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Author: Debra Yeo (Page 6 of 29)

Bachelor in Paradise recap: Rodney and Logan aren’t ‘man’ enough for Eliza and Kate

November 2, 2022 /
Genevieve Parisi prepares to flee the beach on “Bachelor in Paradise.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos screen grabs

I’m feeling a bit like Genevieve Parisi near the end of Tuesday’s “Bachelor in Paradise,” frustrated and mentally exhausted, dragging her suitcase along, hellbent on escaping a toxic situation.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. “Paradise” is supposed to be the fun “Bachelor” show. We know the producers will manipulate situations to create drama — it’s not like they can help themselves — but it generally doesn’t ruin the naughty, flirty, goofy summertime vibe on the beach or quash the chances of people coupling up, like really coupling up.

But instead of Paradise, this season we’ve got a purgatory where the only imperative seems to be to cause as much chaos as possible, particularly if it means breaking people up.

So this week, after the dust had settled from the show’s “Love Island” ripoff “Casa Amor” twist, they parachuted in a cast member who’d already been sent home just to tempt Eliza away from Rodney. And it seems to be working beyond their wildest dreams.

I mean it’s bad enough that cast members come in with shopping lists of people they want to get with, either because they’ve met them at Stagecoach or slid into their DMs, but at least there were rules. If you didn’t get a rose you went home. If the man or woman of your dreams arrived after you’d already gone, too bad, sucks to be you.

Now, however, not getting a rose is meaningless because producers can bring people back at will to stir up crap. That’s how Justin Glaze ended up back on the beach, hell-bent on pursuing Eliza Isichei.

Rodney Mathews, you’ll recall, ended his romance with Lace after going on a date with Eliza and the two seemed to quickly become one of the “it” couples on the beach, or so we were led to believe.

Eliza Isichei gets cosy with Justin Glaze. Rodney who?

But Eliza was all smiles and giggles after Justin told her he had come back just to meet her, so much so that she apparently forgot all about telling Rodney she wanted to spend quality time with him and agreed to go on a date with Justin.

She was flattered to be pursued by two men, “pursued” being the operative word because when Rodney refused to forbid Eliza from going on the date she got all sullen and resentful, and decided Rodney didn’t care about her that much after all. And I’m sorry, what?

Have we travelled not only to Mexico but decades into the past where men were expected to lay down the law and women to obey?

Because, you know, Eliza could have just said no to Justin if she actually. wanted to nurture her relationship with Rodney instead of expecting him to make the decision for her.

Eliza later claimed her “yes” to Justin had been conditional on getting “clarification” from Rodney. And I’m sorry, what???

As Rodney insisted that Eliza was the only one he wanted and that he would do whatever he needed to do to prove that to her, Eliza continued to act like a sulky teenager. “I hope so,” she said before reluctantly giving Rodney a hug and then wandering back to Justin for a shameless smooching session. And at this point, I’d just like to see Eliza and Justin get the hell off the beach and to extend my condolences to Rodney for falling for someone so insecure and immature.

And if you’re thinking, well, Eliza’s only 26, Kate Gallivan — who’s 33 — also came down with a case of wanting a man to make decisions for her.

This happened after Hayden Markowitz hit the beach. You remember him: the guy who talked shit about Gabby and Rachel on their season, and used his dying dog, Rambo, to try to score sympathy points?

He was still blathering on about Rambo and about how a woman would be hard pressed to beat Rambo in his affections, except — IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR DOG SO MUCH WHY AREN’T YOU AT HOME TAKING CARE OF HIM INSTEAD OF IN FREAKIN’ MEXICO?

Shanae and Florence wisely gave Hayden a pass on his date card, but Kate said a part of her wanted to say yes to Hayden just to see how Logan would react. Would that be the part that was egged on by the producers perchance?

So she did say yes, in the hopes Logan would tell her not to go on the date. And are you serious? Logan had been on what, three dates at that point with three different women? So he told Kate she deserved to have the full Paradise experience just like he had.

But Logan had failed Kate’s “test.” “Every girl wants a guy that’s gonna fight for her,” she said.

By telling her what to do? Sorry, not this “girl.”

In fact, Kate claimed Logan’s reaction was “like he didn’t care if I lived or died.” And I’m sorry, what????

Anyway, the date with Hayden was kind of a dud.

Hayden Markowitz and Kate Gallivan prepare to go zip-lining, to Hayden’s horror.

Their zip-lining adventure rattled Hayden and Kate wasn’t digging “this scared energy from him.” He not only admitted to talking crap about Rachel and Gabby, he doubled down and said he didn’t think they were there “for the right reasons.” And Kate decided Hayden’s “priorities are a little misaligned” after he confessed to spending six figures so Rambo could live up to another two years with his brain tumour.

And yet, the promo for next week shows Kate supposedly vacillating between Hayden and Logan because “Hayden has money,” so whose priorities are misaligned now?

Let’s chat about a few more questionable decisions we saw in these two episodes.

Victoria Fuller did what I think we all knew she would and, even though Alex Bordyukov seemed completely in tune with her desire to get hitched and start a family ASAP, she chose to give a rose to surfer dude Johnny DePhillipo. (Don’t worry, Alex is still around, saved by his “Bachelor in Paradise Australia” pal Florence Moerenhout.)

After Victoria and Johnny went on some kind of ceremonial date that involved a type of Mexican sweat lodge, they both confessed to feeling like they were falling in love with each other — a step removed from actually falling, perhaps, but maybe enough to bring the engagement that Victoria so very much wants. We’ll see.

And then there was Shanae Ankney, who got bounced by Logan for Kate after trying to “boom boom” with Tyler, who chose Brittany instead, and had now coupled up with Jacob Rapini, with whom she apparently shares an obsession with clean teeth.

But then the twins came along — yes, Joey and Justin Young, who made zero impression after getting sent home on Night 1 of Gabby’s and Rachel’s season, but we’re supposed to give a crap now, I guess.

Justin and Joey Young bring double something — trouble? ennui? — to the beach.

Shanae and Florence, who are 30 and 31, respectively, agreed to go on a double date with the twins, even though they’re only 24.

It seemed like Florence was just there to have fun, but Shanae claimed to have a “deep connection” with Joey that she hadn’t found with anyone else on the beach. I guess that’s what happens when you drink tequila out of someone’s belly button and turn them into a human burrito? Search me.

And finally, we had the hot mess that is the dysfunctional relationship of Genevieve and Aaron Clancy.

It would exhaust all of us if I tried to reproduce verbatim the tortuous, tearful arguments between these two, but basically Genevieve wanted to tell Aaron she was falling in love with him, but Aaron was too busy bro-ing out to give her 10 minutes for a chat. When Genevieve expressed her disappointment over this state of affairs Aaron accused her of gaslighting him and sorry, Aaron, not facts.

Perhaps the most perfect illustration of the disconnect was when Aaron, right in the middle of complaining to Johnny that Genevieve was gaslighting him, interrupted his own train of thought to point at the ocean and exclaim, “Look at that fatty rip current right here!”

Genevieve, meanwhile, had decided to leave Paradise and tried to tell Aaron she was going, except he wouldn’t commit to a conversation because “I’m thinking about myself and if it’s the right time for me. It’s not all about one person.”

I can only echo Genevieve here: “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Aaron finally granted Gen the conversation she wanted, but only after she was on her way out of the resort with her bags packed.

Aaron was still claiming to be the injured party, but he kind of half-assed apologized for making Genevieve unhappy, got all teary, and told her he was falling in love with her too and he didn’t want her to leave. And despite her earlier insight — “My gut is telling me we are not meant for each other” — Genevieve stayed.

Eliza, who had been reluctantly eavesdropping with Victoria, claimed “that’s how you know, too, when you care about each other when you start arguing like this.” And man, somebody has to talk to that woman about healthy male-female relationships.

So Aaron and Genevieve are back together for now and apparently so are a lot of other couples according to next Monday’s promo. But then something “heartbreaking” happens that has even Brandon and Serene crying.

So guess I’ll unpack my metaphorical suitcase and stay, even though I’m sure “Bachelor in Paradise” doesn’t love any of us.

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

Watchable on documentary, Crave, Prime Oct. 31-Nov. 6

October 31, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Scrap (Nov. 6, 9 p.m., documentary Channel)

Old Car City USA in the documentary “Scrap.” PHOTO CREDIT: Parker Lewis

Beauty and meaning can sometimes be found in the most unlikely of places. That’s certainly part of the takeaway from “Scrap, ” a documentary by Stacey Tenenbaum about what happens to everyday objects that have outlived their usefulness in the eyes of society.

The answer is quite a lot.

The film, gorgeously visualized by director of photography Katerine Giguére and edited by Howard Goldberg, takes us to places around the world to where people with a passion for the past are bringing everything from massive ships to old phone boxes back to life.

Even in cases where the scrap isn’t being reused — like the Old Car City USA in White, Georgia, where venerable old vehicles are being reclaimed by the forest around them — the caretakers of all this discarded metal have a reverence for its place in history and the lives of the people it once served.

In that way, “Scrap” is a profoundly human film.

Take John Lopez, a sculptor and rancher in Lemmon, South Dakota. His vocation for creating striking works of art out of discarded farm machinery and other bits of metal grew from his desire to create a memorial to a beloved aunt who died in a car crash by sculpting an angel from found objects.

To him, the things he uses to create tigers, bison, horses and other majestic animals are indivisible from the people who once used them.

“I’m hoping my sculpture can honour those people who worked so hard,” he says. “They worked their fingers to the bone.”

