Yes, I’m sorry, but I am a one-woman show here at realityeo.com, a one-woman show with a full-time job that isn’t about watching and writing about TV, which means I normally work five days a week at my real job and spend weekends toiling on the blog. And this past weekend, I wanted to have a weekend off, so I went to Stratford, Ont., and watched Shakespeare plays instead of watching and writing about TV. However, Watchable will resume next Monday, July 4. Have a great week!
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SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Umbrella Academy (June 22, Netflix)
in Season 3 of “The Umbrella Academy.” PHOTO CREDIT: Christos Kalohoridis/Netflix
One of the things I’ve always liked about “The Umbrella Academy” is that its stepsibling protagonists are more superhuman than superhero.
Sure, saving the world is pretty nifty, but it’s the human flaws and foibles in these six characters (seven including dead brother Ben, played by Justin H. Min) that have kept me watching. So the good news is that, despite being embroiled in yet another apocalyptic scenario in Season 3, the brothers and one sister of “The Umbrella Academy” (more on that later) are still very much a screwed-up family of misfits who happen to have superpowers.
In fact, this season ramps up the emotional stakes for our characters who, as the episodes begin, are just back from their near-death experience in 1963 and missing the people they left behind in that timeline. And, as we saw in the Season 2 finale, their home is no longer their home and Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) is no longer their father, having adopted a different group of seven superpowered children named the Sparrow Academy.
Unfortunately, the Sparrows aren’t there to do much more than be antagonists to the Umbrellas for the first few episodes — the season opener includes both an entertaining dance-off and an epic fight in which the Umbrellas get their asses handed to them — and to bring back Ben.
Aside from Ben and sister Sloane (Genesis Rodriguez), the six Sparrow brothers and sisters, and one cube, are mostly presented as personality-free villains. While the Umbrellas’ ghost version of Ben finally passed on to the afterlife in Season 2, the Sparrows’ Ben is very much alive but a real asshole.
Speaking of assholes, Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) undergoes a character transformation I really didn’t like. After leaving her beloved husband Ray (Yusuf Gatewood) in the 1960s, Allison learns that the daughter for whom she returned to the present is no longer part of her timeline. Her grief turns her into a gratuitously violent monster who focuses most of her rage on her brother Viktor, formerly her sister Vanya.
Yes, “The Umbrella Academy” acknowledges the coming out of Canadian actor Elliot Page as a transgender man by having Viktor undergo his own transition into his true self, which is handled with class and grace.
Viktor’s story arc is one of the most satisfying things about the new season as the angry, abused sibling of seasons past becomes a force for good, trying to make amends for the lives he’s taken.
The other star of the season is Tom Hopper, who displays a radiant sweetness and deep humanity as his character, Luther, finds love.
Diego (David Castaneda) reunites with Lila (Ritu Arya), who brings a visitor from her time travels, a kid named Stan (Javon “Wanna” Walton); Klaus (Robert Sheehan) manages to bond with Reginald, although it involves a typically abusive manipulation on Reggie’s part; Number Five (Aidan Gallagher) is as amusing as always as he wearily tries to save the world all over again.
It seems the Umbrella Academy has triggered something called the “Grandfather Paradox” and there’s a menacing ball of light called a Kugelblitz in the basement of the academy that is dissolving the world piece by piece.
There’s also a secret mission that Reggie is bent on fulfilling, called Oblivion, one that caused him to part ways in the Sparrow timeline with his chimpanzee assistant Pogo (Adam Godley), whom Five tracks down.
There’s also a callback to Harlan, the kid that Viktor accidentally imbued with superpowers in Season 2, that plays into Viktor’s reclamation, Allison’s villainization and the world-threatening time paradox.
It’s a rollicking sometimes silly season with the standard blend of quirky comedy, darkness (and this season, it sometimes goes really dark) and a killer soundtrack.
For me, the show is always at its best when the Umbrella Academy gets to be a family, which it does in some cathartic ways here, but they never get to stay a family for long. So, after a frenetic finale involving an evil plan of Reggie’s, the timeline is reset — Season 4 has reportedly already got a green light — and it seems as though the stepsiblings will scatter once again.
Netflix has a lot of other stuff debuting this week, including the made-in-Toronto film “The Man From Toronto” (June 24), starring Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson, and the docuseries “The Future Of” (June 21), a look at technological innovations that could change human life, while “Money Heist” fans will want to check out the spinoff “Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area” on June 24.
Short Takes
Being BeBe (June 21, OUTtv.com; June 22, 9 p.m., OUTtv)
It’s easy to get swept up in the glamorous artifice of drag and forget that it’s a hard, and not always lucrative, way to make a living. The documentary “Being BeBe,” which highlights 15 years in the life of drag artist BeBe Zahara Benet, is clear-eyed about this reality. It show’s BeBe’s successes — winning the first “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in 2009, creating her show “Creature” in 2012, doing “Drag Race All Stars” in 2018, touring “Nubia” in 2020 with other Black “Drag Race” alumni — but also the low points, like having to move back to Minneapolis from Brooklyn when the stage show “Reveal” fails to make money. Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the lowest as it left BeBe, real name Marshall Ngwa, unemployed just when he was expecting a breakout year career-wise. But Ngwa, interviewed by friend and filmmaker Emily Branham, is philosophical about the setback: he has had to hustle before to make a living; he will do so again. He also has the advantage of a loving, supportive family, not something to be taken for granted coming from Cameroon in Central Africa. Branham juxtaposes footage of BeBe, who refuses to categorize his sexuality, with interviews with young queer men and women still living in Cameroon, shunned by their families and at risk of violence, even murder, in a country in which homosexuality is prohibited by law and even ordering the wrong drink can result in a jail sentence. In that context, that BeBe can choose to make a career out of drag is a triumph apart from any financial and artistic rewards. “Drag Race” has gone some way to humanizing drag artists for the viewing public; “Being BeBe” gives us a more intimate look at one of its stars.
PHOTO CREDIT: Alyssa Moran/Peacock
Queer as Folk (June 26, 9 p.m., Showcase/StackTV)
How do you reimagine “Queer as Folk,” the groundbreaking, sexually frank 1999 TV series about a group of gay men in Manchester? If you’re Canadian creator Stephen Dunn, you move it to vibrant New Orleans, expand its gaze to include non-white, transgender, non-binary and disabled characters, make the sex even more in your face and have your characters transformed by a tragedy. It’s no spoiler to say that the first episode of the new series includes a nightclub shooting inspired by the real-life slaughter at the Pulse bar in Orlando, Florida, in which 49 people died. The body count is mercifully lower in the show, which to its credit doesn’t dwell on the violence but on how its characters process it. And if you think that means just anger and sadness, think again. Lead character Brodie (Devin Way), for instance, decides the best way to honour a dead friend is to throw a big-ass party, turning ex-boyfriend Noah’s (Johnny Sibilly) spacious home into a makeshift nightclub he names Ghost Fag. Other key characters include Mingus (Fin Argus), a high school student and aspiring drag queen; Devin’s brother Julian (Ryan O’Connell), who has cerebral palsy; and his best friend Ruthie (Jesse James Keitel), a trans woman who’s just become a parent with her non-binary partner Shar (CG). Eric Graise adds snarky wit as Marvin, a bilateral amputee in a wheelchair; Armand Fields is wise drag mama Bussy; and ringers Kim Cattrall and Juliette Lewis play Brodie’s adoptive mother, Brenda, and Mingus’s mother, Judy. Yes, that’s a lot of characters, all with very distinctive arcs, and the show can be messy as it shifts from storyline to storyline, but these characters also really grow on you, at least in the four episodes I viewed. They can be selfish and self-defeating at times, but they represent a spectrum of queerness that’s so much more expansive than this series’ predecessor.
Odds and Ends
A couple of British detective series that I have personally enjoyed are back with new seasons. Season 3 of “Hidden” (June 20, Acorn) sees Welsh detectives Cadi John (Sian-Reese Williams) and Owen Vaughan (Sion Alun Davies) investigating two brothers after a body is found in a river. On BritBox, “Grace” returns for a second season on June 21, with Roy Grace (John Simm) and Glenn Branson (Richie Campbell) investigating several different murders from their home base of Brighton.
Apple TV+ has the comedy “Loot” (June 24), starring Maya Rudolph as a spurned wife who decides to try to use her billions for good.
Prime Video has “Chloe” (June 24), about a young woman’s obsession with a former friend she stalks on Instagram.
HBO and Crave have the true crime series “Mind Over Murder” (June 20, 10 p.m.) about six people convicted of killing a grandmother in Beatrice, Nebraska, in 1985 and later exonerated by DNA evidence.
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.
SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Old Man (June 16, 10 p.m., FX)
By all means, watch “The Old Man” to see a couple of esteemed senior actors who are still masters of their craft, but if you’re looking for a fresh take on the spy/action drama you won’t find it here.
Much of the enjoyment comes from seeing Jeff Bridges transform in the first episode from a crotchety widower who can’t sleep through the night without having to pee several times into a fugitive ex-CIA agent who can still engage in hand-to-hand combat with men many decades younger.
