brothel that specializes in BDSM for its white customers and who is Frannie’s most steadfast friend.
Surprisingly, the series is only four episodes long, but it packs a lot into those episodes.
“Bridgerton” may have whetted our appetite for seeing characters of colour in period dramas; “The Confessions of Frannie Langton” satisfies with a portrayal of a Black lead character that is entertaining but also exposes the unsavoury realities behind the lovely period facades.
Shelved (March 6, CTV/CTV.ca)
Lyndie Greenwood, Chris Sandiford, Dakota Ray Hebert and Paul Braunstein in “Shelved.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media
Has there been a workplace comedy set in a library? Not to my memory but, in putting his in a Toronto library branch, creator Anthony Q. Farrell (“The Office,” “Secret Life of Boys”) has certainly hit on a location that’s reflective of the city.
“Shelved” takes place in a Parkdale branch of the fictional Metropolitan Public Library. People who don’t live in Toronto might not know that Parkdale has historically been home to low-income, marginalized communities, but the series quickly establishes that the Jameson branch has far fewer resources than outposts in wealthier neighbourhoods.
Cheerful, ever optimistic branch manager Wendy (Lyndie Greenwood, “Sleepy Hollow”) spends the pilot episode trying to replace Jameson’s computers, an essential resource for its clients that’s been missing for months. A couple of smirking employees drop off hardware even older than what she’s replacing while the oblivious facilities director suggests Jameson patrons bring their laptops and use the Wi-Fi.
Wendy eventually finds a solution thanks to Howard (Chris Sandiford, “What We Do in the Shadows”), who’s on a day transfer from the Midtown branch but soon becomes permanent — to his horror — thus solving another Jameson problem: understaffing.
The main cast is rounded out by Paul Braunstein (“Burden of Truth”) as assistant head Bryce and Dene actor Dakota Ray Hebert (“Run Woman Run”) as Jaq, keeper of the social media accounts and the feminist yin to Bryce’s anti-woke, right-wing yang.
Bryce quips to Howard that there are “a lot less gang fights” at Jameson than at his previous branch, but the vibe here is more sunny ways than mean streets.
Even the homeless patron, Unhoused Wendy (Robin Duke), looks rather well-kempt. She’s one of the few library users who gets a substantial amount of dialogue in the first two episodes, the only ones made available for review.
There’s also Sheila (Taylor Love), who comes in part-time to run the branch’s settlement desk and who quickly becomes a romantic interest for Howard.
Farrell has come up with an interesting concept, one that seems to have less bite and more sweetness than workplace comedies like “The Office.” We’ll see whether Canadian viewers want to take it on a long-term loan or just browse.
Short Takes
Preben Hodneland and Ine Marie Wilmann in “Furia.” PHOTO CREDIT: Boris Laewen
Furia (March 7, Viaplay)
I can already hear the cries of “What, more TV?” when I mention that there’s a new streaming service available in Canada. Described as “the leading producer of Nordic noir,” Viaplay launches here Tuesday and will be available via Apple TV, Android TV, Chromecast and other platforms. I was invited to sample the content ahead of the launch and watched a couple of episodes of Norwegian crime drama “Furia.” It starts with a cop from Oslo, Asgeir (Pal Sverre Hagen), moving to the picturesque small town of Vestvik with his seven-year-old daughter, hiding out from a Russian mob boss who wants him dead. But, as any consumer of crime drama knows, small towns aren’t necessarily all that bucolic, even ones with gorgeous mountain backdrops. What starts as the investigation of vandalism and arson at a refugee centre leads to a murder inquiry and the discovery of an alt-right cell in Vestvik that’s part of a larger terrorism plot. Asgeir, who’s apparently really bad at keeping a low profile, gets a little too close to the group as well as to Ragna (Ine Marie Wilmann), who blogs anti-Islam screeds under the pen name Furia. Ragna isn’t who she appears to be, however, and has a history with the Utoya massacre, a real-life attack in which a neo-Nazi killed 77 people, including 67 at a youth summer camp, in 2011. Also, if you watched Steven Van Zandt’s “Lilyhammer” you’ll recognize Fridtjov Saheim as Kjetil, one of the right-wing conspirators.
Athletes rights activist Payoshni Mitra with former middle distance runner Annet Negesa. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of TVO
Category: Woman (March 8, 9 p.m., TVO/TVO.org)
If you’d like to experience some infuriation on International Women’s Day I recommend watching this documentary by Canadian filmmaker and former Olympian Phyllis Ellis. It lays out the long history of invasive gender testing of female athletes deemed too masculine by governing bodies like World Athletics, formerly known as the IAAF. It’s a practice that goes back decades in many sports, but Ellis focuses mainly on 21st-century runners of colour, like Caster Semenya of South Africa, Dutee Chand of India, Margaret Wambui of Kenya and Annet Negesa of Uganda, since the practice disproportionately affects Black and brown women. At the very least, careers have been ruined by the results of testosterone tests that, according to one doctor, are based on bad science. And then there are cases like Negesa’s. She was told she needed surgery to be able to compete so underwent the removal of her gonads as well as a partial clitoridectomy. It’s the kind of stuff you might expect to see fictionalized in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Though she was told she could run again in just a few weeks, she was unable to compete again and sought asylum in Germany since the changes to her body meant her life would be in danger in Uganda. As athletes right activist Payoshni Mitra says, “When you are a man and you do exceptionally well you become a superman. When you are a woman and you do exceptionally well you must be a man.” Semenya lost a case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport against IAAF regulations that force women with high levels of testerone to reduce those levels to compete in certain events, but she has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.