Then there’s Tchely Hyung-Chul Shin, principal of French and South Korean company Shinslab Architecture, who creates buildings out of the remains of junked ships. In “Scrap,” we watch him oversee the dismantling of a massive cargo ship in Gijon, Spain, the hunks of its hull to be turned into a church in Seoul.

“Something that was dead comes back to life in another form, like a type of resurrection,” Shin says in the film.

He’s not the only one to speak of scrap as if it were an animate object.

Tony Inglis of Unicorn Restorations in Merstham, England, describes the old phone boxes he restores as soldiers or sentries who stood on street corners in all kinds of weather. “To see it go, it’s like seeing an old servant go,” he says.

For Ed Metka, who maintains about 30 rusting trolley cars in a secret U.S. location in the hopes of seeing them ride the rails again, the old cars are a reminder of his childhood and the beloved wife he recently lost.

And then there are some for whom scrap has a more practical meaning.

Fah Boonsoong in Bangkok, Thailand, lives in part of the fuselage of an old jumbo jet with her family of seven adults and eight children, providing for them with the money she makes from tourists who come to take photographs of themselves with the plane.

And in Delhi, India, for the people who toil at Namo eWaste, taking apart old phones, TVs and other consumer goods, the scrap is an unsentimental source of sustenance.

Saumya Khandelwal, who photographs the Namo workers, hopes the pictures that result convince people to engage more with the objects in their lives and perhaps even reject our current culture of using things and throwing them away.

It’s a message echoed by director Tenenbaum, who says in a news release that she hopes people “will be compelled to buy more things that are built to last and can be easily repaired, reused and restored.”

But please don’t make the mistake of thinking that “Scrap” is merely a message film. It has a meditative, even spiritual quality at times, finding art in unlikely places.

Short Takes

Spector (Nov. 4, Crave)

With the absolute glut of true crime docuseries out there — remember the days when shows like “The Jinx” and “Making a Murderer” felt like events and not just same old, same old? — anything that’s just an overhyped repetition of the facts of a case isn’t going to get my attention. Luckily, based on the two episodes I watched, “Spector” rises above by going beyond the morning in February 2003 that famed music producer Phil Spector shot and killed actor Lana Clarkson inside his Alhambra, Calif., mansion. Directed by Sheena M. Joyce and Don Argott, the series gives us a good grasp of Spector’s significance to the music industry before he descended into paranoid seclusion in his California castle, with a warts-and-all portrait of a disturbed genius. More importantly, it also gives a sense of who Clarkson was, certainly more than the “B-list actress” label affixed to her in the days after her murder.

Dangerous Liaisons (Nov. 6, 9 p.m., Starz/Crave)

Anyone who saw the 1988 movie version of “Dangerous Liaisons” would come away with an impression of the ruthlessness of French aristocrats the Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) and, especially, the Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close). This prequel, also inspired by the 18th-century novel, purports to show how Valmont and Merteuil, here played by Alice Englert and Nicholas Denton, became the vain, manipulative older versions of themselves. Part of the answer is supposedly that they were once passionately in love, but we’re thrown into the love story of Camille and Pascal, as they were then known, rather abruptly and disorientingly in the first episode and, to be honest, I found it less than thrilling. Things don’t really get interesting until Lesley Manville, playing a different Marquise de Merteuil, shows up to coach Camille in the deceitful ways of the French aristocratic world. Camille, a reluctant prostitute, has thrown herself on the mercy of the first marquise after learning that she is just one of Pascal’s many lovers, most of them rich older women able to keep him in a style befitting his social climbing ways. Camille, to me, is more interesting as a woman figuring out how to bend society to her will than as the devoted lover of Valmont. Whether that interest can be maintained through eight episodes, I can’t say, since I was given access to only two. Carice van Houten of “Game of Thrones” also appears as someone from Camille’s past.

Also debuting on Crave this week, its Ho-Ho-Holiday Hub (Nov. 1), featuring Christmas and Hanukkah episodes of TV series and holiday movies; the David Cronenberg film “Crimes of the Future” (Nov. 4); and the special “Broken: The Toxic Culture of Canadian Gymnastics” (Nov. 5).

Odds and Ends

David Dawson, Emma Corrin and Harry Styles in “My Policeman.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Parisa Taghizadeh/Amazon Content Services

It’s hard to have missed the hype over the film “My Policeman,” one of a couple of recent movie starring roles for pop star Harry Styles. Here, he plays a police officer married to a teacher (Emma Corrin) but having an affair with a museum curator (David Dawson) in 1950s Britain, when homosexuality was considered a crime. The movie makes its streaming debut on Prime Video on Nov. 4.

Among the usual overabundance of new Netflix content is the movie “The Takeover” (Nov. 1); sports/true crime series “The Final Score” (Nov. 2), about murdered Colombian soccer player Andres Escobar; true-crime docuseries “Killer Sally” (Nov. 2); comedy series “Blockbuster” (Nov. 3), about the last Blockbuster Video store in America; Season 2 of “Enola Holmes” (Nov. 4), starring Millie Bobby Brown of “Stranger Things”; new luxury real estate reality show “Buying Beverly Hills” (Nov. 4); and the documentary “Orgasm Inc.: The story of OneTaste” (Nov. 5).

Apple TV Plus offerings include the documentary “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me”; the Jennifer Lawrence film “Causeway” and Season 2 of the series “The Mosquito Coast,” all debuting Nov. 4.

Pamela Anderson takes a break from Hollywood to return to Vancouver and restore the waterfront property she bought from her grandmother in “Pamela’s Garden of Eden” (Nov. 3, 10 p.m., HGTV).

Last but not least, CBC Gem has the docuseries “My Life as a Rolling Stone” (Nov. 4), with each episode described as an intimate portrait of one of the core band members: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and the late Charlie Watts.

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.

Bachelor in Paradise recap: Shanae gets dumped, Kate gloats

October 26, 2022 /
Serene Russell, Shanae Ankney and Brittany Galvin all had very different receptions waiting
for them when they got back to Playa Escondida. PHOTO CREDIT: Craig Sjodin/ABC

I don’t enjoy math so I was never going to be keen on “Geometry Beach.” But here’s one formula I can wrap my head around: the greater the minutes of filler relative to the actual happenings on “Bachelor in Paradise” the more boring the episode.

And man, was Tuesday’s episode a stinker! Ostensibly it was going to be the . . . most . . . dramatic . . . yet, since the OG women were heading back to the beach and the men who had strayed were going to have to explain themselves, but most of what we got was endless commentary before, during and after the breakups/reconciliations.

I mean, seriously, this is why we’re being made to endure two episodes a week? For all this filler? And we’re not even getting another rose ceremony until sometime next week?

Hopefully I’m not going to bore you as much as the producers did, so let’s get to the meat of the matter.

Monday’s episode set up the (non)action to come on Tuesday, laying out the various love (lust) triangles that factored into what Johnny called “Geometry Beach.”

We started with the confrontation between Lace and Rodney. Lace, you might recall from last week, had hitched a ride from the Estates at Vidanta to Playa Escondida to check up on her man, who was out on a date with Eliza.

There was no “Hurricane Lace” or “Lacifer,” despite the buildup. Rodney gave Lace the bad news that he had moved on as gently and apologetically as he could. Lace was sad, she cried, she went home, end of story.

So why is this show painting the women as forces of destruction for, uh, showing emotions?

Back at the Vidanta, the other exiled women learned from host Jesse Palmer that Lace had “left Paradise forever” — so she won’t be parachuted back in as a plot device then? — and those six were quizzed about whether they were open to exploring new connections with the five new men.

Turns out Victoria was interested in exploring things with Alex and Brittany was into Tyler. And for reasons I can’t fathom — maybe ABC has some deal with its Australian counterparts? — the women deemed Adam from “Bachelorette Australia” worthy of sticking around. But they had zero interest in Rick and Olu, so those two got sent home.

Shanae was also attracted to Tyler — she wanted to take him to the boom boom room, after all — but also claimed to still be thinking about Logan.

Logan, however, sure didn’t seem to be thinking about Shanae. Not only had he gone on a very kissy face date with Sarah, he had now developed a “groundbreaking” connection with Kate. How, you might ask, since Kate seemed to be attached at the lips and the crotch to Jacob? Why, a 1:23 a.m. conversation on one of the beach beds.

So when a date card magically appeared for Kate, she took “sweet baby Jacob” for a talk and confessed that she was more into Logan. Poor Sarah didn’t get the courtesy of a talk from Logan until after Kate had invited him on the date in front of everybody.

And speaking of magical date cards, Victoria got one too and used it to explore Alex, a.k.a. “every girl’s fucking dream.”

Alex Bordyukov and Victoria Fuller talked about future offspring on their date.

The main points of interest seemed to be that Alex wasn’t frightened away by Victoria’s contention that she wanted five kids (!) and that Alex had rubbed Victoria’s head as she was dozing on the couch.

“Physical touch is my love language,” she said. And if one more person uses the phrase “love language” I’m gonna barf.

Speaking of touch, Brittany and Tyler went on a “date” of their own by the pool that involved lots of smooching. So the stage was set for various awkward reunions back at the beach.

We saw Genevieve and Aaron reconnect first and why did we spend so much time on this one? We already knew they had stayed true to each other, so whatever.

Then we had an inordinate amount of “heads are gonna roll” scene-setting for Shanae’s reunion with Logan and guess what, they didn’t.

Sure, Shanae was upset to hear that Logan felt more “heard and seen” by Kate, but why wouldn’t she be? And when Logan tried to blame his pursuit of Kate on Shanae hurting his feelings with her dalliance with James she was well within her rights to ask why he hadn’t expressed that hurt at the time. Damn straight she walked away without giving Logan a hug.