The other big star is John Lithgow as FBI boss Harold Harper. He’s helping hunt down former colleague Dan Chase (Bridges) after the latter kills an agent who tracked him to his Vermont home and goes rogue, although Harper has his own reasons for hoping Chase never gets found.
Why are the FBI and the CIA suddenly so interested in Chase? It has to do with an Afghan warlord named Faraz Hamzad who was betrayed by Chase three decades earlier, when Chase was in Afghanistan helping Faraz fight Soviet invaders, against the orders of his CIA superiors.
Why Chase was so interested in helping this particular warlord rout the Soviets to the detriment of his career is pretty murky. It’s also unclear why American intelligence services would be so keen on helping Hamzad enact revenge against a U.S. citizen and former colleague, at least in the four episodes made available for review.
Also along for the ride are Amy Brenneman as a love interest for Dan, who gets drawn into his flight from the feds on a rather flimsy pretext, and Alia Shawkat as an FBI protege of Harold’s. Israeli actors Hiam Abbass and Leem Lubany play older and younger versions of Dan’s beloved wife, Abbey, who dies of Huntington’s disease five years before the series begins.
But it’s the male characters who are very much driving the plot, with a concomitant body count. Apparently the only solutions available to Dan and his pursuers are violent ones.
The series, based on the novel by Thomas Perry, seems to want to say weighty things about the differences between heroes and villains, as evidenced by the speechifying dialogue, but characters’ motivations are not overly clear or nuanced.
There are some strenuous fight scenes — if Bridges shot any of those after he returned to set from battling both cancer and COVID-19, then wow — and each episode offers up a big twist, although I suspect you’ll see most if not all of them coming.
It’s a shame that Bridges, 72, and Lithgow, 76, don’t get to share scenes beyond a phone call in the first four episodes, although future episodes will feature at least one face-to-face meeting.
Overall, “The Old Man” is lesser than the sum of its parts, but Bridges and Lithgow are pretty terrific as two of those parts.
Short Takes
The Lake (June 17, Prime Video)
I only had time to screen one episode of this Amazon Canadian original, but I found it amusing and charming. It stars Jordan Gavaris (“Orphan Black”) as Justin, a gay man spending the summer with Billie (Madison Shamoun), the daughter he gave up for adoption after high school. He rents a cottage on the lake where his family spent all their summers before he had a falling out with his dad and left for Australia. To add to the awkward stew of painful memories, Billie not wanting to be there and Justin getting a crash course in parenting a teenager, he learns that the family cottage wasn’t sold as he believed but rather willed to his stepsister Maisy-May (Julia Stiles) by his father. So Justin starts scheming to get it back. The Northern Ontario-shot series also stars Terry Chen (“The Expanse,” “Jessica Jones”) as Maisy-May’s husband, Victor, and Jared Scott as their son, Killian.
Prime Video also has “The Summer I Turned Pretty” (June 17), a coming-of-age series from “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” author Jenny Han.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Eagle Eye Drama
Hotel Portofino (June 19, 8 p.m., PBS/PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel)
The latest Masterpiece period drama takes us to the Italian Riviera in 1926 where
English expat Bella Ainsworth (Natascha McElhone, “Californication,” “Designated Survivor”) is running a charming hotel that caters mostly to other Brits, alongside her widowed daughter Alice (Olivia Morris) and spendthrift husband Cecil (Mark Umbers). The guests include demanding matriarch Lady Latchmere (the always wonderful Anna Chancellor) and her niece Melissa (Imogen King); Italian Count Albani (Daniele Pecci) and his son Roberto (Lorenzo Richelmy); American art dealer Jack Turner (Adam James) and his “wife” Claudine (Lily Frazer); medical student Anish Sangupta (Assad Zaman), who saved the life of Bella’s still traumatized son Lucian (Oliver Dench) in the First World War; faltering tennis pro Pelham Wingfield (Dominic Tighe) and his unhappy wife Lizzie (Bethane Cullinane); and snobby Julia Drummond-Ward (Lucy Akhurst), who’s there to marry her wallflower daughter Rose (Claude Scott-Mitchell) off to Lucian. I doubt it’s a spoiler to say there are romantic complications, particularly after new employee Constance (Louisa Binder) arrives from the north of England, but there are also political ones, with local Fascists ready to do violence to anyone who doesn’t support Mussolini and corrupt police supervisor Danioni (Pasquale Esposito) looking to line his pockets at Bella’s expense. Throw in art theft, marital discord, illicit liaisons both gay and straight, and there’s a little drama to liven up the beach excursions and glasses of Limoncello on the terrace. The setting is breathtakingly beautiful (although it was mainly shot in Croatia rather than Italy) and the characters, although not deeply sketched, grew beyond mere types in the four episodes I watched. In short, I’d recommend checking in.
Also, I’m thrilled to report that Season 8 of “Endeavour,” the prequel to beloved detective drama “Inspector Morse,” is finally here, debuting June 19 at 9 p.m. on PBS.
Odds and Ends
With apologies, it’s a light week for the Watchable list. I was on vacation last week and out of town so I did very little screening and some of what I wanted to watch wasn’t available, including the second season of musical comedy “Girls5eva” (June 16, 9 p.m., W Network/StackTV).
This week’s Netflix offerings include the anthology series “Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies and the Internet” (June 15), about the ways in which technology and crime intersect; the series “God’s Favorite Idiot” (June 15), in which creator Ben Falcone stars as a tech support worker who becomes a divine messenger, with Melissa McCarthy as his girlfriend; reality series “Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend” (June 15); and the movie “Spiderhead” (June 17), starring Miles Teller and Chris Hemsworth.
Disney+ has Season 3 of the series “Love, Victor” (June 15), with gay teen Victor (Michael Cimino) sorting out his relationship issues and what he wants to do after high school.
Apple TV+ offers the film “Cha Cha Real Smooth” (June 17), which stars creator Cooper Raiff as a bar mitzvah host who strikes up a friendship with a mother (Dakota Johnson) and her autistic daughter (Vanessa Burghardt).
Finally, CTV Comedy Channel has Season 2 of the comedy series “Roast Battle Canada” (June 13, 10:30 p.m.) with judges Russell Peters, K. Trevor Wilson and Sabrina Jalees, and host Ennis Esmer.
SHOW OF THE WEEK: Under the Banner of Heaven (June 8, Disney+)
in “Under the Banner of Heaven.” PHOTO CREDIT: Michelle Faye/FX.
The bloody murder of a young woman and her 15-month-old daughter would be horrific in any context, but this miniseries is particularly chilling in its depiction of religious men turned fundamentalist zealots and killers.
“Under the Banner of Heaven” is based on the book of the same name by Jon Krakauer about the real-life 1984 murders of Brenda Lafferty, wife of the youngest brother in a prominent Salt Lake City Mormon family, and her daughter Erica. But it’s more than just a crime procedural — and a particularly gripping one at that — it’s also about the sexism inherent in the Mormon faith (and pretty much every other organized religion); a suppressed history of violence in the early days of Mormonism; a loss of faith, as personified by the show’s fictional lead detective; and the fracturing of a family.
It was created by Dustin Lance Black (“Milk,” “Big Love,” “When We Rise”), who is himself a lapsed Mormon.
When Brenda and Erica are found dead inside their home, suspicion immediately falls on husband Allen (Billy Howle), but Mormon detective Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield) and his Native American partner Bill Taba (Gil Birmingham) follow the evidence to a more insidious conclusion: that Brenda was targeted for running afoul of two of Allen’s brothers and their newly fundamentalist beliefs.
At the same time, Jeb is urged by Allen to probe the untold history of their faith — in particular, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, when more than 100 members of a wagon train were slaughtered by Mormon settlers in southern Utah, who tried to blame the attack on Paiute tribesmen — which has Jeb questioning whether the founders of the religion on which his entire life has been built were following God or their own selfish desires.
The show has an embarrassment of riches in its cast, including Wyatt Russell and Sam Worthington as brothers Dan and Ron Lafferty. Russell is especially effective as Dan, who becomes increasingly unhinged as he progresses from tax scofflaw to a believer in a literal interpretation of original Mormon texts, to the point that he wants to “marry” his two teenage stepdaughters. Ron, meanwhile, goes from successful entrepreneur and local politician to someone who believes he’s a conduit for revelations that come directly from God.
Fortunately, Brenda, played by the always excellent Daisy Edgar-Jones, gets to be more than just a murder victim in the series. She’s portrayed as a loving, intelligent woman who believes in her church but is unwilling to blindly follow its more repressive patriarchal strictures.
You’ll also notice some Canadian actors in the cast, not surprising since the show was shot in Calgary, including Christopher Heyerdahl as the Lafferty family patriarch. Stratford Festival veterans Tom Rooney, Graham Abbey and Evan Buliung also appear, the first two as Mormon bishops, the latter as historical figure Major John D. Lee.