If you’re a fan of dark British crime drama “Luther” and its hero, troubled detective John Luther (Idris Elba), you’re going to watch the Netflix film “Luther: The Fallen Sun” (March 10) no matter what the theatrical reviews say. I know I will. Netflix also has MH370: The Plane That Disappeared (March 8), a docuseries about the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 in 2014; Part 2 of the fourth season of “You” (March 9); and competition series “Outlast” (March 10), sort of an Alaskan “Survivor.”
“Perry Mason” is back for a second season (March 6, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave) and, based on the first episode, seems to be off to a promising start. In 1932 Los Angeles, Mason (a reliably good Matthew Rhys) is as restless as ever and, despite a vow to stick to civil law after last season’s Emily Dodson case, he and Della Street (Juliet Rylance) will soon get pulled into a murder case involving the rich son of an oil baron. Crave also has the HBO series “Rain Dogs” (March 6, 10 p.m.), about a working-class single mother and her daughter; and the original series “Disobey” (March 8), about the 1989 Chantale Daigle case, in which her ex-boyfriend sued her to prevent her from having an abortion.
On the subject of competition series, Paramount+ has “The Challenge: World Championship” (March 8), featuring top competitors from the American, British, Australian and Argentinian versions of the series participating in extreme physical activities to win $500,000.
Staying in the reality TV vein, if you’re a fan of “Big Brother Canada,” you probably don’t need me to tell you that Season 11 debuts March 8 at 9 p.m. on Global and STACKTV.
Disney+ has a number of things debuting this week, the most interesting of which for comedy fans is “History of the World: Part II” (Disney Star, March 6), an eight-episode followup to Mel Brooks’ 1981 film “History of the World: Part 1.” Also coming this week, the concert special “Miley Cyrus — Endless Summer Vacation” (March 10); the comedy-drama “UnPrisoned” (March 10), which stars Kerry Washington as a single mother and therapist who takes in her father (Delroy Lindo) when he’s released from jail; and the feel-good film “Chang Can Dunk” (March 10), about an unpopular Asian-American high school student (Bloom Li) who bets the school basketball star he can sink a ball by homecoming.
Prime Video’s latest is “Pendant ce temps en cuisine” (March 10), a docuseries that follows six Quebec chefs.
Acorn has “Holding” (March 6), which stars “Game of Thrones” vet Conleth Hill as a police sergeant in a small Irish town with a murder to solve. Charlene McKenna (“Bloodlands”) and Siobhan McSweeney (Sister Michael in “Derry Girls”) co-star.
With apologies to the publicist, I did not get time to check out “Bug Sex” (March 10, 9 p.m., CBC/CBC Gem), an episode of “The Nature of Things” about the reproductive habits of insects.
Finally, a couple of Oscar-related things. If you’re curious about “To Leslie,” the film that controversially earned Andrea Riseborough a Best Actress nomination, it’s on Super Channel Fuse on March 11. And the 95th Academy Awards themselves air March 12 at 8 p.m. on CTV.
NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified the times where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste. The Odds and Ends section includes shows that I have not watched.
Aly, Brooklyn, Gabi, Kaity, Jess and Kat on a group date in Estonia with Zach and a witch. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos except screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC
Naked bodies at a nude sauna in Estonia weren’t the only things exposed on Monday’s episode of “The Bachelor.”
The shallowness of some of Zach Shallcross’s supposed “connections” was also revealed when Jess Girod went home early.
Sure, Jess sounded like a broken record when she kept repeating that she was the only one left without a one-on-one date (actually, Greer hadn’t had one either, but Greer was out of commission with COVID-19), but Jess had a point.
Zach basically told her that one-on-ones aren’t important, but that’s nonsense: they are.
It’s not unprecedented for a woman to make final four without a one-on-one — Corinne Olympios did it on Nick Viall’s season — but it’s pretty rare, as is getting to hometowns when you’re the last person to get an individual date.
So Jess had reason for concern. What was really interesting was watching Zach keep reassuring Jess that he was “confident about us” as she cried and expressed her fears, and then watching him tune out when she wouldn’t stop talking about wanting a one-on-one.
And suddenly it was “I’m not feeling that confident” from Zach.
Zach ran out of patience with Jess Girod’s desire for a one-on-one date.
“I’m not begging for you, I’m not doing that,” Jess told Zach tearfully before he walked her out.
After, as a van took her away, Jess asked, “If it’s someone I wanna marry wouldn’t I want to feel like he wants to take me on a date? So for him to be shocked that I’m, like, hurt is crazy to me.”
Yes, us too, Jess.
Zach cried after Jess left and was supposedly so broken up that he ended the group date after-party without giving out a rose. Why all the emotion for someone he’d only ever gone on group dates with? Who knows?
(And speaking of COVID, I have questions. If Greer only talked to Zach through a video screen, whom did she get COVID from? And if she had it, how come none of the other women did?)
But not so fast! Zach had been locked away in his room and Kat had to make up for lost time! So she whisked Zach into the hallway before he and Charity could set off to coo at and kiss him.