For Logan and Kate to then rub salt in the wound by slobbering over each other in full sight of Shanae and everyone else, as the other cast members cheered them on, was disrespectful and insensitive.

Shanae’s new best friend Genevieve — and by extension, the producers — talked Shanae into having another go at Logan. The idea was obviously to make it seem like Shanae 2.0 was reverting back into the bully we saw on Clayton’s “Bachelor” season.

Look, I’m not going to defend Shanae’s behaviour back then. I was disgusted by it, particularly her mockery of Elizabeth’s ADHD, but she wasn’t bullying anybody on the beach on Tuesday.

Kate, who seems to really like the sound of her own voice, was the one gloating over how she had triumphed over Shanae. She was the one who forced Shanae into a conversation she didn’t want to have. And then we had Aaron’s misogynistic commentary: Shanae was a “Shanaedo” who didn’t belong on the beach; Shanae should be straitjacketed in a padded room; Shanae should be abducted by aliens and taken to a planet that better suited her personality.

All this because she was sad and angry over being rejected for another woman? Did the beach suddenly get transported back into the 19th century or something?

The breakups continued.

After Jacob told Jill she wasn’t the woman for him, she tearfully decided to go home but not without giving viewers a last laugh: “A Lyft driver and you break my fucking heart. He sold his couch for cash and I fucking cried over him,” she said as the SUV of Shame pulled away.

Brittany and Andrew had a very civilized conversation, agreeing to part ways to purse Tyler and Jessenia, respectively.

Thankfully, we finally got to see Serene reunite with Brandon and it was as adorable and heart-swelling as it needed to be. They told each other they loved each other and can we just skip to the end where these two get engaged already?

That left Victoria and Johnny, who claimed to be falling for Victoria and looked genuinely stricken when she told him about her date with Alex.

There then followed a long, circular conversation about how Alex checked boxes for Victoria, whether Victoria did or didn’t have a list of requirements for Johnny to fulfil, and whether Johnny was or wasn’t ready for an engagement, not to mention marriage and a family, which Victoria wanted, like, yesterday.

I still don’t know the answer after all that talk but heads up! Alex, Tyler and Adam were heading to the beach.

Tyler and Brittany reaffirmed their interest in each other and then there was this weird situation where Jessenia pulled Tyler away for a private chat. And it was totally stupid because we all know that Jessenia likes Andrew. It was meant to support the fiction of a feud between the original women and the new women. And really, producers, really?

Johnny, meanwhile, said he felt sick to his stomach watching Victoria with Alex. Those two went for a talk of their own, also without a resolution. It would seem to be pretty clear cut: if Johnny is unwilling to commit and Alex shares Victoria’s desire to start a family pronto, wouldn’t Alex be Victoria’s match, no matter the quality of the breakfasts with Johnny? Victoria, however, said she was still confused.

It appears that she will stay confused next week. Also, the producers will play a dirty trick on Rodney by bringing Justin back to go on a date with Eliza. I like Justin, but this is what we’re doing now? Bringing back people who didn’t get roses just to cause mayhem?

Also, Hayden and the twins from Rachel’s and Gabby’s season turn up. And why? Nobody cares about the twins, nobody cares about Hayden.

But if you’re still watching, you can tune in next Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Watchable on Crave, Netflix, CBC Gem Oct. 24 to 30, 2022

October 24, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The White Lotus (Oct. 30, HBO/Crave)

Haley Lu Richardson and Jennifer Coolidge with Sabrina Impacciatore in “The White Lotus.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Fabio Lovino/HBO

Leave it to Tanya McQuoid, the rich tourist brought to absurdly funny life by Jennifer Coolidge, to voice two lines that perfectly encapsulate the satire in Mike White’s Emmy-winning anthology series “The White Lotus.”

“Whenever I stay at a White Lotus I always have a memorable time,” she tells Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore), the tightly wound manager welcoming another boatload of self-absorbed Americans to a White Lotus resort, this one in Sicily. It’s a line that’s a masterpiece of understatement if you remember the events of the Hawaii-set first season.

Later, while lamenting the departure of now-husband Greg (Jon Gries) — remember him? — who has flown home for what may or may not be a business emergency, Tanya asks her bored assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), “Do you think I’m oblivious?”

“No,” Portia lies.

“I sometimes think I should have started that spa for poor women with that girl from Maui. She was a real healer, the real deal,” Tanya says, referencing the resort employee she screwed over in Season 1. But then the obliviousness kicks back in as Tanya ventures that healers are witchy and that one might have put a curse on her.

For this latest lot of spoiled, blinkered travellers, everything that goes wrong is always someone else’s fault.

The boat also brings grandfather Bert (F. Murray Abraham), father Dominic (Michael Imperioli) and son Albie (Canadian Adam DiMarco), ostensibly there to explore their Sicilian roots although what they end up laying bare is a family history of womanizing.

Newly rich guy Ethan (Will Sharpe) and his judgmental wife Harper (Aubrey Plaza) are travelling with his former college roommate, finance bro Cameron (Theo James), and wife Daphne (Meghann Fahy). Harper considers Cameron’s and Daphne’s frequent PDAs to be fake and Cameron finds Harper emasculating, but neither marriage stands up to close scrutiny.

Throw in gay expat Quentin (Tom Hollander), who takes Tanya under his wing after Greg’s desertion; his “nephew” Jack (Leo Woodall), a bad boy for whom Portia abandons a budding romance with sweetly idealistic Albie; and a couple of young Italian women, Lucia (Simona Tabasco) and Mia (Beatrice Granno), who troll the hotel for rich Americans to finance their ambitions and let the games begin.

Like Season 1, Season 2 of “The White Lotus” begins with a dead body. Whether that person’s identity and cause of death will be as momentous as the first season’s remains to be seen (I screened five of the seven episodes).

Other familiar beats include the Cristobal Tapia de Veer music; the creepy opening credits (although the lush images in this instance turn more sexual than menacing); and footage of water as a metaphor for the turmoil in the guests’ lives.

But this time around, the tourists’ casual destructiveness wreaks havoc on each rather than the staff. Themes of class, conspicuous consumption and environmental degradation are superseded by ones of sexism, gender conflict and toxic masculinity.

One thing that hasn’t changed are the ever blurring lines between heroes and villains.

Albie, for instance, accuses his father and grandfather of being nostalgic for “the salad days of the patriarchy,” and defends escorts Mia and Lucia as “victims of a fucked up system,” which doesn’t stop him from paying for sex.

For me, this season took a little longer to find its footing and I missed Murray Bartlett’s Armond and his epic grudge match with guest-from-hell Shane (Jake Lacy). But there’s still pleasure to be had watching this particular group of self-deluded visitors and waiting for their inevitable unravelling.

Odds and Ends

Daphne Hoskins and Rupert Grint in “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2022

I didn’t have time to screen it, but I’d say your best bet on Netflix this week would be “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” (Oct. 25), an anthology series of eight horror stories, each handled by a director hand-picked by del Toro with what looks to be an impressive cast. Netflix also has the documentary “Fugitive: The Curious Case of Carlos Ghosn” (Oct. 26); the thriller film “The Good Nurse” (Oct. 26), starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne; the new competition series “Drink Masters” (Oct. 28); true crime docuseries “I Am a Stalker” (Oct. 28); and animated film “Wendell & Wild” (Oct. 28), which reunites Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele.

If you’re a fan of crossword puzzles, you’ll probably enjoy the documentary “Across and Down,” airing on CBC’s “The Passionate Eye” Oct. 28 at 9 p.m. and on CBC Gem. It might surprise you to consider that something as innocuous seeming as a crossword clue can be loaded with gender and racial bias. The doc checks in with various people who love crosswords and their efforts to open up their creation to a more diverse group of cruciverbalists. CBC and CBC Gem also have “Ridley Road” (Oct. 24, 9 p.m.), a British period drama about a young Jewish woman going undercover with members of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement in the 1960s.

Disney Plus offerings this week include Season 2 of “The Mysterious Benedict Society” (Oct. 26) and yet another “Star Wars” spinoff, “Tales of the Jedi” (Oct. 26), six animated shorts featuring Jedi parables.

Finally, Prime Video has “High School” (Oct. 28), based on the memoir by Canadian twin sisters and singer/songwriters Tegan and Sara about growing up in Calgary in the 1990s; and “The Devil’s Hour” (Oct. 28), starring Jessica Raine as a woman woken every night at exactly 3:33 a.m. by terrifying visions and Peter Capaldi as the sinister target of a police manhunt.

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.

‘Bachelor in Paradise’ recap: fresh blood, broken bonds

October 19, 2022 /
New guys Tyler Norris, Alex Bordyukov, Adam Todd, Rick Leach and Olu Onajide in the “Bachelor
in Paradise” version of Casa Amor. PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Welcome to Bachelor in Love Island.

Not content to present the most over-produced season of “Bachelor in Paradise” to date, the franchise masterminds decided to rip off rival show “Love Island” this week.

Instead of that show’s Casa Amor, I give you the Estates at Vidanta, which is where seven of the eight “Paradise” women were shipped while their men stayed at Playa Escondida with five comely new arrivals to tempt them.

But don’t worry, the disconsolate women got five new boy toys of their own to distract them.

Here’s the thing: if I wanted to watch “Love Island” I’d watch “Love Island,” but I don’t because who has that kind of time, plus I tried it and it just didn’t grab me. What I want is to watch people whose faces I recognize and sometimes even like hook up on a beach and maybe emerge from the heat and crabs affianced.

“Paradise” is the only show in the Bachelor franchise that consistently results in engagements, and even marriages and offspring, so why mess with that?

