Have you noticed that while there are still a lot of new shows being released week by week they’re not always, well, great?
To be fair, I don’t get to watch absolutely everything out there, but more often than not I have found the latest content is fine but not invigorating in the way the best TV often is.
My favourite show of the year has been “Shogun.” When I attended the Television Critics Association press tour a couple of weeks ago in Pasadena, Calif., the TCA (of which I am a member) gave “Shogun” four awards, including best new program and program of the year, which I wrote about here.
But it’s been difficult to find a lot else that lives up to that quality, although I am enjoying Season 3 of House of the Dragon, which I didn’t write about this year. And I was on the “Baby Reindeer” wagon, like a lot of other people.
As for what else I’ve been up to, in my last post I mentioned that I had interviewed Elisabeth Moss about “The Veil” (another one of those shows that was fine, but not earth-shaking). That’s here.
My most enjoyable interview of the year, hands down, was with Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton about Season 3 of “Bridgerton.”
I wrote a preview piece on 10 shows to watch this summer and the fact I included more returning shows than new ones is a reflection of how much production was affected by last year’s actors’ and writers’ strikes.
One of those shows, “My Lady Jane,” was part of a feature I did on the ongoing influence of the Tudor era on TV. If you haven’t seen it yet and you have Prime Video, check it out. It’s a hoot, certainly not historically accurate, but suspend your disbelief and enjoy.
And finally, I wrote about the Emmy nominations and why there are things to be celebrated (two noms for “Reservation Dogs”!) and things to be disappointed out (why only two noms for “Reservation Dogs”?).
I continue to work full-time as an editor at the Star, which is why I’m not posting here much. Even though I delegate some reviews and interviews to other writers, it’s still a lot to do a demanding 35 hours of editing every week and fit in being a TV critic on the side. But I love the work and will continue to do it. Although, apologies to “Bachelorette” fans, I’ve been too busy to watch Jenn Tran’s season.
Next on my plate, I’ll have a feature on the final season of “The Umbrella Academy,” for which I did a set visit last May; an interview with Canadian actor Enrico Colantoni, who co-stars in a Starz show called “English Teacher” (will probably debut on Crave, as far as I can tell); one with Canadian showrunner Michael Grassi, who has graduated from writing on shows like “Degrassi: The Next Generation” and “Riverdale” to creating one called “Brilliant Minds” starring Zachary Quinto (Canadian network still to be announced); a preview of fall TV; a column about the Emmy Awards before they air and probably one after as well; and always more to come.
SHOW OF THEWEEK NO. 1: Pachinko (March 25, Apple TV Plus)
Minha Kim and Lee Min-Ho in “Pachinko.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus
In a TV universe full of distractions, “Pachinko” is a show that demands your full attention.
Based on the 2017 novel by Korean-American author Min Jin Lee, it’s an epic on a sweeping scale but also a deeply human story that finds its power in small, intimate moments.
It shifts between 1915 when a girl named Sunja is born in the fishing village of Yeongdo in South Korea and 1989 when that girl’s grandson, an investment banker named Solomon (Jin Ha), returns from America to Osaka, Japan, where his family has settled.
The family’s personal dramas in the intervening years are played out against the colonization of Korea by the Japanese, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. It’s not a period of history that I expect non-Korean North Americans would know much about, but in the series the cruelty of that subjugation is a continuous thread. The Koreans are treated as second-class citizens in their own country and as less than human when they migrate to Japan for jobs.
For Sunja’s family, everything turns on an illicit romance between the teenage Sunja (Minha Kim) and the older Koh Hansu (Lee Min-Ho), a Korean man who has become rich by collaborating with the Japanese. When Sunja becomes pregnant and Hansu is unable to marry her, Sunja and her widowed mother Yangjin (Inji Jeong) face ruin.
The title “Pachinko,” a pinball-like arcade game that originated in Japan, is obviously a metaphor. Players sometimes win despite the fact the machines are rigged to make that more difficult.
In the case of Sunja, poor and uneducated though intelligent and intuitive, that lucky break comes in the form of Korean minister Isak (Steve Sang-Hyun Noh), a stranger in Yeongdo who nearly dies of tuberculosis but is nursed back to health by Yangjin. He offers to marry Sunja and give her baby a name. But the cost of being saved is Sunja leaving behind everything she knows and beginning a hand-to-mouth existence in Osaka with Isak’s unhappy brother Yoseb (Junwoo Han) and his wife Kyunghee (Jung Eun-chae).
I don’t want to give the impression it’s all doom and gloom, though. Love between the characters — familial love, friendship, romantic love, love of self and one’s culture — is woven throughout and uplifts the story.
Three wonderful actors play Sunja at various ages, including Yu-na Jeon as a child and Youn Yuh-jung, who won an Oscar for “Minari,” as an old woman, but Minha Kim is particularly affecting in her portrayal.
Two other things to note. I initially found the show’s jumps back and forth in time off-putting, particularly since it takes a while to tease out the importance of various characters, but I’m glad I stuck with it.
And do make sure you watch the opening credits, in which the lead actors joyously dance to the title song, the Grass Roots’ “Let’s Live for Today.”
SHOW OF THE WEEK NO. 2:Bridgerton (March 25, Netflix)
From left, Charithra Chandran, Simone Ashley and Jonathan Bailey in Season 2 of “Bridgerton.” PHOTO CREDIT: Liam Daniel/Netflix
I did not so much binge the eight new episodes of “Bridgerton” as devour them.