“Call me greedy, but I don’t care,” she told Zach.
OK, you’re greedy. And she very much cared when she was called out for stepping on Charity’s moment.
Gabi noted that Zach had lip gloss on his lips when he came back into the hotel suite “which I don’t think he applied himself.”
After Kat burbled about how much she had missed Zach, Aly told her, “If that would have happened before my date it would have messed me up in the head.”
Brooklyn was more blunt and I’m here for it. She described Kat’s steal as tactless and selfish, and then Kat started complaining about “offensive words” being used and I’m sorry, but get over yourself. More on all this later.
Zach and Charity Lawson take a carriage ride through Tallinn, Estonia.
Back to Charity’s date. It wasn’t a princess date, but she and Zach tooled around picturesque Tallinn in a horse-drawn carriage.
Not quite as romantic: entering the “wife-carrying” race they, ahem, just happened to stumble on, which involved Zach running an obstacle course while carrying Charity on his back — with her face in his ass.
The friendly Estonian who invited them to enter the race told them it was a really popular sport and I was pretty skeptical but, unless Google is punking me, there are even wife-carrying world championships held in Finland, which Estonia has won a bunch of times. Go figure.
Charity also got to partake in more dignified local customs like drinking booze that made her gag, sampling sweet almonds — what is Zach’s obsession with tossing food into the women’s mouths? — and marzipan.
That was all just the appetizer for the confessional main course.
She told Zach she had been emotionally abused, cheated on and manipulated in her previous relationship and it was still clearly very hard for Charity to talk about.
Points to Zach for holding her hand and comforting her. Points taken away for him comparing his experiences to hers, saying he too had lost himself in his previous relationship.
First off, I hope he’s not still talking about Rachel Recchia. Secondly, I don’t think that not being able to remember your favourite music is in the same ball park as emotional manipulation. Third, isn’t that kind of comparison of dissimilar situations exactly what Zach got mad at Greer for?
Alas, Charity got the date rose and said she was “100 per cent falling for Zach.” I foresee heartbreak in her future.
The group date was next. There always seems to be at least one “woo woo” date when “The Bachelor” visits a foreign country and this was it.
Zach, Kaity, Brooklyn, Jess, Kat, Gabi and Aly with an Estonian witch.
Brooklyn, Kaity, Kat, Gabi, Aly and Jess met up with Zach and an Estonian grand witch whom the show didn’t even bother to name with a chyron. And, of course, she was there to help them find love and to cleanse negative energy, a hard chore as Brooklyn continued to glower at Kat.
“There’s not enough sage in the world to cleanse Kat,” said Brooklyn after Zach wafted burning clumps of sage over the women. “If she was sage herself still wouldn’t help.”
Also of note, during an exercise in which Zach stared into the women’s eyes through a candle flame, the candle went out when it was Jess’s turn. As the witch said, “Oops.”
Since we already know how the group date ended, let’s turn our attention back to the Brooklyn and Kat feud.
Kat continued to insist she was justified in stealing Zach before Charity’s date because all bets were off once he got COVID. But as Ariel very sensibly pointed out, “I don’t think respect ever shifts, though.”
Kat’s retort to Brooklyn, who accused her of being classless and disrespectful, was that it was up to Charity to call Kat out, not Brooklyn. But when Charity tried to have a post-one-on-one conversation about it, Kat declined because she didn’t want to ruin the group date.
“You have your head up your ass,” Brooklyn said, and I couldn’t agree more. Also, “if the shoe fits then light that bitch up.”
Here’s my issue: of course certain women are going to steal time when they can; it’s part of the game. And I also realize we’re only seeing the edit of Kat’s reactions, so maybe she abjectly apologized to Charity and we missed it.
Where Kat lost me is when she made herself the victim. Boo hoo, Brooklyn is saying mean things to me. If you do something that you know is going to piss people off, own it and accept the consequences.
OK, moving on to Ariel’s one-on-one date.
Speaking of being disrespectful, how ridiculous that the producers sent Zach and Ariel to a nude sauna just so they could titter over the fact there were naked people there (while keeping their bathing suits on). Their guide Laura explained that traditional saunas are sacred in Estonia, but there was nothing reverent about the way in which Zach and Ariel approached the experience.
Ariel and Zach are joined by nude people at the nude sauna. Wow, imagine that.
They laughed and joked through the pre-sauna relaxation ritual and, once in the sauna, sniggered at the sight of two middle-aged bodies. It was pretty rude.
During the meal portion of the date, Ariel was set up as the potential dark horse of the season. “I feel like she could be my best friend,” Zach said, which in his lexicon equates to wife.
But then he had to go and do exactly what he did to Charity: when Ariel told him that she’d had many heartbreaks and had “kind of stopped loving myself” through them, Zach responded that he had similar experiences. “My fear is losing myself,” he said. I’m sorry dude, but it’s not all about you, even if you are the Bachelor.
Ariel is lovely. I’m not loving Zach much after this episode.
Next up was the rose ceremony and I really am grateful we’re getting a rose ceremony at the end of every episode.
Kat was the locus of the cocktail party drama. When Charity tried once again to talk to her about the pre-date steal, Brooklyn interrupted and Kat walked out to go and sniffle all by herself about how she kept getting “pushed down.”