On the other hand, Tuesday’s episode sure zipped by compared to the ridiculousness that was Monday night’s. Up until the fireworks with Peter and Brittany on Monday it was basically like a math exercise as the excess men obsessed over how there were 12 of them and only seven women. (In the end only two men were sent home, Justin and James, since Casey and Peter basically self-eliminated and Michael got saved; more on that later.)

At the very least on Tuesday, it was interesting to see who stayed true to their OG connections — hello Brandon, Johnny and Aaron — and who couldn’t wait to sample the fresh blood, with their “new beach Paradise smell,” as Johnny put it.

Jacob, for instance, despite claiming to have “something real” with Jill, wasted little time getting mouth to mouth and crotch to crotch with newcomer Kate from Clayton’s “Bachelor” season.

Andrew and Logan at least put up a little resistance before smooching Jessenia (Matt’s season) and Sarah (Clayton’s season), respectively.

Rodney was clearly thrilled to see Eliza, also from Clayton’s season, who was on his list of women he wanted to meet in Paradise, a list that I presume poor Lace did not make. By the time Rodney and Eliza went off on their date they were in the running for cutest couple on the beach. Sorry, Brandon and Serene.

(The fifth newcomer was Florence from “Bachelor in Paradise Australia,” but nobody’s going to pursue her. If they wanted to parachute in people from other spinoffs, hello, “Bachelor in Paradise Canada”! Your neighbours to the north.)

From left, Victoria, Jill, Brittany, Genevieve, Shanae, Lace and Serene in their new digs.

The women at Casa Vidanta played harder to get despite the hunkiness of their newbies: Tyler from Gabby and Rachel Recchia’s season; Olu and Rick from Michelle’s season; Alex from Rachel Lindsay’s season — speaking of “Bachelor in Paradise Canada,” yo, Alex — and Adam from “Bachelorette Australia.”

But Jill and Lace were practically prostrate with grief over leaving Jacob and Rodney. Genevieve and Serene were resolutely sticking with Aaron and Brandon, and Victoria was staying true to Johnny, for now anyway. So that left Brittany and Shanae, who both zeroed in on a very ripped Tyler.

Brittany got in the first kiss; Shanae invited him on the first date, one of those stupid tantric yoga things. But her plans to take him to the boom boom room were foiled when Jill stopped by for a whinge. Nice job, producers!

Lace, meanwhile, after nearly crying her false eyelashes off, caught an SUV over to the Playa — funny how easily the “you have to stay away for a week” rule is broken for the sake of drama — to check up on her fella.

As the episode ended — To Be Continued, dontcha know — it looked like “Hurricane Lace” was about to break when she spied Rodney and Eliza, still giddy from their one-on-one, walking down the steps to the beach hand in hand.

But seriously, should you really expect monogamy from someone you’ve known for mere days?

I love to see bona fide couples emerge from “Paradise” but in the incestuous world of “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” alumni, these cast members are hitting the beach with wish lists in hand and taking roses wherever they can get ’em just to stay in play.

Rodney seems like a genuinely nice guy who wouldn’t purposely hurt anybody, but did anyone really look at him and Lace together and think happily ever after? Same goes for Jill, who had one (nude) date with Jacob, and Brittany, who did little more with Andrew than smooch him on a beach bed.

I’m a wee bit surprised that Johnny and Victoria, and Aaron and Genevieve are as solid as they seem (next week’s dalliance between Victoria and Alex notwithstanding), but I probably wouldn’t be if we got to see more footage of them together instead of wasting our time on distractions like Ashley and Jared, and Pizza Pete.

Some observations:

I know we all loved Michael Allio when he was on Katie’s “Bachelorette” season, but that was before he fobbed off Sierra by saying he wasn’t ready to move on from the death of his wife. I’m sorry, but if you’re not ready to move on what the hell are you doing on a beach full of hotties in black bar-inducing bikinis? Michael is clearly the producers’ golden boy because why else would they parachute in Danielle from Nick’s season, someone whose DMs he happened to have slid into, just before a rose ceremony that was going to send Michael home? He was still expressing doubts about moving on during his one-on-one with Danielle, who seems like a perfectly nice, sensible woman, but decided she was “scarred” enough for him to date, having lost her fiancé to a drug overdose. She was the only woman spared removal to Casa Vidanta, since she and Michael were still out on their date when the switcheroo took place — another bit of favouritism that gives Michael better odds of bonding with her.

There was no reason to bring “Pizza Pete” from Michelle’s season to the beach other than to stir up drama. The pepperoni narcissist is so clearly not husband material I’m surprised he got anyone to date him, but Brittany took the bullet and then, because she didn’t want to kiss his smug face, got derided as a “clout chaser.” This from the guy who’s consistently used his time on the franchise to talk up his pizza chain. It was rather delicious watching Brittany and Jill, and a few of the guys, hound him off the beach after Casey spilled the beans that he’d been trash talking Brittany. Did Casey really do that because he thought it would get him a rose? Of course not. It was more producer interference. Casey passed out when the hubbub got to be too much for him, apparently seriously injuring his foot, it should be noted, but you have to admit: being carted off in an ambulance is a way more memorable exit than slinking off after you fail to get a rose.

Who the hell thought Ashley and Jared deserved a multi-episode arc and even a spot in the opening theme song? They are NOT a “Paradise” success story so why are they being held up as one? As I recall, Jared basically left Ashley crying her infamous tears during two seasons of “Paradise” and then strung her along a while longer until she started dating Kevin Wendt after “Bachelor Winter Games” and that’s when he decided he wanted to be with her. To let them eat up precious air time that could have gone to this season’s developing couples was a travesty; to pretend they needed to come to Mexico to rekindle their sex life a farce. If they want to bonk, let them ship their kid off to grandma like normal married people and stay the hell out of the boom boom room.

One thing not in abundance this season are roses. With just two ceremonies in — yikes! – seven episodes and nine more episodes to go, it’s going to be a long fall, especially if we have to endure more over-produced nonsense. But being a sucker for punishment I will recap the rest of the season, starting with next week’s episodes, airing Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Citytv.

But I’m not enough of a sucker to write two weekly recaps, so I’ll do both in one go, posting Wednesday mornings. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Watchable on History, Acorn, TVO Sept. 26 to Oct. 2, 2022

September 26, 2022 /

Please note: This is the last Watchable post until Oct. 24. I am on vacation starting next week and will not be screening anything until I return on Oct. 17.

SHOW OF THE WEEK: True Story (Sept. 30, 9 p.m., History and StackTV)

“True Story” explores the relationship between Indigenous and settler people, according to History.

I have a rather shameful confession to make: there was a time when I bristled at the use of the word “settler” as a name for non-Indigenous Canadians. How could I be a settler when I had been born in Canada, as were my parents and one of my grandparents, the other three being emigrants from England and Scotland?

Well, I’ve learned some stuff since then. In fact, the history of Canada cannot be extricated from colonialism, which means that even those of who were born here are descendants of that colonialism.

That point is made even more convincingly in the original documentary “True Story,” being released on Friday, the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, a.k.a. Orange Shirt Day.

But please don’t think you’re in for an hour and a half of browbeating if you watch this doc.

It’s narrated with a touch of playful irreverence by Kaniehtiio Horn, whose voice you’ll recognize if you’ve watched “Letterkenny” or “Rutherford Falls” or numerous other TV shows and films.

Serious information is imparted by Indigenous people with deep knowledge of Indigenous and Canadian history, but humour — even cheekiness — is part of the approach. Think, for instance, of three British redcoats putting up a for sale sign under the banner of “Columbus Stolen Realty”: “Call now . . . We’ll steal your land . . . with a smile!”

The film starts with Indigenous creation stories — and they are varied, Indigenous people are not a monolith — and details the ways in which various peoples shared their histories and cultures, as well as what those cultures offered.

The point is that there were thriving human communities in Canada before white Europeans came along to “discover” them.

You can’t help but wonder what Canada would have looked like if those early settlers had respected the treaties they signed with various Indigenous nations — and much of Canada, by the way, sits on land that was never ceded to the colonizers — rather than reneging on them and forcing the original inhabitants off their territories as white settlement expanded. (It’s worth noting that not all of those treaties were about handing over land but simply obligated the Indigenous and settlers to keep the peace.)

Attempts to assimilate or eradicate the Indigenous were already going on before the British North America Act of 1867 and the Indian Act of 1876 gave these campaigns the weight of white people’s law.

You’d have to be living under a rock not to have heard of residential schools and the ongoing intergenerational harm they inflicted on Indigenous people, but did you know about the slaughter of bison in the Prairies in the late 1800s as a tool for starving Metis and other Indigenous off their lands?

“The slogan at the time was ‘Every dead buffalo is an Indian gone,'” notes Horn.

All those dead buffalos are a reminder that you can’t think of Canada’s “colonial project” without reflecting on its effects on the environment and all the creatures, human and non-human, within it.

Watching “True Story,” I couldn’t help but think that colonialism has been harmful for all Canadians, with its patriarchal rigidity and its emphasis, as enshrined in the Catholic Doctrine of Discovery, on exploiting lands and their non-Christian inhabitants in the mistaken belief that some people are superior to others and that humans are superior to other other species. Are not climate change, capitalism with its haves and have-nots, and gender discrimination and violence the natural results of colonialism?

I’m well aware of how difficult it is to tear Canadian viewers away from their “NCIS’s” and “CSI’s” and “FBI’s” and all the other American content out there to watch something Canadian, let alone something Canadian that’s meant to educate as well as entertain.

But as Horn says early in “True Story”: “Is there any hope of reconciliation? Not without the truth.”