People often use the word “evil” when describing particularly heinous crimes, which plays into the idea of people’s lives being dictated by forces outside themselves. In “Under the Banner of Heaven,” the worst acts, even those committed in the name of a warped idea of God, are all too human.
Disney+ also has the new series “Ms. Marvel” (June 8), starring Canadian actor Iman Vellani as TV’s first Muslim superhero. I didn’t get to screen this one, but everybody and their brother is going to be writing about it, so you probably won’t miss my take.
Short Takes
For All Mankind (June 10, Apple TV+)
The question going into Season 3 of space drama “For All Mankind” was whether the series could keep up the momentum established by its superior second season and excellent season finale (if you watched it, spoiler alert, I bet you can still conjure up an image of Gordo and Tracy running across the surface of the moon wrapped in duct tape). Based on the three episodes I’ve screened so far, it’s off to a good start, beginning with a season premiere whose ending will have you on the edge of your seat. The series began in 1969 with the Soviets beating the Americans to the moon. Season 3 opens in the early ’90s, with both the U.S. and Russia planning missions to Mars in 1996. When a third player, a private company led by Kenyan-American visionary Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi), announces it’s heading to Mars in ’94, NASA and the Russian space agency scramble to move up their timelines. The three-way race also brings plenty of interpersonal complications. Astronauts Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) and Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) are competing to head NASA’s mission; Ed’s ex-wife Karen (Shantel VanSanten) has joined Dev’s Helios after an aborted foray into space tourism; Johnson Space Centre director Margo (Wrenn Schmidt) is still butting heads with former astronaut Molly Cobb (Sonya Walger), who’s in charge of choosing the Mars mission commander; Gordo’s and Tracy’s son Danny (Casey W. Johnson) and Ed’s and Karen’s adopted daughter Kelly (Cynthy Wu) are also in the mix as Mars crew members. And Margo’s long-distance flirtation with Soviet engineer Sergei (Piotr Adamczyk) brings complications of its own. As always with this series, there are many threads to follow but, with all three missions to Mars lifting off by the end of Episode 3, there’s a promise of lots of juicy, action-packed drama to come.
Dark Winds (June 12, 9 p.m., AMC/AMC+)
You’re sure to have seen Zahn McClarnon’s face before, whether in “Fargo,” “Westworld,” even “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” but here he’s the star of the show as Navajo police lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. And he gets this adaptation of the Tony Hillerman “Leaphorn & Chee” books — which I sincerely hope is just the first of several seasons to come — off to a great start. The Lakota and Irish American actor is paired with Hualapai actor Kiowa Gordon as Jim Chee, while Edmonton-born Jessica Matten, who’s of Metis-Cree descent, makes a welcome third lead as fellow officer Bernadette Manuelito. The six-episode series is mostly set on Navajo land in New Mexico, which is almost a character in its own right. It’s 1971 and Chee has been parachuted in as Leaphorn’s new deputy. Leaphorn is out to solve the murder of two Dine people, an old man and a 19-year-old girl, but it’s not a priority for the white FBI agent (Noah Emmerich) who’s taken over the file and is more interested in a bank heist that took place in the nearby city of Gallup. The twists and turns of the criminal investigation — and trust me, it’s plenty twisty — are interwoven with glimpses of Indigenous traditions and superstitions; of Joe’s family life; of Chee’s and Manuelito’s painful pasts; of the racism that colonialism has made a fact of life for Indigenous populations the world over. The series, which was created by Chickasaw producer Graham Roland and had a mostly Indigenous cast, crew and creative team, has Robert Redford and George R.R. Martin as executive producers. But it’s the relatability and chemistry of the characters that leaves you wanting more.
Odds and Ends
We are big “Peaky Blinders” fans in my household so I’m particularly keen to see the sixth and final season of the period gangster drama, which comes to Netflix June 10, and would have made time for it had screeners been available. I have avoided all spoilers coming out of the U.K., where it already aired, but it’s a safe bet the Shelby family will go out with a violent bang. Sadly, Helen McCrory, who masterfully played Aunt Polly Gray and died last year of cancer, was unable to shoot the final episodes.
So much TV, too little time to take it all in and that means I didn’t get to screen the series “Irma Vep” (June 6, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave), which stars Alicia Vikander as an American actor who comes to Paris to star in a remake of the French silent film classic “Les Vampires.” HBO also has a documentary that sounds interesting, “The Janes” (June 8, 9 p.m.), about an underground network of women who helped to provide access to abortions in Chicago before the now threatened Roe vs. Wade ruling that legalized abortion in the U.S. And on June 12 at 10 p.m., the latest attempt to make history young and sexy debuts on Starz/Crave with “Becoming Elizabeth,” about the teenage years of Queen Elizabeth I (Alicia von Rittberg).
Netflix has lots of comedy specials this week, including “Bill Burr Presents: Friends Who Kill” (June 6); the series “That’s My Time With David Letterman” (June 7); “Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration” (June 9); “Dirty Daddy: The Bob Saget Tribute” (June 10); and “Amy Schumer’s Parental Advisory” (June 11). And seeing as I was talking about Mormon fundamentalism earlier, there’s also a documentary about Warren Jeffs, president of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey” (June 8).
Speaking of comedy, Prime Video has “Backstage With Katherine Ryan” (June 9), in which the Canadian-Irish comedian offers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a comedy special.
CBC Gem has the Icelandic serial killer drama “Black Sands” (June 10); “Check It” (June 10), an American documentary about bullied gay and transgender youth who formed their own criminal gang; and “Small Town Pride” (June 10), another doc, this one about the challenges of being queer in a small town, which follows subjects in Alberta, Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories as they prepare for Pride celebrations.
Finally, Hollywood Suite has the German miniseries “Faking Hitler” (June 9, 9 p.m.), about the 1980s scandal involving the publication by Stern magazine of diaries purported to have been written by Adolf Hitler.
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.
SHOW OF THE WEEK: Pistol (May 31, Disney+)
and Jacob Slater as Paul Cook in “Pistol.” PHOTO CREDIT: Rebecca Brenneman/FX
How you feel about the Sex Pistols probably depends to some extent on how old you were when the U.K. punks burst onto the music scene. I was 15 when they released the single “God Save the Queen” and, while I didn’t fully grasp the anti-establishment roots of the music, I appreciated the safety pin-adorned punk rock style, just the thing to allow a good Catholic girl to flirt with non-conformity.
This miniseries based on guitarist Steve Jones’ memoir “Lonely Boy: Tales of a Sex Pistol” takes us to the band’s roots at the forefront of a musical revolution. And dare I say, although it doesn’t shy away from Jones’ own troubled history or the band’s notorious ending tainted by drugs and death, it also makes those early days of punk seem like a helluva lot of fun.
Jones (Toby Wallace) is our way into the show, although all the band members get screen time, as does manager Malcolm McLaren (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), his partner, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood (Talulah Riley), and a young Chrissie Hynde (Sydney Chandler), Jones’ sometime romantic interest.
The top-notch cast also includes Anson Boon (“1917”), who’s particularly compelling as Johnny Rotten, Jacob Slater as drummer Paul Cook, Christian Lees as original bassist Glen Matlock, who was replaced by the doomed Sid Vicious (Louis Partridge), Emma Appleton as Nancy Spungen and Maisie Williams of “Game of Thrones” as punk fashion icon Jordan (the real Jordan, a.k.a. Pamela Rooke, died in April).
(There’s a particularly entertaining scene in which Jordan, on her way to her job at McLaren’s and Westwood’s Sex boutique, commutes wearing a see-through coat and no bra, completely unconcerned by the outraged glares of the women and lascivious stares of the men on the train.)
Creator Craig Pearce (“Moulin Rouge!” and the upcoming “Elvis”) and director Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting” and Oscar winner “Slumdog Millionaire”) attempt to ground the story of the band in the unrest of the times, so episodes are sprinkled with real footage of Britain in the 1970s, contrasting the monarchy and bowler-hatted toffs with the blue collar masses.
When Jones, Cook, Matlock and guitarist Wally Nightingale (Dylan Llewellyn of “Derry Girls”) are trying to decide on a look for their pre-Pistols band, the Swankers, Cook says they should dress like what they are: “four broke working class kids who can’t play for shit.”
We first meet Jones stealing equipment from a David Bowie gig at the Hammersmith Odeon (in real life, he reportedly stole it from a truck behind the venue, not the actual stage). A chronic thief, homeless, nearly illiterate, scarred by the verbal and sexual abuse of his stepfather, in the estimation of the manipulative McLaren, Jones has nothing to live for but his band.
McLaren sets about shaping the group, which is renamed the Sex Pistols, to fulfil his and Westwood’s dream of fomenting a revolution against the class-based stodginess of British society. So Nightingale is out and McLaren recruits live wire John Lydon, nicknamed Johnny Rotten for his bad teeth, to sing. As the series tells it, McLaren later pressures Jones to fire Matlock so he can bring in Lydon’s friend John Ritchie, nicknamed Sid Vicious after a nasty hamster. He can’t play, but he has the right punk rock look and a tendency toward self-destruction.