What? You thought Kat Izzo wasn’t going to get a rose from Zach?
And wouldn’t you know that was the moment Zach came to find her? Would she tattle on Brooklyn? She did not, but Zach told Kat something felt “a little off” between them on the witch date, which set up the false narrative that Kat might get sent home.
She didn’t, of course. Aly got dispatched while Gabi, Kaity and Brooklyn also got roses.
So seven women are going into next week’s adventures in Budapest, vying for the coveted hometown dates. That includes Greer, who will make her post-COVID return. Not that it’s going to help her much.
Who’s that pulling away in a van in the promo? And who’s got Zach crying?
You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv and you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
SHOW OF THE WEEK: Plan B (Feb. 27, 9 p.m., CBC/CBC Gem)
Karine Vanasse as Evelyn and Patrick J. Adams as Philip in “Plan B.” PHOTO CREDIT: Panagiotis Pantazidis/Courtesy of CBC
If the path to true love never runs smooth, the path after one finds that love can be just as rocky, if not more so, as anyone in a long-term relationship knows.
That’s the crux of this drama, a remake of a French-language version that ran for three seasons in Quebec.
We first meet Philip (Patrick J. Adams) and Evelyn (Karine Vanasse) in the first blush of passion after they’re introduced by Evelyn’s brother — and Philip’s business partner — Patrick (Francois Arnaud, “Blindspot”).
Six years later, they’re living together in a house that’s a construction zone, and Evelyn has sidelined her aspirations of being a professional cellist to act as a paralegal for Philip and Patrick’s fledgling law firm, which is trying to land a major contract. Philip is concerned with building a successful life; Evelyn feels unseen and unheard, so she leaves.
When pleading can’t win her back, a drunken Philip takes drastic measures, calling the phone number for Plan B, a service that promises second chances. Next thing you know, he’s being whisked two days into the past by a pair of solemn-faced identical twins in a white van that drives backwards.
So yes, this is a time travel drama, but the supernatural element is not the main point of the show, at least not in the three episodes made available for review.
Philip figures that by going back in time to just before the tense morning that precipitated Evelyn’s departure he can save the relationship. And it seems to work at first but, as any sci-fi aficionado knows, you can’t change future events without consequences. So getting Evelyn to stay has unexpected repercussions, not just on the relationship but on the business and on Philip’s alcoholic brother, Andy (Joshua Close).
That leads to another trip into the past and yet more unforeseen consequences, and it remains to be seen what Philip will salvage out of the growing mess by the end of the first six episodes.
“We plan, God laughs,” the old Yiddish saying goes. And it becomes clear that Philip’s desire to control and fix everything is at the root of his problems.
“Plan B” invites viewers to reflect on the unpredictability of life; on the difficulty of really knowing even the people we’re closest to; and the tendency of human beings to assume a level of control over their circumstances that’s really just an illusion.
Adams and Vanasse are both highly skilled actors (you can read my Toronto Star interview with them here). Toronto-born Adams is probably best known for “Suits,” but I also very much enjoyed him in “The Right Stuff,” in which he played astronaut John Glenn. Quebec actor Vanasse is known for American series “Revenge” and the movie “Polytechnique” but, for me, will forever be intertwined with the Ontario-made detective drama “Cardinal.”
Although Philip and Evelyn are not always sympathetic, Adams and Vanasse make them relatable.
We in English Canada don’t value our homemade TV shows the way Quebecers do, so I’ll be interested to see how this is received amid all the American stuff dominating our schedules.
CBC Gem also has the documentary “Geographies of Solitude” (March 3), about a naturalist and environmentalist who is the only full-time resident of Sable Island in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean; and acclaimed lesbian love story “Carol” (March 3), directed by Todd Haynes, and starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
The Reluctant Traveler (Now on Apple TV+)
Eugene Levy in Tokyo with sumo wrestlers Kensho Sawada and Yoshinori Tashiro in “The Reluctant Traveler.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV+
(I couldn’t review “The Reluctant Traveler” in last week’s post due to an embargo, so here’s what I wrote about it before I remembered that there was an embargo.)
When you think of Hollywood stars — and Eugene Levy, despite his Canadian roots, is arguably a star — you imagine something of a jet-set lifestyle, of flying all over the world in a comfort the rest of us can only dream of.
Levy, known for everything from “SCTV” to “Schitt’s Creek,” from the “American Pie” films to Christopher Guest mockumentaries like “Best in Show,” has undoubtedly experienced a taste of that, but he also describes himself as a genuinely reluctant traveller: someone who doesn’t really like anything that takes him out of his comfort zone.
And yet, here he is as the host and star of “The Reluctant Traveler,” an eight-part series in which Levy visits eight countries and sometimes ventures out of that self-described zone.
To be sure, this isn’t an extreme travel show. The man is 76 years old after all; 75 when he was shooting the series.
The things that make Levy uncomfortable can be as simple as going horseback riding in Utah or taking a night hike through the Costa Rican jungle (I’m with him on that one, spiders and snakes, no thanks!). But he also experiences luxuries few of us can hope to replicate without a TV show budget behind us: stays in sumptuous hotels and meals at exclusive restaurants.