We’ve been taught one version of the truth for so long in this country; now it’s time for the truth of those whose ancestors predated white settlement to be heard.

Short Takes

Mark Coles Smith as Jay Swan in “Mystery Road: Origin.” PHOTO CREDIT: David Dare Parker/AcornTV

Mystery Road: Origin (Sept. 26, Acorn)

If you have enjoyed the Australian crime drama “Mystery Road” and its lead, Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen), I can recommend this prequel series, in which we see a young Jay (Mark Coles Smith, “Hard Rock Medical,” “Picnic at Hanging Rock”) begin his career as a police detective. Jay has moved back to his hometown of Jardine in the outback of Queensland, where his self-absorbed father Jack (Kelton Pell) and drunkard of a brother Sputty (Clarence Ryan) still live. The familial complications — including a tragedy in the second episode — are entangled with the professional ones as Swan and fellow cops Max (Hayley McElhinney) and Cindy (Grace Chow) investigate a series of violent robberies that might have a white supremacist connection. Meanwhile, legal aid lawyer Anousha (Salme Geransar) is digging into a cold case involving the brother of Jay’s new love interest, Mary (Tuuli Narkle), that nobody seems to want exposed. As with the other seasons of “Mystery Road,” the outback setting and prominent presence of Aboriginal characters and actors gives it a flavour all its own. But, as with any good show, the specificity only adds to the enjoyment.

Waves crash in one of the Great Lakes. PHOTO CREDIT: Christian Malbec

Great Lakes Untamed (Sept. 26, 9 p.m., TVO, TVO Today and YouTube)

We sometimes forget about the natural marvels that exist within our own national boundaries. That was my thought as I screened part of this docuseries about the Great Lakes that intersect Canada and the United States. For the record, Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario contain a fifth of the world’s fresh water supply, both a fascinating and alarming fact with that supply under threat. Directed by Jeff Morales, biologist Ted Oakes and Nicholas de Pencier, known for co-directing the award-winning “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch,” the series is a trove of information about water bodies that many of us likely take for granted and the varied species that call them home. Did you know, for instance, that a drop of water that entered Lake Superior in 1715 still wouldn’t have made the 3,000-kilometre journey to the Atlantic Ocean by now, via the other Great Lakes, the rivers that connect them and the St. Lawrence Seaway? The series is really a life story of the lakes, beginning with their formation in the last ice age. But the real star of the show is the stunning cinematography by de Pencier, Morales and Hugo Kitching that rivals anything you’d see in one of the myriad nature documentaries that highlight far-away places. Episode 2 airs at 9 p.m. and Episode 3 at 10 p.m. on Sept. 27, with all three repeated beginning at 8 p.m. Oct. 1.

Drew Hayden Taylor with investigative journalist Francesca Fionda. PHOTO CREDIT: Sara Cornthwaite

The Predentians (Sept. 30, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem)

Indigenous documentarian and playwright Drew Hayden Taylor, along with producer Paul Kemp, brings his usual wit and insight to the subject of “pretend Indians,” to use his words. In the doc, commissioned by CBC’s “The Passionate Eye” for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, Hayden Taylor explores topics like fake Indigenous souvenirs and forged totem poles in B.C.; the explosion in questionable Indigenous ancestry claims in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces; the purchase of faux status cards by non-Indigenous people trying to avoid paying taxes on gas and other items; the granting of Indigenous status to white women who marry Indigenous men; and the question of how much Indigenous blood is enough to be able to claim status. Two of the most notorious Canadian cases of disputed claims of Indigenous heritage — author Joseph Boyden and filmmaker Michelle Latimer — are referenced but not examined in detail. The doc does take aim at a Queen’s University professor named Robert Lovelace who has claimed to have Cherokee ancestry and even established a fake First Nation known as Ardoch. Unlike Carrie Bourassa, a predentian professor who resigned from the University of Saskatchewan, Lovelace was still teaching Indigenous studies at Queen’s at the time “The Predentians” was made.

CBC Gem also has the animated shorts series “Dreams in Vantablack” (Sept. 29), directed by Ian Keteku. Each of its 12 four-minute films is based on a poem by a young Black person grappling with identity. Also coming to CBC Gem on Sept. 27 are the web comedy “Virgins!” by Aden Abebe, about four young Toronto women from East African immigrant homes navigating experiences they are unprepared for; and “Bimibatoo-Win: Where I Ran,” about Charlie Bittern, a 75-year-old residential school survivor, who recreates the 80-kilometre journey he made when he fled from the school in a Manitoba blizzard. On Oct. 2 at 8 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem debut Season 6 of “The Great Canadian Baking Show.”

Odds and Ends

Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe and Adrien Brody as the Arthur Miller-esque “Playwright” in “Blonde.” PHOTO CREDIT:  Netflix © 2022

Andrew Dominik’s movie “Blonde” (Sept. 28, Netflix) has been slammed by critics for making a victim, and not much else, out of Marilyn Monroe. But I’ve heard that Ana de Armas is fantastic in the role, which means that as a longtime Marilyn fan I’ll probably watch it anyway. Netflix also has the math and physics doc “A Trip to Infinity” (Sept. 26); the comedy special “Nick Kroll: Little Big Boy” (Sept. 27); the docuseries “Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga” (Sept. 28); period drama “The Empress” (Sept. 29), about the love affair between Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and Elisabeth von Wittelsbach; the animated special “Entergalactic” (Sept. 30), from Kid Cudi and Kenya Barris (“Black-ish”); and the docuseries “Human Playground” (Sept. 30), narrated and executive produced by Idris Elba.

I never did finish the first Season 1 of the spinoff series “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” but, if you’re a fan, Season 2 debuts on Disney+ on Sept. 28 with a new coach, played by Josh Duhamel, stepping in for the absent Emilio Estevez. Disney also has the Kerry Washington-produced drama “Reasonable Doubt” (Sept. 27), about a rebel defence lawyer played by Emayatzy Corinealdi; and the film “Hocus Pocus 2” (Sept. 30), a followup to the 1993 movie about a trio of reawakened 17th-century witches.

I would have liked to get a look at detective series “Suspect,” given that it stars James Nesbitt (“Jekyll,” “Murphy’s Law,” “The Missing”) and features Richard E. Grant and Sam Heughan of “Outlander.” It debuts Sept. 27 on BritBox.

Hard to believe, but the tween series “The Next Step,” about students competing on and off the floor at a dance studio, begins its eighth season on Sept. 26 at 6 p.m. on YTV.

It’s pretty quiet on the Crave front, but the streamer does have Season 3 of Peabody-winning “Ramy” via Starz on Sept. 30, as well as the comedy special “Chris Locke: Captain Bones.”

Finally, Hollywood Suite has the broadcast premiere of the documentary “The Long Ride Home” (Sept. 30, 9 p.m.), about a group of Indigenous riders on a two-week-long horseback journey to highlight colonial ills. It’s part of a day of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation programming that also includes the films “The Corruption of Divine Providence,” “Indian Horse” and “Falls Around Her,” and the TV special “Remembering the Children: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation” at 8 p.m.

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.

Bloated ‘Bachelorette’ finale ends with just one engagement

September 21, 2022 /
Gabby Windey, Erich Schwer, Tino Franco and Rachel Recchia on the “Bachelorette” finale.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC via Getty Images

Tuesday’s “Bachelorette” finale was supposed to be the most dramatic ever, but it reminded me of a sitcom.

It’s not that I think there was anything funny about Rachel’s breakup with Tino, or the way he kept trying to make his cheating her fault, but tell me you didn’t watch his tortured attempts to explain away his transgression and think of the “We were on a break” plot line from “Friends.” (If you never watched the show, one character slept with someone else and tried to justify it to his girlfriend by saying repeatedly, “We were on a break.”)

As for Jesse Palmer’s claim that this would be the most shocking finale ever? Give me a break. The dirt on Tino kissing another woman and splitting with Rachel was on social media days ago, as was the intel about Erich’s texts to a woman he’d dated just before he came on “The Bachelorette.”

But, at this point, I don’t feel like I can take anything about this franchise seriously.

We endured more than five hours of a finale — two and a bit last week, three on Tuesday — that could easily have wrapped in the usual two hours, plus a one-hour “After the Final Rose,” all so ABC could sell as many ads as possible. And we were sold a bill of goods about how unprecedented it was going to be to make the boring filler easier to swallow. But I’m still choking on it, personally.

“Bachelorette” and “Bachelor” alum Kaitlyn Bristowe, Catherine Giudici, Sean Lowe, Becca Kufrin
and Michelle Young were in the audience to help pad out the live “Bachelorette” finale.

What did we get for our extra time on Tuesday? Endless, obvious questions from Jesse to Gabby and, especially, Rachel; commentary and advice from the three past Bachelorettes and one Bachelor (and wife) in the audience; the introduction of the next Bachelor (ho hum, it’s Zach Shallcross), followed by Zach “starting his journey” live onstage with awkward introductions to five (mostly blond) contestants; a ridiculous interactive stunt in which viewers voted on Twitter to award one of the women a rose; an extended “Bachelor in Paradise” promo.

I suppose we can take a couple of wins from the night: Gabby’s and Rachel’s friendship is as tight as ever, and Gabby got engaged to Erich and was still with him as of Tuesday night.

As for all that nonsense about how we’d never seen anything on a finale before like Tino’s and Rachel’s breakup? Well, we have, even though the circumstances were different, if you count Arie Luyendyk Jr. dumping Becca on camera post-proposal. And that was worse because Becca was blindsided for the purpose of making “good” TV.