If you’re at all familiar with the Sex Pistols, you’ll be familiar with the band’s arc, including the infamy of their profanity-laced interview on “The Grundy Show”; being dropped by two record labels; the banning of No. 1 single “God Save the Queen” in the U.K.; the boat cruise/concert on the Thames that ended with Malcolm and Vivienne and others getting arrested; the disastrous U.S. tour that led to the band’s breakup; the subsequent filming of McLaren’s vanity project “The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle”; the arrest of Vicious for the murder of his girlfriend, Spungen, and his subsequent death by heroin overdose.
The sadness of Sid’s and Nancy’s deaths notwithstanding, the tragic bits aren’t what stuck with me after watching all six episodes; it was the initial excitement of the music.
Thank goodness Lydon wasn’t successful in his bid to prohibit “Pistol” from using the band’s songs. The young cast do their own playing and singing, and Doyle shot performances in one take, which brings fresh energy to tracks like “Bodies,” “God Save the Queen” and “Anarchy in the U.K.”
“Pistol” isn’t flawless. Boyle’s hyperkinetic directing style can be distracting. And one suspects the real punk scene was a lot messier, more sharp-edged and less attractive than what comes across onscreen.
With Jones as lead character, we learn little about the more famous members of the group, Rotten and Vicious, let alone Cook, Matlock and poor Wally Nightingale, who was more influential in the pre-Pistol days than the show lets on.
Each episode starts with a disclaimer that it’s “inspired” by true events so it’s clearly an approximation, a bit like me putting on fake leather and safety pins in high school.
And Boyle and Pearce give the story an unlikely happy ending of sorts, with Jones and Lydon burying the hatchet after Sid’s death, and a flashback to a feel-good Christmas Day benefit concert the band played for the children of striking firefighters in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
But all that being said, it’s still an entertaining look back at a band that continues to be influential despite lasting for just two and a half years.
Short Takes
Angelyne (June 1, 9 p.m., Showcase/StackTV)
Who is Angelyne? That’s the question posed in this Peacock miniseries about a real Hollywood legend, a blond, one-named bombshell who essentially became famous for being famous. Angelyne’s path to notoriety came through the provocative billboards of her that appeared all over Los Angeles in the 1980s and ’90s. There were several albums; film, TV and music video appearances; a foray into art via self-portraits; sales of merchandise and tours; even a run for California governor. Now in her 70s, she can apparently still be seen driving around town in one of her pink Corvettes. But who is the woman behind the blond hair, tight dresses and Barbie doll figure, which star and executive producer Emmy Rossum endured hours in the makeup chair to portray? This five-part series doesn’t give us any answers beyond facts already revealed in a 2017 Hollywood Reporter article: a Polish-born child of Holocaust survivors who cut ties with her past when she reinvented herself. The miniseries presents fictionalized versions of influential people in her life: her ex-husband (Michael Angarano), her fan club manager (Hamish Linklater), her boyfriend from the punk band Baby Blue (Philip Ettinger), the entrepreneur who financed her first billboards (Martin Freeman), the reporter who revealed her story (Alex Karpovsky), the student who tried to make a documentary about her (Lukas Gage). It’s an impressive roster of talent, led by Rossum, who disappears into the role, but it doesn’t get us any closer to the why of Angelyne. Given the preference of the real woman to remain a mystery — she told the Guardian newspaper in an interview she’s an alien “sitting on top of a pink cloud, sending inspiration to the world” — that probably suits her just fine. But it keeps the series from being elucidating as well as entertaining.
Odds and Ends
PHOTO CREDIT: Eddy Chen/Netflix
The title of Norm Macdonald’s posthumous comedy special, “Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special” (May 30), is of course a complete misnomer. Getting a last hour of standup from the beloved Canadian comedian, who died last September of cancer at the age of 61, is extremely special. Like his illness, Macdonald kept the program, filmed in his living room during the pandemic, a secret. And we will all discover what it contains together since screeners weren’t made available beforehand, but his producing partner told the Hollywood Reporter the material is fantastic. The Netflix show also includes tributes from other comedians filmed during the Netflix Is a Joke festival.
CBC Gem has a couple of imports for you to check out: Australian comedy “Preppers” (June 1), about an Aboriginal woman who joins a community of people prepping for the apocalypse; and Irish dramedy “The Dry” (June 3), about a woman whose newfound sobriety is tested when she moves back to Dublin.
I’m sorry, fans of “The Boys,” which returns to Prime Video for its third season June 3, but I didn’t watch the screeners on purpose because I just don’t love the show, despite the fact it’s made in Toronto. But for those of you who do, enjoy. Butcher (Karl Urban) and Hughie (Jack Quaid) are reportedly going to get up to more mayhem after they learn about an anti-superhero weapon and start a war.
Apple TV has Season 2 of “Physical” (June 3), which sees aerobics instructor hero Sheila (Rose Byrne) struggling to expand her fitness empire.
If you enjoyed the HBO Max series “Julia” — and I certainly did — you might want to check out CNN’s documentary, also called “Julia” (May 30, 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.), about celebrity chef Julia Child. It repeats June 4 at 9 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.
This post has been edited to add additional thoughts I had after a second watch of “Pistol.”
SHOW OF THE WEEK: Stranger Things (May 27, Netflix)
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix © 2022
What do you do when your mega-hit of a show is coming back almost three years after it was last seen, to towering expectations? You give the fans more, a lot more.
I don’t mean just the supersized episodes in Season 4 of “Stranger Things” (the season finale reportedly clocks in at two and a half hours) but the breadth of the content in the seven episodes I’ve seen so far.
It’s not just about what’s going on in haunted Hawkins, Indiana, where Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) are navigating high school. The series also takes us to California, where Joyce (Winona Ryder), Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) moved at the end of Season 3; to Russia, where former police chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) is being held prisoner; to the Upside Down, where a creepy humanoid monster named Vecna holds sway; even to Salt Lake City, where Dustin’s hacker girlfriend Suzie lives; and to other locations I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you about.
It’s March 1986 and a new creature is stalking the troubled teenagers of Hawkins, meaning the town is still endangered despite the defeat of the Mind Flayer at the Starcourt Mall eight months before.
The Duffer Brothers give us classic horror references here, sometimes dark and graphic ones. There’s even a haunted house and Freddie Krueger himself, Robert Englund, appears as the former homeowner, accused of murdering his family. But the scenes in which aspiring journalist Nancy (Natalia Dyer) visits him in an asylum are all “Silence of the Lambs.”
Plus all the kids are wrestling with adolescence — shades of 1980s high school movies.
Couples Mike and El, and Nancy and Jonathan are trying to keep the spark alive thousands of miles apart; Lucas and Max (Sadie Sink) have broken up and Max is in denial about the after-effects of seeing stepbrother Billy die in front of her; besties Steve (Joe Keery) and Robin (Maya Hawke) are still searching for girlfriends and keeping us entertained with their banter. And friendships are being strained: Will feels abandoned by Mike, and Lucas has chosen the high school athlete path to popularity while Mike and Dustin stay firmly in the nerd camp.
But El has it worst of all.
Stripped of her psychic abilities, still mourning her adoptive father Hopper and missing Mike, she’s preyed upon by bullies at her new high school. And once again, with her friends in Hawkins at risk, she’s asked to make tremendous personal sacrifices for the greater good.
It’s no spoiler to say that the Hawkins National Laboratories are back in play in flashback, particularly a 1979 massacre that killed all the children in Dr. Brenner’s (Matthew Modine) experimental group except Eleven, and which holds great significance to this season’s mysteries.
And I haven’t even touched on Hopper’s attempts to escape from his Russian prison with the help of a guard named Antonov (Tom Wlaschiha of “Game of Thrones”); the government agents who are hunting El; the “satanic panic” that grips Hawkins, directed at the Hellfire Club, Mike’s and Dustin’s Dungeons & Dragons team; the fact that ex-journalist Murray (Brett Gelman) teams up with Joyce when she learns that Hopper might still be alive; or any of the new characters.
British actor Joseph Quinn (“Dickensian”) joins the cast as Eddie, charismatic metalhead and leader of the Hellfire Club, and Eduardo Franco (“American Vandal”) is Jonathan’s stoner friend Argyle. Fan favourite Erica (Priah Ferguson), Lucas’s witheringly smart sister, is back as a season regular. And fans of the late, lamented “Anne With an E” will be pleased to see Amybeth McNulty in a small part as Robin’s crush, Vickie.
Sure, it’s a lot, but it’s entertaining as hell. And when the kids are working together to keep each other safe, you’ll likely feel some of those Season 1 thrills. I plan to rewatch all seven episodes and look forward to the last two of the season when they arrive July 1.