What makes “The Reluctant Traveler” stand out from other travel shows is simply the presence of Eugene Levy. Despite his insistence that he is uncomfortable playing himself on camera (you can read what Levy had to say about the show in my Toronto Star story here), the man is funny when he’s being himself.
“No cars for old men,” he jokes when he has to climb into a very low sports car in Tokyo.
“The sheep ran as soon as they saw me. Did they see a movie they didn’t particularly care for?” he quips as he helps guide Milo corral critters on a Navajo homestead in Utah.
“This is the last time I have five vodkas with a Finn,” he declares before climbing into a frozen Finnish lake, albeit in a flotation suit.
Somebody on Twitter suggested this series was a ripoff of the Ricky Gervais creation “An Idiot Abroad”; someone at a media Q&A thought it was meant to be like “Travel Man,” hosted by British comedian Richard Ayoade.
My impression is that it’s not meant to be an imitation of anything, but that executive producer David Brindley, as he told the Television Critics Association, saw potential during a phone call in which Levy tried to explain why he was the worst choice for a travel show host and ran with it.
Speaking personally, although I’m not a reluctant traveller, I felt a kinship seeing some of the things that make Eugene Levy uncomfortable, like heights (although, for the record, I did not close my eyes at the start of my one and only helicopter ride like he did).
Watching an episode set in Venice made me want to fulfil my long held intention of visiting that city; ditto with the one set in Tokyo, a city I merely took a train into and flew out of during a long ago trip to Japan.
There’s a little something for everyone here: beautiful natural views, lively urban sights, gorgeous hotels, enticing food and attractions on which we get perspectives that the average tourist might not experience.
The most affecting part — and what seemed to touch Levy the most deeply — are the human connections he makes. Whether or not we get a second season of “The Reluctant Traveler,” I suspect those are the memories that he’ll savour when he looks back on the experience.
Short Takes
Hoarders Canada (March 4, 8 p.m., Makeful)
Once you get over the shock and awe of a home so full of stuff that the occupant is essentially unable to live in the house, you see the pain and suffering of the mental disorder behind the hoarding. At least that was my impression based on the two episodes made available for review of this Canadian version of the popular American reality show. Both the episodes deal with just one case, that of Rosella, or Roz, a former public health nurse in Winnipeg whose house is so full that she has nowhere to sit, sleeps on half of a double bed and cooks on a couple of hot plates because her stove is under a mountain of stuff. Oh and she has to turn the water on and off each time she uses her leaking toilet, which seems like a tall order for an 80-year-old, not to mention the tripping and fire hazards, and the poor air quality from mould. But as the cleanup begins, with the help of Roz’s daughters and granddaughters, psychologist Murray Anderson and organizer Kim Diamond, there are times it seems like Roz is beyond help. Then Anderson finds an item amid all the junk that enables him to breach her defensiveness and get her to open up about the emotional toll of her hoarding. What it comes down to for viewers is that humanity, in its many variations, is a fascinating subject for other humans and hoarding certainly fits into that.
I have not yet seen the new episodes of hit “Star Wars” spinoff “The Mandalorian” (March 1, Disney+) but, judging from the trailer, Din Djarin, a.k.a. Mando, is getting introspective about his Mandalorianness and returning to Mandalore to “be forgiven for my transgressions.” And Grogu, a.k.a. Baby Yoda, is right there by his side, which is as it should be. Plus, you know, there’s danger out there in the universe to be handled. Particularly exciting for Canadian fans is that Captain Carson Teva, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee of “Kim’s Convenience,” is back.
Reviews are embargoed for “Daisy Jones & the Six” (March 1, Prime Video), based on the bestselling book about the rise and fall of a world famous 1970s rock band. I think it’s fair to say the series is highly anticipated given the success of the book. Riley Keough (“The Girlfriend Experience”), granddaughter of Elvis Presley and daughter of the recently deceased Lisa Marie Presley, plays Daisy. Sam Claflin (“Peaky Blinders,” “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”) is Billy Dunne.
The biggest deal on Netflix this week is “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage” (March 4, 10 p.m.), a live-streamed standup special by the comedian. Of course, the big question for everyone is whether Rock will address “the Slap,” when Will Smith struck him during last year’s Oscars for making a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair. Netflix also has the U.K. quiz show “Cheat” (March 1), in which contestants are encouraged to do exactly that; Season 2 of “Framed! A Sicilian Murder Mystery” (March 2); Season 2 of love triangle drama “Sex/Life” (March 2); true crime series “Monique Olivier: Accessory to Evil” (March 2); Season 2 of Gigi Hadid and Tan France’s “Next in Fashion” (March 3); and South Korean drama “Divorce Attorney Shin” (March 4).
Paramount+ has a treat for fans of Hugh Dillon, the Canadian star of its drama “Mayor of Kingstown.” “Durham County,” a TV show that put the rock star on the map as an actor, debuts on the streamer Feb. 28. It stars Dillon as a homicide detective matching wits with a neighbour and possible serial killer in the first season. It’s worth noting that all three seasons are also on CBC Gem, where you can watch free if you don’t mind some ads.
Crave’s main release this week is the documentary “The Grizzlie Truth” (Feb. 27), which looks at why the Vancouver Grizzlies basketball team only lasted six seasons in Canada before relocating to Memphis.