On Tuesday, we were more than nine minutes into the “live” finale before we got a glimpse of the actual finale — you know, the stuff that happened in Mexico — picking up from last week with Gabby upset that Erich didn’t seem ready to propose. But then she went back to his suite, and they kissed and made up, and agreed that they wanted to work things out.

Next up was Rachel’s last evening in Mexico with Tino, when she spilled the beans that Tino had won, essentially — to which he had a curious non-reaction — but who even cares? Even if you hadn’t read last week’s tabloid gossip you could tell from the expressions on Rachel’s and Big Tony’s faces in the insets at the bottom of the screen that it wasn’t going to end well.

After yet more time-wasting filler we got to Proposal Day.

Tino proposed to Rachel, blah blah blah, although I guess you can find some grim humour in Rachel telling Tino how “selfless and gentle and supportive” he was. Vowing to love Rachel forever, Tino put a Neil Lane ring on it and they trotted off on a horse as the studio audience applauded.

Rachel and Tino in Mexico before it all went to hell.

So what happened then?

Rachel told Jesse that she and Tino had been having “difficulties” in their post-show relationship and then Tino “cheated” on her, by kissing another woman at a bar.

Look, stuff happens. Kissing someone else isn’t necessarily a hill to die on. What did seem shady was that Tino tried to keep Rachel from finding out and then, when he got caught, tried to justify it during their on-camera meet-up by reading a bunch of supposedly incriminating quotes from Rachel he kept in his journal.

Rachel said the quotes were all taken out of context, and they flat out disagreed about whether or not Rachel had said she wanted to give her engagement ring back. Tino claimed he thought they were “pretty much done.”

“Never once did we ever say we are broken up, we are not engaged,” Rachel protested.

The most telling moments came when Tino ducked into the backyard — he did that twice — and complained to a producer that Rachel was throwing him under the bus and making him look bad. These do not seem like the words of a man who’s going to love a woman until the end of time.

Still, Tino claimed he wanted to spend the rest of his life making it up to Rachel, but she took off the ring and that was that.

When Tino finally made it into the hot seat on the live part of the finale, he started out by saying how sorry he was and how he wanted to own his actions, but then he ruined it by alluding to something he and Rachel had discussed in private that she said was “deeply personal.” What it was, we don’t know, but apparently something you don’t want discussed in front of a live studio audience.

Maybe Tino genuinely loved Rachel or at least thought he did, but his way of trying to communicate that was abysmal. In fact, as a couple, their communication skills were dysfunctional AF based on what we saw on Tuesday night.

But the fact that Tino came off as more concerned about how he looked than Rachel’s feelings doesn’t justify the stunt the producers pulled on him.

Aven Jones swoops in after Rachel’s final confrontation with Tino.

After Rachel and Tino wrapped up their confrontation, Jesse announced that someone was demanding to talk to Rachel. Her runner-up, Aven, strolled onstage and invited Rachel to leave with him to “catch up.” “I would love nothing more” Rachel exclaimed before she and Aven walked backstage to chat, leaving Tino to just stand there confused as Jesse broke for commercial, making glib comments about how “awkward” and “weird” the situation was.

Yes, it was awkward as hell and obviously the only ones demanding that Aven speak to Rachel at that very moment were the producers, just so they could have a “gotcha” moment.

Finally it was time for Gabby’s ending. And despite all the drama about whether or not Erich was going to propose he did indeed get down on one knee, telling Gabby, “It’s you and me until the wheels fall off.”

So did they fall off? That was the question.

Gabby and fiancé Erich seemed to be in a good place on the finale.

As Gabby and Erich cuddled on the hot seat, Jesse brought up text messages that Erich sent to a woman he was dating before filming started, saying basically that he didn’t think the show was real, but he was going on it to figure out what else to do with his life.

Erich did a better job than Tino of expressing his regret, saying he hadn’t seen a long-term future with the other woman, had led her on and had taken the cowardly way out by using the show as an excuse to end the relationship.

Gabby said he’d told her about the text messages long before they came out on social media, that they had “hard” conversations about them, but it helped improve their communication. And even though “you were kind of an asshole to her,” Gabby was standing by her man.

And that’s good enough for me. They seemed genuinely happy on Tuesday night; I liked the playful, humorous way they related to each other; and Grandpa John is “tickled pink” about the match. So let’s just leave them the hell alone and let them get on with their lives.

And that’s it. I don’t have anything that I feel like writing about Zach, beyond that he was the boring, predictable choice for the next Bachelor. I was Team Ethan or Team Aven — well, I was before I knew Aven was going to try to rekindle things with Rachel. Although he might not really be trying to rekindle things with Rachel. That might just be producer nonsense. And we do know that she’s on “Bachelor in Paradise” because we saw her in the promo, so maybe she hooked up with someone there?

Speaking of “Bachelor in Paradise,” although I am eager to watch along with you all, I won’t be doing any recaps until mid-October. I am going on my first real vacation since 2019 and will be in a different time zone as of the middle of next week, so I won’t even be tweeting with y’all on show nights.

But if you’re planning to watch,  Citytv will have the first episode next Tuesday at 8 p.m. And as always, you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Watchable on CBC, CTV, Netflix Sept. 19 to 25, 2022

September 19, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Lido TV (Sept. 23, CBC Gem)

Lido Pimienta in her variety show “Lido TV.” PHOTO CREDIT: CBC Gem

Think of “Lido TV” as a heaping spoonful of sugar helping creator and star Lido Pimienta get her medicine down.

It’s a described as a variety show, although it also has the outward appearance of a children’s show with its colourful sets and costumes and puppets, but that whimsy belies a serious mission: to share information and stimulate discussion about social and political ills and systems of oppression.

The first episode, for instance, deals with colonialism. There are conversations on the subject between Lido and puppets Sunnyflower (Ali Eisner), Tomato (Sarah Ashby) and Tomàto (Adam Francis Proulx); a mini-documentary shot in Pimienta’s hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia, about the expropriation of Indigenous music; and a sketch in which virtue-signalling white people compete on a reality show to be named “Canada’s Top Land Acknowledger,” among other segments.

It’s not angry or strident — in fact, it’s often funny — but the point is very clearly made.

The other three episodes I screened dealt with beauty standards, hate and feminism, all combining chats with the puppets; mini-docs shot in Barranquilla; guest stars (Nelly Furtado, Bear Witness from the Halluci Nation and members of Canadian heavy metal band Kittie, for example); and wittily biting sketches.

Think: a woman agreeing to be turned into a vampire only if she can forever keep her blond dye job, fake boobs and Brazilian butt lift; or a hate shopping network on which you can buy “a genuine Indigenous friend” who’ll shield you from criticisms of racism and “pairs well with stolen land.”

Pimienta, a Polaris Prize-winning, Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter and visual artist, has walked the talk as a self-described Black, brown and Indigenous immigrant to Canada, as have her writers Tim Fontaine, who is Anishinaabe, and Sarah Hagi, who is Black and Muslim.

And with “Lido TV,” this energetic and ambitious creator is just getting started; she sees films as the next frontier (you can read my Toronto Star interview with her here).

Variety is the spice of life, the old saying goes, and there’s certainly nothing bland about Pimienta’s version of a variety show.

Short Takes

From left, Logan Nicholson, Meaghan Rath, Aaron Abrams and Mikayla SwamiNathan
in “Children Ruin Everything.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

Children Ruin Everything (Sept. 19, 8 p.m., CTV/CTV.ca)

I’m a big believer in celebrating Canadian shows that manage to hold Canadians’ attention amid the onslaught of content from the U.S., and this show is one of them. As it returns for its second season, James (Aaron Abrams) and Astrid (Meaghan Rath) have upped the ante by having a third child, baby Andrew, and the season opener does an entertaining job of poking fun at their sleep deprivation. Astrid has gone back to work, to discover that her new boss is a hipster bro and she’s now the oldest one in her office, and James is yearning to move out of the city, even though it would mean severing ties to the last remnants of his and Astrid’s child-free life. Supporting cast members Ennis Esmer, Nazneen Contractor, Dmitry Chepovetsky and Lisa Codrington are all back, adding to the amusement.

Keegan-Michael Key, Johnny Knoxville, Calum Worthy and Judy Greer in “Reboot.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Desmond/Hulu

Reboot (Sept. 20, Disney+)

This comedy from “Modern Family” co-creator Steve Levitan has its moments. It lampoons the TV industry via the phenomenon of reboots. A cheesy early 2000s comedy about a step-family called “Step Right Up” is getting what’s supposed to be an edgy, cable-worthy update for Hulu from writer Hannah (Rachel Bloom of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) — until original showrunner Gordon (Paul Reiser) muscles his way back in with his corny jokes. But cast members Reed (Keegan-Michael Key), Bree (Judy Greer), Clay (Johnny Knoxville) and Zack (Calum Worthy) really need the gig, having all seen their careers tank since leaving the original show. They’re joined by reality TV star Timberly (Alyah Chanelle Scott), who can’t act but has a built-in audience of 20-somethings. And a real-life family drama involving Hannah and Gordon forms the backdrop of the new show. It’s not exactly comedy gold but, like I said, it has its moments.

Disney also has the “Star Wars” spinoff “Andor” (Sept. 21), starring Diego Luna as Cassian Andor from the movie “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (reviews are embargoed for this one); the new season of “Dancing With the Stars” (Sept. 19); and Season 2 of “The Kardashians” (Sept. 22).