Short Takes
PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV+
Prehistoric Planet (May 23, Apple TV+)
What do you get when you combine the latest scientific research in paleontology with state-of-the-art CGI? A fascinating look at creatures that have commanded our imaginations for centuries. “Prehistoric Planet,” produced by BBC Studios, is described as a docuseries, but it’s more like a fantasy nature show. MPC, the company that did the photorealistic critters for movies “The Lion King” and “The Jungle Book,” gives us dinosaurs that look as startlingly life-like as the animals you’d see in any other nature documentary, except they haven’t roamed the Earth for 66 million years. As in regular nature docs, you’ll see dinosaurs hunting, mating, fighting, tending their young and whatever else is required to survive in five types of landscapes: coasts, deserts, freshwater, ice worlds and forests (the landscape footage is all real). Things kick off with the rock star of the dino world, Tyrannosaurus rex, but the series covers everything from lizards just a few inches long to titanosaurs 85 feet long, and lots in between, including some never before seen onscreen like the long-snouted Qianzhousaurus and the feathered Nanuqsaurus. The series also presents new information about dinosaurs that have been familiarized by popular culture. Those T-rexes, for instance, could swim and those “Jurassic Park” Velociraptors should have had feathers. The series was produced by “Mandalorian” creator Jon Favreau and Mike Gunton, and stars the eminence grise of nature docs, David Attenborough, who narrates. But the real reason you should watch is because it will give you a whole new appreciation for what was lost when that asteroid struck Earth and wiped out so many amazing animals.
PHOTO CREDIT: Screen grab/BritBox
The Responder (May 24, BritBox)
In a TV genre more often populated by detectives solving murders, creator Tony Schumacher and star Martin Freeman give us a far less glamorous side of policing. Freeman plays Chris Carson, a first responder working the night shift in Liverpool where he’s regularly confronted by the dregs of society. i.e. the people that society doesn’t give a shit about. He’s been demoted for a past transgression, his marriage is falling apart and he’s being watched by another cop (Warren Brown of “Luther”) who wants him fired. It’s a lot to shoulder on top of the human misery he’s confronted with night after night, and it’s little wonder that the cracks in Chris’s psyche are showing. Then he’s saddled with a suspicious new partner (Adelayo Adedayo), and his attempt to do a good deed by helping a young drug addict (Emily Fairn) who’s in trouble with a dealer goes spectacularly wrong. Schumacher was a Liverpool cop before he was a TV writer and it shows in the execution of “The Responder,” in which the grind that wears down officers like Carson is all too palpable. And then there’s Freeman, such a joy to watch in everything from “The Office” to “Fargo” to “Sherlock” to “A Confession.” Here he’s a decent man struggling against the pummelling of an indecent world and every bit of that struggle shows in his fine performance.
Odds and Ends
Clearly, all “Star Wars” fans will be awaiting the May 27 debut on Disney+ of the series “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” which begins 10 years after the events of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith,” and sees Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen reprising their roles as Obi-Wan and Darth Vader. I chose not to ask for screeners since reviews are embargoed until the day of the premiere.
Netflix this week also has Season 5 of food and travel show “Somebody Feed Phil” (May 25) and the standup special “Ricky Gervais: SuperNature” (May 24).
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.
SHOW OF THE WEEK: Night Sky (May 20, Prime Video)
The pleasure of watching “Night Sky” comes as much from excavating the layers of its well played characters as the mysterious extraterrestrial portal buried in its lead couple’s backyard.
In fact, there are few answers to be had in this sci-fi drama — yet, anyway, it’s clearly begging for a second season — and I’m forbidden from sharing the answers we do get thanks to a long list of “do not reveals” from Amazon.
It’s a good thing then that the people at the heart of the story are so compelling to watch.
Married 70-somethings Franklin and Irene York (Oscar winners J.K. Simmons and Sissy Spacek) are living a seemingly mundane life in Farnsworth, Illinois. But hidden beneath their garden shed is a portal that transports them to another planet.
Over and over again, for 20-odd years, Frank and Irene have ventured along the passageway hidden beneath a trap door in the shed to sit and stare through a window at the beautiful and deserted planet — it’s too dangerous to venture outside the chamber.
But Frank is starting to tire of the routine whereas Irene hungers to know more about the other world. When she ventures to the portal without Frank one night, a young man suddenly appears, physically ill and covered in blood.
Over Frank’s objections, Irene installs him in their late son’s bedroom, nurses him back to health and begins to form a bond with him, testing her relationship with Franklin.
Added to the mix is their granddaughter Denise (Kiah McKirnan), who’s worried about her grandparents and suspicious of the stranger posing as their caregiver, whose name is Jude (Chai Hansen); and nosy neighbour Byron (Adam Bartley), who wants to know what Frank and Irene have been doing in the garden shed in the middle of the night. And then there are the dangerous people who are hunting for Jude, or so he tells Irene.
There’s also a parallel plot set in Argentina involving llama farmer Stella (Argentinian actor Julieta Zylberberg) and her teenage daughter Toni (Rocio Hernandez). Their story eventually intersects with Frank’s, Irene’s and Jude’s, but I’m afraid I’m not allowed to tell you how.
The main thing to know is that you will care about the central trio and you will want to watch all eight episodes to find out what happens to them.
Simmons and Spacek do a masterful job of portraying the deep, abiding love between Franklin and Irene, but it’s an imperfect love, just like in a real-life marriage, one complicated by the suicide of their son, which happened around the same time they found the portal.
Hansen, a Thai-Australian actor, holds his own against the two titans, making Jude sympathetic even though we’re not sure he can be trusted.
Even Byron, at first glance a mere busybody and thorn in Franklin’s side, turns out to have some levels to him.
Building sci-fi mythology can be tricky. The season ends with several cliffhangers, and it remains to be seen if writers Holden Miller and Daniel C. Connolly can make the resolutions as satisfying as the human storytelling, assuming they get more episodes.
In the meantime, “Night Sky” will likely bring pleasure to those for whom the journey is as important as the destination.
Short Takes
Conversations With Friends (May 16, Prime Video)
Your enjoyment of “Conversations With Friends,” the latest adaptation of a Sally Rooney novel, will depend in part on your tolerance for awkward characters who lack communication skills. Main protagonist Frances (newcomer Alison Oliver) is a Dublin university student and spoken word poet who, under the influence of ex-girlfriend turned best friend Bobbi (Sasha Lane, “American Honey,” “Utopia”), gets pulled into the orbit of 30-something author Melissa (Jemima Kirke, “Girls”) and her actor husband Nick (Joe Alwyn, “The Favourite”). Awkwardness attracts, and Frances and the also conversationally challenged Nick begin an affair while the outspoken Bobbi, a New York import, is attracted to the more extroverted Melissa. The entanglement has implications not only for the marriage but for Frances’s and Bobbi’s friendship. As you’ll know if you’ve watched the much lauded “Normal People,” these kinds of complications aren’t tied up in neat linear bows in a Rooney adaptation. But Nick and Alison are no Connell and Marianne; there’s less of an emotional pull to this coupling. It’s also hard to see what makes Bobbi so indispensable to Frances given that she’s not particularly nice to her. That being said, the cast makes the most of what they’ve been given to work with, and Oliver’s expressive face helps us decipher what the often silent Frances is thinking.
Prime Video also has Season 2 of the dark comedy “Made for Love,” starring Cristin Milioti, Billy Magnussen and Ray Romano; French-made Cold War romance drama “Totems”; and the documentary “The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks,” all on May 20.
PHOTO CREDIT: Screen grab/HGTV
Hoarder House Flippers (May 19, 8 p.m., HGTV)
I’m no real estate TV aficionado, but this Canadian show appears to up the ante on the renovation genre by featuring properties so full of junk it’s hard to tell where the renos need to begin. But that can mean an extra frisson of appreciation once the garbage-strewn rooms are transformed. In the episode I screened, married couple Ryan and Kiki tackled a filthy bungalow in Springbrook, Ontario (the dead mouse in a kitchen drawer was a particularly nice touch). Other episodes feature Quebec brothers Mactar, Issa and Khadim, and Manitobans Heather and Nathan. I’m not sure where future instalments will take the house flippers, but it’s probably a good thing they stayed out of Toronto, where real estate is something of a dirty word, for at least the first one.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of George Carlin’s Estate/HBO
George Carlin’s American Dream (May 20, 8 p.m., HBO/Crave)
The jokes that George Carlin tells as this documentary opens, about Americans’ obsession with their rights and talent for warmongering, among other things, sound so relevant to the present day that you might have to remind yourself that the comedian died in 2008. And that’s partly the point of this two-part film, directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio, that Carlin was in some ways a comedian ahead of his time. The doc delves deeply into the life and career of a man considered one of the greatest standups of all time, and it doesn’t leave out the bad parts: his dysfunctional upbringing, his cocaine use, his wife’s alcoholism, the career slumps. Even if you were already a fan, you might learn some new things and develop a new appreciation for a man who was as funny as he was — and is — politically and culturally relevant.
Crave also has the documentary “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain”; the Sesame Street shows “Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck” and “Elmo’s World”; and Season 7 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.” all on May 20.