Speaking of treats, here’s one for BritBox subscribers. The first two seasons of “Staged,”the pandemic comedy in which David Tennant and Michael Sheen played themselves trying to work over Zoom, comes to the streamer March 1. Fair warning: the first season is much better than the second. There’s also a third season, which I have not yet seen, coming to BritBox on March 28.
Fans of HGTV Canada stars Scott McGillivray and Bryan Baeumler will want to know that they’re teaming up for Renovation Resort (March 5, 10 p.m., HGTV), a competition series in which teams of designers and contractors are tasked with renovating cabins at a resort owned by McGillivray.
NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified the times where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste. The Odds and Ends section includes shows that I have not watched.
Jess, Brooklyn, Mercedes, Kat, Kaity, Aly, Kylee and Ariel, next to a royal guard, on a Zach-less group date. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC
Forget Brexit, how about a vexit?
Two of the women who joined Bachelor Zach Shallcross in London, England, on this week’s episode got sent away during a virtual rose ceremony, the franchise’s first. There was to be no union, European or otherwise, for Mercedes and Kylee after Zach handed out his roses over a video screen.
Why virtual? Zach got COVID . . . or so we were told.
One does wonder why, if he tested positive just two days after he and Gabi were snogging — yes, snogging, not snugging, Kat — all over London she didn’t have to isolate as well.
Be that as it may, Gabi got the only in-person quality time with Zach all week, unless you count Kaity talking to him through the door of his hotel room.
And Gabi got the Cinderella date to boot, upgraded to queen for a day since they were in the U.K.
Zach and Gabi Elnicki sample scents made for famous folks at Floris.
It began with a visit to Floris, perfumer to the royal family and other mucky-mucks — apparently the scent created for Winston Churchill smelled “old man-y” according to Zach. Is that better or worse than smelling like “Sour Patch Kids” or “Christmas with a little bit of weed,” which is how Gabi described some of the scents they sampled as they created their own bespoke perfume, which they named, um, Zabi.
Zach and Gabi get a visit from some royally pedigreed corgis.
Next up, Grant Harrold, former butler to King Charles III, treated Zach and Gabi to a royal afternoon that included sipping the queen’s cocktail (Dubonnet and gin, Google tells me), trying on tiaras and hats, cavorting with corgis apparently descended from the royal bloodline, enjoying high tea and playing dress-up with what I presume were designer gowns.
This allowed Gabi to reveal that she had struggled with body image issues, but Zach’s reactions to the dresses she tried on were making her feel “the most special I’ve ever felt in my life.”
She chose a frothy, blue confection to wear to dinner, which Zach declared “insane.”
Gabi picks a dress to wear to dinner on her one-on-one.
The real fun came when Gabi returned to the women’s hotel suite, laden with bags of swag, including Jimmy Choo sandals.
You didn’t need Edward from Floris to tell you the scent in the room was envy with a top note of tears.
That was especially true for first impression rose winner Greer, who felt that the fact she loves tea entitled her to a one-on-one in London.
She cried enough tears to fill a teapot and I’m talking about a big-ass Brown Betty.
Now, I know Greer isn’t a fan favourite because of tweets she wrote in 2016 defending blackface, but I confess to being a bit puzzled at the seeming trend to consign first impression rose winners on “The Bachelor” to group date hell.
Nice touch by the producers, though, setting up Greer’s meltdown in front of the door to Gabi’s room. Gabi had to get Greer and Charity, who was comforting Greer, to move as she swished past with her bags of loot. Way to rub “dirt in the wound,” to use Greer’s words.
Gabi’s dream date wasn’t over since she still had dinner with Zach ahead of her. I’m not sure what venerable old building they were in, just that it had lots of wood, mullioned windows and candlelight, but Zach assured Gabi he knew things wouldn’t always be this “extravagant.”
Zach and Gabi enjoy a swanky pretend dinner.
“Who’s the person you want to wake up every morning and do life with?” Zach said.
“I had the experience last season where I thought I knew someone and then learned I didn’t. That was devastating to me. I want that long-lasting love.”
Oooh, another dig at Rachel Recchia!
“I think it’s the little things that make somebody feel so loved,” replied Gabi.
Like, say, Zach making her feel beautiful just by looking at her.
Zach told Gabi she was so beautiful it was insane, which appears to be the word of the week. And he was sorry she hadn’t always felt that way. And she was beautiful inside and out …
And just hurry up already, give her the rose and then you can go dance and kiss to UB40 — yes “Red Red Wine” UB40 — performing “(I Can’t Help) Falling in Love With You.”
So the next day was the group date with Brooklyn, Kat, Aly, Kaity, Ariel, Kylee, Jess, Mercedes and Greer, which is when the wheels came off the double decker bus.
Instead of Zach, host Jesse Palmer showed up with a card, clearly not in Zach’s handwriting, saying he was “a little under the weather” but to enjoy the date and he’d see them soon.
Enjoy? Ha!
Kylee grumbled, “You weren’t too sick to stay up all night with Gabi. You’re not gonna be too sick to go on a one-on-one with Charity tomorrow.”
From left clockwise, Aly, Brooklyn, Greer, Kat, Ariel, Mercedes, Kaity, Kylee and Jess pose on the bus.
“Today sucks,” complained Kaity after they had piled onto a double decker bus for a tour of the city. Ariel said the bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace” in the cold “sounded like a funeral.” And it rained, although one wonders why they didn’t just move inside the bus, you know, to the other level, as in double decker?