Alexis Haines (formerly Neiers) and Nicholas Prugo in “The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist (Sept. 21, Netflix)

I went into this docuseries expecting it to be a trashy waste of time but have to admit I found it fascinating. It tells the story of the teenagers who burgled the homes of celebrities like Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, Orlando Bloom, Rachel Bilson and Lindsay Lohan in 2008 and 2009, making away with millions of dollars in designer clothing, jewelry, cash and other items. As ringleader Nick Prugo tells it, he and best friend Rachel Lee started out robbing unlocked cars in rich L.A. neighbourhoods and got addicted to the lifestyle that the proceeds of their crimes funded. When they ran out of neighbourhoods to hit and, hence, money they moved on to bigger game: celebrities’ homes, using a website that listed stars’ addresses, Google Maps and gossip sites that reported on celebs’ every move to pick their targets. It’s astonishing how easy it was to gain access to the homes of the famous, whether through unlocked doors or open windows or, in the case of Hilton — whose home Prugo and Lee hit several times, “like our personal ATM” — a key left under a mat. Given that and the excess of stuff inside these houses it’s tempting to see the Bling Ring crimes as essentially victimless, but I can tell you from personal experience having your home burgled feels like a violation no matter who you are. Patridge and Lohan, for instance, were unable to live in their houses again after the burglaries and, in some cases, treasured family heirlooms were among the loot taken. Patridge recounts hiding in a closet, terrified, thinking the robbers were still in the house upon coming home to discover the burglary. Prugo and Alexis Neiers — who, despite being portrayed as a ringleader in the thefts, took part in only one robbery — claim to regret the crimes but seem to also want to blame burgeoning social media culture and its glorification of conspicuous consumption for their downfall. Ironically, one of the reasons they and their co-defendants got off with so little and, in some cases no, jail time was because a detective compromised himself by acting as a paid consultant on Sofia Coppola’s “Bling Ring” movie. It truly was, as deputy district attorney Christine Kee says, like “a fucked up L.A. Greek tragedy.”

Netflix also has the comedy special “Patton Oswalt: We All Scream” (Sept. 20); reality series “Designing Miami” (Sept. 21); “A Jazzman’s Blues” (Sept. 22), a rare foray into film drama by Tyler Perry; and “Thai Cave Rescue” (Sept. 22), a dramatization of the 2018 rescue of 12 soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave in Thailand.

From left, Jim Watson, Laurence Leboeuf, Hamza Haq and Ayisha Issa in Season 3 of “Transplant.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

Transplant (Sept. 23, 10 p.m., CTV/CTV.ca)

This Canadian medical drama doesn’t reinvent the wheel, aside from the fact that its lead doctor, Bashir Hamed (two-time Canadian Screen Award winner Hamza Haq), is a Syrian refugee who gets a second chance to practise medicine. But given the hold that medical shows continue to exert on audiences it doesn’t really have to. The main thing is that it has a talented cast, including Canadian Screen Award winner Laurence Leboeuf as Mags, Ayisha Issa as June and Jim Watson as Theo, who make us care about the characters. As Season 2 opens, Mags has transferred out of the ER to cardiology; June is still trying to figure out her path as a surgeon while grappling with having her half sister living in her home; and Theo is struggling with the after-effects of last season’s plane crash, which saw him spend nine (mainly unseen) days alone in the woods of Northern Ontario. And of course, there are medical cases of the week to keep the docs engaged. I suspect what a lot of viewers will want to know is what’s going on between Bash and Mags, but I’m not telling. You’ll have to watch.

Odds and Ends

If you’re a fan of a certain Canadian canine TV star, the good news is that there’ll be even more Rex (a.k.a. German shepherd Diesel vom Burgimwald) in the fifth season of “Hudson & Rex,” returning to Citytv Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. Rex’s humans will also return, including most notably detective Charlie Hudson (John Reardon) and forensic scientist Sarah Truong (Mayko Nguyen), and new cast member Bridget Wareham as a forensic pathologist.

Your best bet on Apple TV+ is “Sidney” (Sept. 23), the documentary about Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier produced by Oprah Winfrey and directed by Reginald Hudlin. It features the reflections of the rightfully celebrated man himself, who died in January at the age of 94.

I don’t usually talk up American sitcoms in this space, but I do when they’re funny, like Abbott Elementary. The mockumentary comedy about a group of public school teachers in Philadelphia begins its sophomore season (Sept. 21, 10 p.m., Global TV) coming off three Emmy wins, including Outstanding Writing for creator Quinta Brunson.

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.

Proposals for Rachel and Gabby look iffy on ‘The Bachelorette’

September 14, 2022 /
Host Jesse Palmer, Rachel Recchia and Gabby Windey on Part 1 of “The Bachelorette” finale.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Did ABC just get lucky or did they stack the cast of “The Bachelorette” with men who have no idea how the show works?

As the first of two interminable parts of the season finale ended, Rachel had broken up with both Zach and Aven, and there appeared to be trouble ahead with Tino, at least if the promo of Rachel saying, “You’re lying straight to my face” is anything to go by.

And Gabby’s last man standing, Erich, had just told her he was looking forward to “dating” her after the show was over.

It’s not like this is an unreasonable position to take in the real world, but “The Bachelorette” is not the real world. The expectation is that it ends in an engagement, which is why Rachel dumped Aven’s ass and why Gabby was in tears after Erich said he wasn’t ready to propose.

There is a valid debate to be had about whether the show’s format — and the ridiculous expectations it places on its participants — needs to be blown up, a topic I’ll leave for another post.

But Gabby and Rachel weren’t the only ones feeling like they’d been led on. We were promised a finale “so emotional, so dramatic and so controversial that it will have all of America stunned” and we have yet to see anything that justifies that hyperbole. Just because Jesse Palmer kept using the words “shocking” and “emotional” during the frequent — too frequent — segments with the live studio audience doesn’t make it so.

So here’s what did happen during the parts of the episode that were actually about the show and not Jesse asking Rachel and Gabby all kinds of time-wasting, obvious questions.

We rejoined Rachel’s rose ceremony from last week, where Zach had just asked her to step outside.

Zach reiterated what he’d already told Jesse about something being “off” with Rachel in the fantasy suite. And yes, something was off because Rachel wasn’t in love with Zach, although she didn’t use those exact words.

I gather Rachel got a lot of Twitter backlash over the situation on Tuesday night and I don’t intend to pile on. But I am a tad confused: Rachel had already told Gabby she wasn’t “there” with Zach but took him to fantasy suites anyway because she was “trying to find that missing piece.”

But if you’ve got two other men hanging around that you already know you’re more into, how is one overnight conversation going to change anything with the third guy?

In the SUV that carried him away from the Vidanta resort in the Maya Riviera, Zach tearfully questioned if Rachel’s feelings for him had been an act all along.

Rachel and Zach Shallcross bury the hatchet with Jesse watching.

He was more conciliatory when he and Rachel reunited onstage with Jesse, apologizing for making her feel like he was calling out her character. And she apologized to him, assuring him she really did care about him and it wasn’t an act.

Bottom line: we’re never going to know what was said between the two of them in that fantasy suite. Zach and Rachel hugged and made up, and wished each other well and we’ll have to settle for that.

Next up, we saw Rachel take Aven to meet her dad, Big Tony, her mom, Mary Anne, and her best friends Nate and Sam. And it seemed to be going great.

Rachel was glowing, in her mom’s words. Even Big Tony seemed mollified. And then Nate and Sam asked Aven the million-dollar question: Are you ready to get engaged? Not so much, it turned out.

I am not going to rehash the long painful conversations that Rachel and Aven had, first right after they left her family and then in his suite on their final date.

Once again, it was kind of confusing. Aven said he was ready to get engaged; he just wasn’t ready to do it in five days or whenever Proposal Day was. So then, you’re not really ready?

“I just want to make sure it’s 100 per cent right for both of us right now and at this moment in time,” Aven told Rachel.

Makes perfect sense in the real world. At that point, Aven wasn’t even “in” love with Rachel, just falling in love. The rub was that he apparently told Rachel in the fantasy suite that he was ready to get on one knee. Aven didn’t deny that, explaining that he “might have been caught up a little bit in some of it.”

What does that mean, Rachel asked and we wanted to know? Was it a case of telling the woman you’re about to have sex with what she wants to hear?

We still didn’t get a real answer when Jesse asked Aven during his live sitdown with Rachel what had changed. But Aven apologized and said he wished he’d told Rachel where he was at before sharing it with her friends. And what else can be said?

Yes, the breakup was emotional. Stunningly, controversially emotional? Nah, we’ve seen worse.

And besides, Rachel still had Tino, right? Right?

She didn’t exactly seem thrilled as she prepared to introduce Tino to her family, but she pasted a smile on her face and Tino, though obviously nervous as hell, was the epitome of the earnest suitor, assuring Big Tony, “I’m gonna make your daughter happy forever.”

If Tino got grilled by Sam and Nate we didn’t see it. But there are still several disconnects here. We went from Rachel’s restrained enthusiasm for Tino after the family visit to hearing her call him the man of her dreams in the promo for next week’s real finale — played over music that sounded like a leftover from the score for “The Exorcist” — to the two of them arguing, with Rachel calling him a liar and Tino exclaiming, “There’s no way this works out.”

How do we get from that to Rachel and Gabby in their proposal dresses on their proposal platforms waiting for Tino and Erich to, uh, propose?

Yes, about Erich, we saw him meet Gabby’s family, although the only thing worth noting about that encounter is that sweet, sweet Grandpa John, who called Erich “a keeper,” had another one of those heartfelt emotional encounters with Gabby that give us life as we slog our way to the end.

The trouble didn’t emerge until Erich’s final date with Gabby when, despite affirming that he loved Gabby and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, he also told her: “I want to date you in the real world. Having an engagement before that happens is not how things usually go.”