Odds and Ends
I can’t blame lack of screeners for my lack of Netflix reviews this week, just lack of time. Once again, the streamer has a lot of stuff coming out, including “Love on the Spectrum U.S.” (May 18), the American remake of the heartwarming Australian docuseries about people on the autism spectrum navigating dating and relationships. Also debuting: Season 2 of Japanese reality series “The Future Diary” (May 17); the Korean documentary “Cyber Hell: Exposing an Internet Horror” (May 18); Season 3 of Mexican crime drama “Who Killed Sara?” (May 18); comedy docuseries “The G Word With Adam Conover” (May 19); Season 2 of Spanish reality series “Insiders” (May 19); true-crime doc “The Photographer: Murder in Pinamar” (May 19); Season 3 of animated anthology series “Love, Death & Robots” (May 20); and Spanish revenge drama “Wrong Side of the Tracks” (May 20).
Apple TV Plus has the bilingual thriller series “Now and Then” (May 20), shot in English and Spanish, about the aftermath of a celebratory weekend that left one of a group of college friends dead.
Finally, Super Channel Fuse has the original series “Forgotten Frontlines” (May 16, 8 p.m.), about lesser known stories of World War II. The first episode covers the same topic as the Netflix movie “Operation Mincemeat,” when a corpse was floated off the coast of southern Spain to convince the Germans that the Allies planned to invade Greece instead of their real target, Sicily.
SHOW OF THE WEEK: Hacks (May 12, 11 p.m., Crave)
What a relief when a show that you loved in its first season returns for its second and you find out that you still love it.
Such is the case with “Hacks,” the HBO Max comedy about an entitled Las Vegas comedian and the entitled young comedy writer she hires to try to freshen up her act.
When Season 1 ended, Deborah Vance (Emmy winner Jean Smart) had been cut loose from her cushy Las Vegas residency and, with the encouragement of writer Ava (Emmy nominee Hannah Einbinder), was experimenting with a more autobiographical style of comedy, with mixed results.
Season 2 opens where Season 1 left off, with Deborah and Ava flying back from Ava’s father’s funeral with a secret hanging like a Sword of Damocles over Ava’s head: after an argument with Deborah, a drunk and high Ava spilled Deborah’s worst traits in an email to two TV producers looking for dirt for a TV show character.
It’s only a matter of time until the secret comes out and when it does, Deborah doesn’t react the way Ava expects, by firing her.
Deborah’s cross-country tour — and Ava’s role in it — must go on, which is not at all the same as Deborah forgiving and forgetting. The ways in which she punishes Ava are as funny as they are mean-spirited.
But the revelation also means we can get on with the business at hand: Deborah and Ava renegotiating their place in comedy and with each other, two “selfish and cruel” women, in Deborah’s words, for whom the work is everything.
Getting the cards out on the table, unflattering though they may be, means that work can continue in an authentic way. There’s something to be said for examining the shitty parts of yourself, acknowledging them, then using them to your advantage.
Before long, Deborah has a new goal in mind, one that doesn’t involve getting upstaged by the birth of a cow at a state fair, and Ava will be along for the ride.
Speaking of being along for the ride, Carl Clemons-Hopkins returns as Marcus, Deborah’s chief operating officer, whose carefully controlled life starts to unravel in the wake of his breakup with Wilson.
Series co-creator Paul W. Downs (with Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky) is back as Deborah’s and Ava’s hapless agent Jimmy, as is Megan Stalter as his completely inappropriate assistant Kayla.
Kaitlin Olson and Poppy Liu get some brief screen time as Deborah’s daughter DJ and favourite blackjack dealer Kiki.
And Laurie Metcalf steals scenes in a guest role as a tour manager nicknamed Weed.
Short Takes
Pets & Pickers (May 12, 9 p.m., Discovery)
This show is kind of like the TV equivalent of putting chocolate and peanut butter together, mashing up a couple of popular reality genres: shows about people hunting for treasure in piles of junk and shows about animals. It focuses on the RAPS Animal Hospital in Richmond, B.C. (RAPS stands for Regional Animal Protection Society). Its services include providing free and subsidized care to pet owners who can’t afford the treatment, which is where the picking part comes in. The staff of its RAPS Animal Hospital Thrift Store sort through the donated contents of abandoned storage lockers, hoping for big ticket items to sell, with 100 per cent of the proceeds helping sick animals. It’s standard reality TV fare, but if you like animals and/or thrifting you might enjoy it.
Sneakerella (May 13, Disney Plus)
Sneaker culture forms the basis of an update of hoary old fairy tale Cinderella. Writers George Gore II, Mindy Stern, Tamara Chestna, David Light and Toronto-born Joseph Raso have turned the mistreated young woman who wins the heart of a prince into a young man living in Queens, New York (the movie was actually shot in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario), with a talent for designing sneakers. But El (Chosen Jacobs, “It”) is kept toiling in the stockroom of his late mother’s shoe store by his stepfather (Bryan Terrell Clark) and selfish stepbrothers (Kolton Stewart and Hayward Leach). After a chance meeting with “sneaker royalty” Kira King (Lexi Underwood, “Little Fires Everywhere”), daughter of a basketball star turned sneaker tycoon, El creates a special pair of kicks to wear to the King company’s charity gala. His talent is the talk of the ballroom and presents Kira with a chance to impress her father and make her mark in the family business. But, you know, the clock strikes midnight, El and best friend Sami (Brantford native Devyn Nekoda) have to run, and Kira is left with one of El’s colourful shoes, lost in his flight. You can probably figure out how it goes from there without any spoilers from me. The movie’s on the saccharine side, with earnest lessons about being yourself and appreciating people for who they are, but it’s colourful and vibrant; the young cast gives it their all; and there are songs (albeit none that really stuck with me) and entertaining dance numbers. And if you’re a Toronto or Stratford theatre fan you’ll enjoy seeing Juan Chioran in the role of Gustavo, the gardener/fairy godfather.
Disney Plus also has the fantasy competition series “The Quest” (May 11), in which eight teenagers are dropped into a fictional world called Everealm and have to work together to defeat an evil sorceress and save the kingdom.
Shoresy (May 13, Crave)
If you thought “Letterkenny” was the most idiosyncratic Canadian comedy you’d ever seen, get a load of “Shoresy.” Hatched, like the former, from the brain of Canadian actor Jared Keeso, it transplants the irreverent style honed on “Letterkenny” to an even more Canadian setting: a Northern Ontario hockey rink. The hapless Sudbury Bulldogs senior hockey team is about to fold when potty-mouthed Shoresy (Keeso) — known from his “Letterkenny” appearances for his prolific bowel movements and sexual chirps about other players’ mothers — brings in some ringers to try to keep the team afloat. The new recruits are Quebecers JJ Frankie JJ (Max Bouffard) and Dolo (Jonathan-Ismael Diaby), Newfoundlander Hitch (Terry Ryan) and Six Nations member Goody (Andrew Antsanen), plus three “tough natives” all named Jim (Jordan Nolan, Brandon Nolan, Jon Mirasty) to act as enforcers. I’ll be honest: I was a little worried this show would be all fart noises and crude jokes, but I should have known better than to doubt Keeso. Shoresy is but one part of a funny, quirky ensemble that includes Tasya Teles (“The 100”) as team manager Nat, Keilani Elizabeth Rose and Blair Lamora as Shoresy-baiting sisters Miigwan and Ziigwan, Harlan Blayne Kytwayhat as coach Sanguinet and Ryan McDonell as ex-coach Michaels. Plus, Canadian actors who’ve made names for themselves on other shows both comedic and dramatic make guest appearances, but I don’t want to spoil the fun by naming names. If you’ve developed a taste for F-bombs, fisticuffs and characters whose mouths are foul but hearts are in the right place, give your balls a tug and give “Shoresy” a shot.
Crave via HBO also has the new TV adaptation of the novel “The Time Traveler’s Wife” (May 15, 9 p.m.), written by “Doctor Who” and “Sherlock” mastermind Steven Moffat, and starring Theo James of “Downton Abbey” and “Sanditon” and Rose Leslie of “Game of Thrones” but — all together now — reviews were embargoed.
Odds and Ends
in “The Kids in the Hall.” PHOTO CREDIT: Jackie Brown/Amazon Studios
The big news for Canadian comedy fans this week is that “The Kids in the Hall” sketch comedy show is back after a 28-year absence. It streams on Prime Video May 13, but reviews are embargoed until May 11.
The key Apple TV Plus debut this week is period drama “The Essex Serpent” (May 13), starring Claire Danes (“Homeland”) as a widow who travels from London to Aldwinter in Essex after hearing a mythical sea creature might be on the loose there, and Tom Hiddleston (“Loki,” “The Night Manager”) as a minister trying to tamp down the superstition. Reviews are under “strict embargo” until the evening of May 12, so I’m not even sure whether I can tell you I liked it. Apple also has Season 2 of sports series “Greatness Code” (May 13).