Guzzling pints in the Grapes pub did wonders for their moods, though. (Fun fact, it’s one of the oldest pubs in London, according to its website. Charles Dickens used to hang there and actor Ian McKellen is one of the leaseholders.)
Mercedes follows the well-worn path of other annoying tourists in London.
They were feeling perky enough to squish into an old red phone booth — “Who farted?” — eat fish and chips (Mercedes smelling hers first was kind of priceless), and tease a fellow dressed as a royal guard with annoying questions and twerking. Was he really a royal guard? Unclear. He did appear to be standing in front of the Indonesian embassy, but would a royal guard be caught on camera contemptuously raising his eyebrow as the women walked away?
Anyway, the ladies had their game faces and fanciest duds on as they awaited Zach at the after-party only to have a gentleman in a bow tie and dinner jacket deliver a “message from Zachary.”
Yup, still sick, not coming.
If the women were concerned for Zach’s health at this stage, we didn’t see it.
Kat and Kaity cried. Kylee wondered “what is even the point?” Brooklyn said that “selfishly I feel stood up.” Greer doubled down and said she’d been stood up twice.
They consoled themselves by all taking a petal from the discarded date rose.
It was pretty obvious by this point that Charity wasn’t going to get her one-on-one the next day, which she described as “like a toy dangling in my face” that she really wanted. “I don’t know why this happened,” she said.
Well, because Zach got diagnosed with COVID-19, according to Jesse.
It was Zach’s worst nightmare, Jesse said, apparently not because he had a disease that can sometimes be lethal, but because he was losing “quality time” with the women. Priorities, am I right?
Greer managed to muster up, “I just hope he’s OK.”
Kaity, who’s a nurse, was ostensibly so concerned about Zach being all alone in his room with his mind racing — and maybe, I don’t know, feeling sick? — that she took a gift basket to Zach’s room, which was obviously all about making Zach feel better and not about solidifying her position as a front-runner.
Nurse Kaity brings Zach a gift basket because souvenirs are what COVID patients really want.
After a cursory “how are you doing?” she launched into monologue about how not knowing when she’d see Zach again “has taken a toll on me because I’m here for you,” and “I’m just scared that momentum is gonna fall flat” and “I see a future with you.”
Hell of a door-side manner, that Kaity.
Zach assured her he was excited she was there and he saw “something with you,” which sounds a little vague to me, but Kaity was happy enough to leave him the hell alone.
The answer to Jesse’s earlier question — “How do we move forward?” — was the answer many of us came up with during the pandemic: do it on video.
So Zach held a video cocktail party, speaking to the women individually from the screen of a tablet.
I won’t bore you with the inanities of the various chats, except to say that Charity was gifted with a replica of Big Ben that some production lackey obviously bought and hid behind a pillow in the room where Zach held virtual court.
Greer talks up her chances with Charity and Brooklyn before her disaster of a chat.
Greer’s turn came and wow, awkward. First she sat too far away from the tablet; then she said she was glad she couldn’t see herself onscreen because she’d probably just look at herself instead of Zach. And when she tried to commiserate by comparing Zach missing dates because of COVID to her missing her sales goal because of COVID, Zach seemed to take offence.
Finding his future wife “means a lot more to me than the end of a sales quarter,” he chided Greer.
If I were Greer I would figure I was going home too, but when Zach virtually handed out his roses — looking solemn on a large screen as the women picked them up from a basket on a table — Greer got the last one. Go figure.
Kaity, Charity, Aly, Kat, Brooklyn, Jess and Ariel also got roses, so nine women are moving on to wherever they end up next week.
The end-of-episode promo previewed the rest of the season rather than the next episode and it looks like there might be some non-fantasy suite hanky panky in Zach’s future, although these things can be deceiving.
You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv and you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal (Feb. 22, Netflix)
It feels to me like true crime series have been on a downward trajectory since early entries like “Making a Murderer” and “The Jinx.” This show set in the Lowcountry of South Carolina doesn’t quite meet that high standard, but neither is it bait-and-switch nonsense like “The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.” It starts out as the story of the death of teenager Mallory Beach in 2019, who was killed when Paul Murdaugh, scion of a family of big-shot lawyers in Hampton County, drunkenly drove a boat into a bridge piling in the Beaufort River. As the other people who were in the boat tell it, in very detailed interviews about the crash and its aftermath, the powerful Murdaughs did everything possible to keep it from being pinned on Paul. He was eventually charged with boating under the influence and the Murdaugh family’s fortunes seemed to spiral from there. Paul’s charges still hadn’t gone to trial when Paul and his mother, Maggie, were shot to death on one of the Murdaughs’ vast properties in 2021. The doc explores that case, which is still before the courts (I’m not giving spoilers, but you can easily google who was charged), as well as two other deaths rumoured to be linked to the Murdaughs. And there’s more: drug addiction, theft, insurance fraud, money laundering, even a staged shooting. As in many of these types of series, you won’t get definitive answers on everything, but there’s food for thought about the harms that can arise when privilege is allowed to run amok.
Netflix also has Season 3 of teen mystery series “Outer Banks” (Feb. 23); Season 2 of kids’ comedy “That Girl Lay Lay” (Feb. 23); and Season 5 of docuseries “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” (Feb. 24).