Well, no, of course not, but as I’ve already pointed out we’re not in the real world. You’d think that however many weeks of being stuck on a cruise ship with a bunch of other dudes who were all dating the same woman and having cameras recording his every interaction with Gabby would have impressed that on Erich.

Whatever Erich or Tino might think, Gabby and Rachel came into this mess with the lure of engagements at the end of it and, no matter how unrealistic that might seem to the men, that’s what they want and what the franchise demands.

There’s a reason some of the “Bachelorette” couples who have made it to matrimony were engaged for years after they left the show — six years for JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers. Sure they were technically engaged, but they took the time they needed to jell as couples before following up.

So fellas, suck it up, put a Neil Lane ring on it and work the rest of it out when the cameras are off.

We’ll find out next week whether that happens and whether the ending will indeed “leave all of Bachelor Nation speechless.” Colour me skeptical.

You can watch next Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Citytv and then, thankfully, this frustrating season will be over. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

Watchable on CBC Gem, Prime Video, StackTV Sept. 12-18, 2022

September 12, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Summit ’72 (Sept. 14, 8 p.m., CBC/CBC Gem)

The aftermath of Team Canada’s series-winning goal in 1972.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Hockey Hall of Fame

The death of Queen Elizabeth II last week inspired news articles dissecting the Canadian identity vis-a-vis the monarchy. For an examination of another traditional aspect of the Canadian identity there’s this docuseries about the eight-game “Summit Series” in September 1972 between the Soviet national hockey team and a Canadian team made up of NHL players.

If you know nothing about it or your memories are getting fuzzy, this four-part show revisits the series game by game, with plenty of interviews to fill in the context of what the contest meant to both the Canadians and the Russians. It was seen not just as a string of hockey games, but as a test of national pride and of capitalism vs. communism.

(The whole thing is definitely fuzzy to me. I have vague recollections, as a 10-year-old, of a TV being wheeled into the school gym and the eruption when Paul Henderson scored the winning goal in the final game.)

Episode 1 lays out the, as it turned out, unfounded arrogance on the Canadian side, the belief that hockey was a Canadian game and that our players were going to wipe the ice with the Soviets. Even the Russian players were intimidated at first, according to Soviet team member Boris Mikhailov, who recalls sweat running down his back as he and his teammates gathered on the blue line for the first game.

But despite the Canadians coming out “like hungry animals who hadn’t eaten in weeks,” according to Soviet goalie Vladislav Tretiak, the Russians stunned them — and much of the country — with a 7-3 victory in that game at the Montreal Forum on Sept. 2, 1972.

It turns out the Canadian players, who had spent much of training camp drinking and having fun, were ill-matched against the discipline of Soviet training and teamwork. Legendary hockey commentator Howie Meeker described them as “fat and lazy, physically and mentally.”

The Canucks knew they were in trouble, which I suppose just adds to the mythology of their victory in the final three games of the series.

Part of the fun of watching the TV series — at least the two episodes made available for review — is being reminded of what Canada looked like back then, as the games moved from Montreal to Toronto to Winnipeg to Vancouver. There’s even an old Labatt 50 commercial in the middle of the first episode. So odd to see those stubby brown beer bottles again.

And yes, the series does address the Canadian fans booing the Canadian players in Vancouver and Phil Esposito’s impassioned reaction to that. He’s among the Summit Series players interviewed, both Canadians and Russians, including Ken Dryden, Bob Clarke and lots more.

Canada has changed hugely since 1972. I’m not even certain hockey holds the same stranglehold on the national imagination that it did back then. But that doesn’t mean there’s no value in looking back to a time when the Summit Series gave millions of people something to cheer about.

CBC Gem has the standup series “Comedy Night With Rick Mercer” (Sept. 13, 9 p.m., also on CBC TV); “The History of Comedy” (Sept. 16), which explores the art form in archival footage and interviews with everyone from Carol Burnett to Jimmy Kimmel; Season 3 of family dramedy “Casual” (Sept. 14); and the documentary “Burnout: The Truth About Work” (Sept. 16), about the perils of overwork and what to do about it.

Short Takes

Anna Friel and Susan Sarandon in “Monarch.” PHOTO CREDIT: Fox © 2022 FoxMedia LLC.

Monarch (Sept. 14, 9 p.m., Global/StackTV)

“Monarch” is so soapy you can practically see the bubbles on your screen, which would be fine if it was also really good. But this drama about a feuding country music family promises more than it delivers. Let’s start with the first shortcoming, the much-vaunted starring role of Oscar winner Susan Sarandon as matriarch Dottie Roman who, for reasons I can’t get into, is really more of a guest star than a lead. It’s Dottie’s kids — “Queen of Country” heir apparent Nicky (Anna Friel), her sidelined sister Gigi (Beth Ditto) and business-savvy brother Luke (Joshua Sasse) — who are the real stars of the show, with real-life country singer Trace Adkins providing backup as their father, Albie. We’re supposed to believe that the Romans are the “monarchs” of the country music scene, although we have to take that on faith since there’s precious little in the way of back story. The actors certainly can sing (Ditto has a particularly appealing voice), but the concert scenes in the first three episodes (the only ones I watched) don’t make a convincing case for these folks being country superstars. As well, most of what they sing are covers of well-known songs with some originals sprinkled in. Friel and Ditto are very good, but these characters don’t exactly go deep. With hokey dialogue, heavy-handed musical cues and twists you can see coming a mile away, “Monarch” is a by-the-numbers tale of a lying, cheating, scheming family that supposedly will stop at nothing to stay on top, including murder, apparently. If you’re a country fan you might groove on cameos from stars like Tanya Tucker and Shania Twain, though.

Also under the Corus umbrella, Showcase has the new series “Tom Swift” (Sept. 13, 8 p.m.), about a rich chum of Nancy Drew’s; and W Network has “Vampire Academy” (Sept. 18, 9 p.m.) about two best friends at vampire school.

Elisabeth Moss as June in Season 5 of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” PHOTO CREDIT: Hulu

The Handmaid’s Tale (Sept. 14, Prime Video)

I don’t normally include shows in this section that I have not screened — and I did not get advance access to Season 5 of “The Handmaid’s Tale” — but it’s a show I will continue to watch to the end, even when it bothers me. And the end of Season 4 did bother me — spoiler alert if you’re not caught up — when June (Elisabeth Moss) and her fellow former handmaids savagely beat Commander Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) to death with the connivance of Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) and Nick (Max Minghella). I realize it’s just a TV show, but I’m still wrestling with my distaste for seeing June sink to the level of those who enslaved her while, at the same time, feeling like I should support the character’s need for revenge. In any event, that act of violence is obviously going to have repercussions this season for everyone involved, and will put the enmity between June and Serena (Yvonne Strahovski), the commander’s widow, centre stage. It looks like June and husband Luke (O-T Fagbenle) are even going back into Gilead.

Prime Video also has “The Grand Tour Presents: A Scandi Flick” (Sept. 16), in which Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May head to the Scandinavian Arctic Circle for Season 5 of the driving show.

A German policeman checks the IDs of Jewish people in the Krakow ghetto in Poland, circa 1941. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of National Archives in Krakow

The U.S. and the Holocaust (Sept. 18, 8 p.m., PBS)

This latest exhaustive documentary series from Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein examines the failure of the United States to aid more than a fraction of the Jewish refugees desperately trying to escape Hitler and the Holocaust before and during the Second World War. (Canada, for the record, did even worse than the U.S. or any other Western country, taking in just 5,000 Jewish refugees between 1933 and 1947, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.) The episode I watched (there are three of two hours apiece, with the others airing Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m.) painstakingly lays out the political and social situation in the U.S. and elsewhere, with the rise of the discredited theory of eugenics, positing that only people of supposedly superior gene pools should be allowed to breed, and anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment in the wake of the Great War and the Great Depression. It also traces the rise of Hitler in Germany, and his and his party’s stealthy and systematic demonization and dehumanization of Jewish people. If this all seems too far removed from the present to be bothered about, I urge you to go to a Holocaust museum someday and look at the photos of people killed in the Nazi death camps or the countless possessions they left behind. In fact, what struck me as most chilling about “The U.S. and the Holocaust” were the echoes of the political climate of the 1930s in the world of today, including the anti-immigration sentiment, the rise of anti-Semitism and other kinds of racial bigotry, and the fact that another madman is currently trying to expand his empire with an invasion of Ukraine, with limited interference from the rest of the world.

Odds and Ends

Julio Torres and Ana Fabrega in Season 2 of “Los Espookys.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Pablo Arellano Spataro/HBO

I have not yet got into the HBO comedy “Los Espookys,” which given what I’ve read about it seems like a failing on my part but, if you’re already a fan, Season 2 debuts Sept. 16 at 11 p.m. on HBO and Crave.

I will definitely be watching when Season 7 of “Shetland” debuts Sept. 13 on BritBox. It’s always a treat to see Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall) and his sidekick Tosh (Alison O’Donnell) solve crimes in the northernmost part of Scotland.

I’m behind on “Atlanta,” but Season 4, which is also the final season, debuts Sept. 15 at 10 p.m. on FX.

Netflix, as usual, has several offerings, including yet another true crime docuseries, “Sins of Our Mother” (Sept. 14), about a woman who is charged alongside her husband with killing two of her children; Season 2 of the YA series about a supernatural boarding school, “Fate: The Winx Saga” (Sept. 16); Season 2 of the reunion show “Love Is Blind: After the Altar” (Sept. 16); and the movie “Do Revenge” (Sept. 16), about teenagers fighting back against bullies.

NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified the times where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste. The Odds and Ends section includes shows that I have not watched.

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