So Netflix has another crapload of stuff out this week. Only two shows were on my screeners list, Season 2 of “Bling Empire” and “The Lincoln Lawyer,” both out May 13. I watched the latter, but reviews are embargoed so, once again, not sure if I can say whether I liked it. And I’m not kidding about that. Also on tap: Chilean missing person drama “42 Days of Darkness” (May 10); Season 2 of gangster drama “Brotherhood” (May 10); the documentary “Our Father” (May 10); South African revenge drama “Savage Beauty” (May 12); Turkish comedy “The Life and Movies of Ersan Kuneri” (May 13); and Swiss family drama “New Heights” (May 13).
Finally, if you have a taste for the supernatural, APTN Lumi has “Shadow of the Rougarou” (May 9) based on Metis myths of a werewolf-like creature and set in the days before the 1885 North-West Resistance. It stars Morgan Holmstrom and Cody Kearsley, and features dialogue in English, Michif, Cree and Chinook Wawa.
SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Staircase (May 5, 9:50 p.m., Crave)
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO Max
Such is the imperative to feed the TV machine — an estimated 559 scripted series in 2021 and counting — that the medium has started cannibalizing itself, turning one of its most popular nonfiction forms, the true crime documentary, into drama.
There have been hits (“The Girl From Plainville”) and misses (“Joe vs. Carole”). Now comes “The Staircase,” which revisits the story told in the 2004 documentary of the same name about the 2001 death of Kathleen Peterson and subsequent murder conviction of her husband, Michael Peterson.
What makes this HBO Max series mostly work is that it’s as much a family as a crime drama, one that elucidates the human toll when the criminal justice system turns lives inside out and upside down.
Michael, in an excellent performance by Colin Firth, is very much the lead character here as he was in the docuseries, but the miniseries makes space for other members of the family, particularly Kathleen, played by the ever reliable Tony Collette, whom we see in flashback as the warm, energetic but stressed matriarch of an incredibly close blended brood.
The brood, as in real life, splinters after Michael goes on trial for first-degree murder. Kathleen’s daughter Caitlin (Olivia DeJonge) changes her mind about Michael’s innocence and sides with Kathleen’s sisters (Rosemarie DeWitt and Maria Dizzia) against him. His sons Todd (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and Clayton (Dane DeHaan), and adopted daughters Margaret (Sophie Turner) and Martha (Odessa Young) continue to support him, although not without an emotional cost.
Creator Antonio Campos, who also directed six of the nine episodes, doesn’t draw a conclusion as to Michael’s guilt or innocence. Indeed, in the five episodes made available for review, we see two versions of Kathleen’s death recreated: one in which she does indeed fall down the stairs, as Michael claimed; one in which Michael kills her after an argument over gay porn and emails to other men she discovers on his computer.
You will likely find your own opinion changing from episode to episode and scene to scene, not only as the prosecution (Cullen Moss as DA Jim Hardin and Parker Posey as assistant DA Freda Black) and defence (Michael Stuhlbarg as defence lawyer David Rudolf) lay out their cases but as you ponder what appears to be a close, loving relationship between Michael and Kathleen.
“The Staircase” also portrays the shifting, clashing viewpoints of the makers of the 2004 docuseries, including director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (Vincent Vermignon), editor Sophie Brunet (Juliette Binoche) and producer Denis Poncet (Frank Feys). And it moves the action forward to 2017, when Michael pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Kathleen’s death while maintaining his innocence (a circumstance known as an Alford plea) and was released from jail for time served, a development also covered by the doc makers in an addendum to their series.
Therein lies the weakness of “The Staircase,” that almost everything we see here has been extensively covered before. At the same time, a dramatization by a skilled cast can give a story resonance in ways a documentary telling can’t. You might feel you know it all, but Firth and his co-stars give you a reason to keep watching.
Short Takes
PHOTO CREDIT: Moris Puccio/AcornTV
Signora Volpe (May 2, Acorn)
It should be no surprise, given its appeal to an older, female demographic, that the Acorn streaming service features a subset of programming that could be described as “female detectives of a certain age.” This latest entry stars 47-year-old Emilia Fox (“Silent Witness”) as former MI6 agent Sylvia Fox (volpe means fox in Italian) who takes a work sabbatical and buys a house in Italy after a visit to her sister (Tara Fitzgerald, “Game of Thrones”) in the Umbrian town of Panicale. Naturally, Sylvia ends up getting drawn into local crimes, which she helps solve with a combination of smarts and nosiness. It doesn’t hurt that she’s caught the eye of handsome police captain Riva (Giovanni Cirfiera). This is escapist fare with an amiable lead, a beautiful setting and mysteries that are interesting but not overly demanding.
Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known (May 3, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)
You should watch this one if you’re a fan of the Tony Award-winning 2006 musical “Spring Awakening,” of musical theatre in general or just shows that make you feel feelings. The documentary lets us be flies on the wall as the original cast reunites in 2021 for a one-night-only fundraising concert for the Actors Fund charity. Footage from the concert is interwoven with rehearsal footage, interviews and original performances of the musical’s rock songs. The show by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik was a hit off-Broadway but was bombing on Broadway until its 11 Tony nominations in 2007 (it won eight, including Best Musical), after which it became a pop culture sensation. The cast — with a special emphasis on its two biggest stars, Jonathan Groff (“Hamilton”) and Lea Michele (“Glee”) — recall the joys and hardships of performing in a show that tackled adolescent sexuality, sexual molestation, abortion and suicide while many were still teenagers themselves. It was clearly a profound, life-changing experience, one that feels rewarding to revisit.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (May 5, 9 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel/Crave)
If you’re feeling a little bewildered by all the “Star Trek” spinoffs, know that this is the one that feels the most like the original series. After becoming a fan favourite on “Star Trek: Discovery,” Anson Mount’s Captain Pike is in full command of the starship Enterprise, backed by faces and names you’ll recognize, including Spock (Ethan Peck), Number One, a.k.a. Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) and nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush). But because this is airing in 2022 and not 1966, there are plenty of regular characters who aren’t white, human males, including Christina Chong as security officer La’an Noonien-Singh, Melissa Navia as pilot Erica Ortegas, Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga (whose character appeared in two episodes of the original series), Andre Dae Kim as transporter chief Kyle and Bruce Horak as Aenar engineer Hemmer. The series picks up after the events of Season 2 of “Discovery” when that ship and its crew jumped 930 years into the future but doesn’t dwell on that. “Strange New Worlds” mostly adopts a planet and/or alien of the week format, based on the five episodes that were made available for review. I’m not gonna lie: both “Discovery” and “Picard” became slogs after their first seasons. “Strange New Worlds” has the potential to become the most enjoyable of the new crop of shows if it can balance its earnestness with humour and camaraderie.
The Unsolved Murder of Beverly Lynn Smith (May 6, Prime Video)
Toronto Star reporter Wendy Gillis, one of the interview subjects in this four-part docuseries, nails what makes it compelling when she says, “There’s so much human emotion involved in this story.” It’s impossible not to feel the tragedy of the loss of Beverly Lynn Smith, who was 22 and the mother of a 10-month-old daughter when she was shot in the back of the head in her kitchen in Raglan, Ont., in 1974. The pain of it is still clearly very real for her family all these years later, particularly her twin sister, Barbra Brown. But the series, directed by Nathalie Bibeau (“The Walrus and the Whistleblower”), also devotes time to the main suspect in the case and the controversial tactics used in the police investigation. Having seen just two episodes, I can’t say what conclusion the series reaches, if any, but the case remains unsolved to this day.
Prime Video also has Season 2 of the teen girls stranded after a plane crash series “The Wilds” (May 6).
Odds and Ends
The Netflix premiere that’s bound to inspire the most curiosity if you’re a fan of Canadian comedian Mike Myers is “The Pentaverate” (May 5), his six-part series in which he plays multiple roles, including that of a Toronto reporter named Ken Scarborough who’s out to expose a secret society that’s been influencing world events since 1347. I didn’t get a preview so I can’t tell you if this is “Austin Powers” level stuff or another “The Love Guru.” Netflix also has the documentary “Hold Your Breath: The Ice Dive” (May 3); Season 4 of “The Circle” (May 4); Season 5 of Spanish prison drama “El Marginal” (May 4); docuseries “Meltdown: Three Mile Island” (May 4); Season 3 of Italian drama “Summertime” (May 4); its first Nigerian original series, “Blood Sisters” (May 5); “Clark” (May 5), about the criminal who inspired the term “Stockholm syndrome”; cute animal series “Wild Babies” (May 5); South Korean drama series “The Sound of Magic” (May 6) and Spanish drama “Welcome to Eden” (May 6), about a party on a remote island that goes bad.
I didn’t get a chance to screen Season 2 episodes of “Tehran” (May 6, Apple TV Plus), the Israeli spy drama about a Mossad agent (Niv Sultan) trying to carry out a dangerous mission in Iran, but I will definitely watch, having been a fan of the first season. Apple also has “The Big Conn” (May 6), a docuseries about a half-a-billion-dollar social security fraud in Kentucky, and “To Mom (and Dad) With Love” (May 6), its latest Peanuts special.