Black Snow (Feb. 23, AMC+)
This Australian series has some of the hallmarks of your typical murder mystery: a dead teenage girl, a troubled lead detective, a small town guarding its secrets. What makes it different is that the series weaves the Australian history of “blackbirding” — luring or forcing Pacific Islanders to the country to do hard labour for low wages — into the criminal case. Isabel Baker (Talijah Blackman-Corowa) was murdered in 1994 after leaving her high school prom in her small town in Queensland. The opening of a time capsule 25 years later, in which Isabel placed a letter accusing members of the community of being “predators” who might kill her, leads to the reopening of the cold case, led by detective James Cormack (Travis Fimmel, “Vikings”) from Brisbane. Isabel comes from a South Sea Islander family whose great-great-grandfather was kidnapped in Vanuatu and brought to Queensland to work in the sugar cane fields (the series title comes from the black ash from the sugar factory that sometimes falls like snow). As Cormack investigates, sometimes butting heads with and sometimes teaming up with Hazel (Jemmason Power), Isabel’s sister, various potential suspects are revealed: Isabel’s white best friend Chloe and her father, Steve, who owns the town’s sugar plantation and exploits his migrant workers; her white boyfriend Anton, who was cheating on her with fellow student Tasha; nerdy outsider Hector, who was obsessed with Isabel; Tasha’s brother Billy, who did Steve’s dirty work; Ezekiel, a migrant worker in the country illegally, even her own father, Pastor Joe, who disapproved of her relationship with Anton. As he investigates, Cormack becomes convinced Isabel’s murder is tied to the disappearance of two of Ezekiel’s cousins, who were also in Australia illegally. The plot can meander when it pulls its focus from Isabel’s slaying, and some loose ends are left untied, but it’s compelling enough to watch all six episodes. Fimmel brings typical intensity to his role as Cormack while Power and Blackman-Corowa, both newcomers to acting and both of South Sea Islander heritage, give depth to Hazel and Isabel. It’s particularly welcome that we get to see Isabel, in numerous flashbacks to 1994, as a fully realized person and not just a murder victim.
Eugene Levy in Tokyo with sumo wrestlers Kensho Sawada and Yoshinori Tashiro in “The Reluctant Traveler.” PHOTO CREDIT: APPLE TV PLUS
The Reluctant Traveler (Feb. 24, Apple TV+)
This would have been my show of the week except that Apple TV+ has decided to embargo reviews until Feb. 23 and strictly embargo them to boot. So I can’t tell you what I think of the show; I can only tell you what to expect. Canadian actor and comedian Eugene Levy, known for everything from “SCTV” to “Schitt’s Creek,” from the “American Pie” films to Christopher Guest mockumentaries like “Best in Show,” is the host and star here as he travels to eight countries experiencing everything from dog-sledding in Finland to hiking the jungle at night in Costa Rica to plying the canals of Venice to feeding rhinos in South Africa to stargazing on Navajo territory in Utah. The twist is that Levy is a self-described reluctant traveller who says he usually doesn’t like venturing out of his comfort zone (you can read what Levy had to say about the show in my Toronto Star story here).
Apple also has the “thriller” series “Liaison” (Feb. 24), starring Eva Green and Vincent Cassel. She plays a British intelligence agent; he plays a French defence contractor in a plot that has something to do with Syrian hackers and cyber-attacks on the U.K. Quite honestly, I got interrupted three-quarters of the way through the first episode and had no interest in finishing it, so make of that what you will.
Push (Feb. 24, 8:30 p.m., CBC/CBC Gem)
This docuseries shot in Alberta showcases a group of friends known as the “Wheelie Peeps” since they all use wheelchairs or other mobility devices. The ringleader is vibrant Benveet “Bean” Gill, founder of the ReYu Recovery Centre for people with spinal cord injuries, who as the series opens is marking her 10th rebirthday: the anniversary of her paralysis. We’re also introduced, among others, to Brian, who’s celebrating his first relationship anniversary with Victoria; Natasha, who’s about to give birth; and Brittney and Ricardo, who organize a protest when the Alberta government cuts funding for catheter tubes, forcing them and other people with lower body paralysis to “pay to pee.” The series is clearly meant to present its subjects as people living their lives who just happen to be disabled. As Bean says, “We’re just a bunch of people on wheels figuring things out.”
Odds and Ends
Christoph Waltz as Regus Patoff in “The Consultant.” PHOTO CREDIT: Amazon Studios
Prime Video’s main release this week is “The Consultant” (Feb. 24), a comedy (a dark one I presume) starring Oscar winner Christoph Waltz as a consultant brought into a struggling gaming company who seems to have a murderous way of doing business. Prime also has the movie “Die Hart” (Feb. 24), in which Kevin Hart stars as a fictional Kevin Hart who wants to be an action star.
Fans of the British-French crime dramedy “Death in Paradise” are no doubt stoked about the spinoff series “Beyond Paradise” (Feb. 23, BritBox), in which detective Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall, “Sanditon,” “Love Actually”) has left the island of Saint Marie to solve crimes in Devon, with Martha (Sally Bretton) by his side.
NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified the times where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste. The Odds and Ends section includes shows that I have not watched.
Recent Comments