If you were a fan of the Prime Video detective drama “Bosch” you’ll want to follow Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) in “Bosch: Legacy” (May 6, IMDb TV), in which the former LAPD cop is now a private detective working with his former enemy Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers).
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.
SHOW OF THE WEEK: Ozark (April 29, Netflix)
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix
SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the first part of Season 4 of “Ozark.”
Keep an eye on the women in the final heartbreaking episodes of “Ozark.”
The things they do for love of their families drive the twists and turns that make the show’s last seven episodes such an exhilarating ride.
Keep your eye in particular on Laura Linney, who is stupendous as Wendy Byrde, who we’ve watched over four seasons transform from disgruntled wife, mother and money launderer to ruthless criminal mastermind.
The key question is whether the Byrde family, including Marty (Jason Bateman), daughter Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and son Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), can free themselves from doing business with a Mexican drug cartel without getting killed, and resume a non-criminal life back in Chicago.
I won’t answer that question because it would be a major spoiler and I’m not allowed to discuss anything that happens in the series finale.
As Season 4 resumes, the Byrdes are trying to maintain the precarious deal they’ve struck with Javi (Alfonso Herrera), psychotic nephew of jailed cartel leader Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), and medical company CEO Claire Shaw (Katrina Lenk): Javi supplies the raw material for Shaw Medical’s opioids and Claire funds Wendy’s pet project, a family foundation that will give Wendy major political influence.
But everything is threatened by Ruth (Julia Garner), who’s out for revenge against Javi for murdering her cousin Wyatt and his heroin dealer bride Darlene. Ruth’s actions in Episode 8 tip the dominos that fall throughout the remaining six episodes.
There are other complications: Jonah is still furious with Wendy over the cartel hit on her brother Ben (Tom Pelphrey) and refusing to return to the family business; Ruth enlists old enemies of the Byrdes (and familiar faces from past seasons) to make a play for the Missouri Belle casino, imperilling their main means of laundering money for the cartel; a dangerous new player emerges in Omar’s sister and Javi’s mother, Camila (Veronica Falcon); and private detective Mel Sattem (Adam Rothenberg) is still poking around the Byrdes’ past, this time while investigating the disappearance of Ben.
That last complication brings Wendy’s estranged father, Nathan Davis, to town, a nasty, misogynistic, sanctimonious drunk ably played by Richard Thomas. Nathan is not only bankrolling the search for Ben; he’s threatening Wendy’s relationship with Jonah and Charlotte.
How Wendy responds to that threat allows Linney to do some of her finest acting in the entire series. It also allows a partial rapprochement with Ruth, who knows from horrible fathers, which only makes future developments all the sadder.
In its own twisted way, “Ozark” has always been about family and that continues to drive the plot, whether it’s Ruth trying to avenge a beloved cousin, Camila trying to do right by her son, or Marty and Wendy doing dangerous and morally reprehensible things to keep their children safe.
Those things continue to exact a terrible toll on the people around the Byrdes as well as on Marty’s and Wendy’s psyches. In these last episodes the masks slip: there are still vulnerable human beings behind Wendy’s coldly rational machinations and Marty’s bland efficiency.
It’s a welcome revelation and a reminder of where this all started: with a husband and wife navigating an impossible situation as best they could to keep their family alive. As to where they end up, you’ll have to watch to find out and it’s a wild ride.,
Short Takes
We Own This City (April 25, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)
When “The Wire” debuted 20 years ago, it posited that the institution of policing, in one American city at least, was broken. Now its creator, David Simon, and his producing partner George Pelecanos are back to tell us nothing has changed. “We Own This City,” based on the book by journalist Justin Fenton, portrays the activities of corrupt officers in Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force, who in real life were jailed for stealing cash and drugs, planting evidence and claiming overtime they hadn’t worked. Jon Bernthal stars as Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, ringleader of the dirty cops but a hero to the brass for all the arrests his unit racks up — this at a time when many officers were refusing to even get out of their cruisers after charges were laid against the cops involved in the death of Freddie Gray. The series jumps around between showing the corrupt task force members in action between 2003 and 2017; the drug investigation that cracks open the task force case; the FBI investigation of the task force members; the efforts of one ill-fated homicide detective (Jamie Hector of “The Wire” and “Bosch”) to distance himself from his time with the task force; and the ultimately fruitless efforts of a civil rights lawyer from the justice department (Wunmi Mosaku) to have troublesome officers held to account. With all that ground to cover over just six episodes, “We Own This City” is not well suited to those with short attention spans, or a distaste for dense, complicated plotting and dialogue. It also occasionally gives way to speechifying, particularly in the segments involving Treat Williams as a police college instructor decrying the futility of the war on drugs. But it hits home when it turns it focus away from the preening, swaggering cops to the mostly poor and Black citizens hurt by their actions, like the father of three whose wrongful arrest and theft of that week’s pay leads to the loss of his job and a hole he might not be able to dig his way out of.
Gentleman Jack (April 25, 10 p.m., HBO/Crave)
Good news for fans of this period drama based on the life of 19th-century diarist Anne Lister: Suranne Jones brings the same mix of humour and vivacity that made her portrayal of Anne such a delight in Season 1. In fact, the gusto with which Anne approaches her various activities is intensified, whether it’s overseeing renovations at family estate Shibden Hall, getting her coal mining business in order or running interference with the relatives of heiress Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle), who are scandalized by the fact she’s about to move in with Lister. Ann and Anne are also navigating their way through some bumps in their unofficial marriage, with Anne pushing for legal changes that will allow them to alter their wills and Ann coming to terms with Lister’s romantic past. I got to speak with Jones, Rundle and “Gentleman Jack” creator Sally Wainwright for the Toronto Star. You can read the story here.
The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes (April 27, Netflix)
If you stream this documentary expecting a murder mystery involving transcendent but tragic movie star Marilyn Monroe you’ll be disappointed. Irish author Anthony Summers, on whose research the doc is based, has been clear that he doesn’t believe Marilyn was murdered and that she voluntarily ingested the pills that killed her on Aug. 4, 1962; whether it was suicide or a misjudgment of the dose is still open to interpretation. What the doc does explore is a potential coverup the night of her death due to her romantic relationships with both President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney-General Robert Kennedy. Based on interviews conducted by Summers for his book “Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe” — the audio of which, lip-synced by actors, constitutes the bulk of the film — it’s suggested that Bobby Kennedy visited her home and argued with Marilyn the day she died; that she was still alive when an ambulance got to her Brentwood house and that her body was returned there after she died on the way to hospital, and that members of the FBI scoured the house of any evidence of her connection to the Kennedys before the death was officially reported. The doc also touches briefly on Monroe’s life: a troubled childhood involving sexual abuse, spent in foster homes and an orphanage; her incredible fame and aspirations to be a serious actor; her unhappy marriages to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller. None of this will be new to people who are fans of Monroe, but at the very least it’s a reminder of how much was lost that night in 1962.
Netflix also has comedy special “David Spade: Nothing Personal” (April 26); “Bullsh*t The Game Show” (April 27), hosted by Howie Mandel; and the final episodes of “Grace and Frankie” (April 29).
Shining Girls (April 29, Apple TV Plus)
If you have no knowledge of the novel on which this series is based, you’ll think at first you’re getting a standard crime drama. Newspaper archivist Kirby (Elisabeth Moss, who also executive produced and directed at least one episode) gets pulled into a murder investigation in 1990s Chicago when it appears the victim has the same cross-shaped cuts on her stomach that Kirby suffered when she was attacked six years before. Working with reporter Dan (Wagner Moura in a sympathetic performance), Kirby discovers multiple potential victims of the same killer whose cases have been ignored by the police. But strange things are happening: Kirby has a cat one moment, a dog the next; her apartment number changes; she lives with her mom Rachel (Amy Brenneman) then suddenly has a husband, photographer Marcus (Chris Chalk). Then we see another woman murdered near the end of Episode 1, but she’s still alive in Episode 3. And there’s a killer (a creepy Jamie Bell) who doesn’t age and appears to be able to predict the future. All is eventually revealed, including the mysterious house that gives the killer his ability to play with time. With its shifting realities, the drama can sometimes feel a little unmoored, but Moss keeps us moving forward and interested in Kirby’s fate. The supporting cast includes Phillipa Soo, Christopher Denham and Moss’s “Handmaid’s Tale” cast mate Madeline Brewer.
PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media
We’re All Gonna Die (April 30, Crave)
If it’s possible to be cheerful while discussing the prospect of humanity’s annihilation then Jay Baruchel is your man. The actor and comedian hosts this six-part docuseries that examines various ways that humans could be wiped off the face of the Earth with humour and a sprinkling of f-bombs (as opposed to nuclear bombs, which are the subject of Episode 2). There are things here to give you pause — paleontologist David Evans’ description in Episode 1 of what happened the day a Manhattan-sized asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs is not for the faint of heart — but the point is made that fear of a thing is sometimes worse than the thing itself. Fearful or not, there’s no harm in giving a listen to what we might be in for. Other episodes deal with pandemics, alien invasion, volcanoes and climate change.
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.
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