After all, we fans of the Chris Van Dusen-created, Shonda Rhimes-produced period romantic drama have been waiting 13 months for the new season, clearly not as long as, say, a “droughtlander” but long enough if you fell in love with the show in December 2020.
All the things that contributed to making the first season so delightful are back — colourful costumes, sumptuous sets, anachronistic music, humour, snappy dialogue, feminist underpinnings — but the most important ingredient is the romance.
Does it live up to the Season 1 wooing between Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) and the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page, who true to his word does not appear in the new season)? Yes, absolutely.
This season is all about Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), the eldest of the seven Bridgerton siblings, who was left with a heavy burden after his father Edmund died when Anthony was still a teenager.
Alas, that crushing sense of duty has stunted Anthony emotionally. When he decides it’s time to do right as heir and find a wife, he’s not looking for a soul mate so much as checking boxes on a list.
Miss Edwina Sharma (Charithra Chandran), charming, accomplished and pretty, fits the bill, having travelled from Bombay to London to find a husband with her widowed mother, Lady Mary (Shelley Conn), and stepsister Kate (Simone Ashley). She has also been anointed the season’s “diamond” by Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel).
But Kate wants a love match for Edwina and is determined to thwart Anthony. And there’s an even bigger obstacle: it’s clear from their first antagonistic meeting, when Anthony encounters Kate taking a very unladylike, early morning horse ride, that they’re meant to be together.
A big part of what makes this season so delicious is how long we have to wait for true love to bloom. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say that Anthony’s pursuit of Edwina gets very far along, almost to the point of no return. Meanwhile, the passion between him and Kate crackles off the screen with every longing glance and fleeting touch.
Anthony even gets his own Mr. Darcy emerging dripping wet from a pond moment (see “Pride and Prejudice,” 1995) when his unacknowledged ardour for Kate — and her corgi Newton — literally knocks him off his feet. (I have to assume that was Van Dusen’s homage to “P&P” since he told me that 1995 scene inspired his creation of “Bridgerton.”)
Whereas Daphne and Simon were enjoying newlywed sex by Episode 5 of the first season, here we have to wait till Episode 6 just to get a kiss and I’m not mad about that. The anticipation adds to the enjoyment.
Meanwhile, the series is generous with its other characters. We get lots more of the Queen, of Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), of Violet (Ruth Gemmell), Benedict (Luke Thompson) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton), of Penelope Featherington, a.k.a. Lady Whistledown (Nicola Coughlan), and her best friend Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie). The marriage-averse Eloise even gets a love interest.
My favourite secondary character development, however, involves Lady Portia Featherington (Polly Walker), something of an avaricious laughing stock in Season 1. This season she gets to demonstrate her intelligence, her survival instincts and her devotion to her daughters.
And that brings me to one more point: love of family is an even bigger theme this season and one that gives the episodes a warmth that undercuts the catty frivolousness of the ton. Kate’s and Anthony’s determination to stifle their longings in the name of duty is motivated by their devotion to their families, no matter how wrongheaded and shortsighted it may be.
Watching “Bridgerton” might feel like a guilty pleasure, but there’s some substance behind the froth.
Short Takes
Sammy Azero and Mo Zeighami in “Tehranto.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Canadian Film Fest
Canadian Film Fest (March 22 to April 2, 9 p.m., Super Channel Fuse)
Ten Canadian-made feature films and 28 shorts make up the third annual edition of this virtual festival. The opener is “Tehranto” by Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Faran Moradi. It’s a love story between Badi (Sammy Azero), who came with his family to Toronto after the Iranian Revolution, and Canadian-born Sharon (Mo Zeighami), whose Iranian parents came to Toronto via Europe. Differences of class — Sharon’s parents are well off while Badi’s father delivers pizza — and culture, between Iranians born there and here, complicate the relationship. See superchannel.ca for the full festival slate. Each movie is preceded by an introduction and a short film.
John Cameron Mitchell as Joe Exotic in “Joe vs. Carole.” PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Taylor/Peacock
Joe vs. Carole (March 23, 9 p.m., Showcase/StackTV)
The first question that comes to mind about this Peacock limited series is “Why?” The answer is likely that in March 2020, when the show went into development, it seemed like a good idea since the Netflix docuseries “Tiger King” about Joe Maldonado-Passage, a.k.a. Joe Exotic, and his nemesis Carole Baskin seemed like all anyone could talk about. But two years later, an eight-part dramedy about the feud between the Oklahoma private zoo keeper and the Florida animal rights activist seems like overkill. It’s not that it’s badly done. John Cameron Mitchell and Kate McKinnon certainly give the roles of the two combatants their all. Mitchell is particularly captivating as Joe Exotic, disappearing into the part. Unfortunately, you never really lose sight of the fact you’re watching Kate McKinnon play Carole. And the supporting characters, including John Finlay (Sam Keeley), John Reinke (Brian Van Holt) and Travis Maldonado (Nat Wolff), pale in comparison to their real-life counterparts. But if you can’t get enough of the “Tiger King” story have at ‘er.
Alex Mallari Jr. and Rong Fu in “Hello (Again).” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC Gem
Hello (Again) and Homeschooled (March 25, CBC Gem)
The beauty of web series is that, for creators, they offer a more accessible way of getting content in front of eyeballs and, for viewers, they don’t involve a massive time commitment. Of course, “Hello (Again)” comes with a built-in guarantee of interest given that it was co-created by a man who is currently one of the most famous Canadians in the world: Simu Liu, a.k.a. Marvel superhero Shang-Chi. “Hello (Again)” comes from an idea he hatched when he was still on “Kim’s Convenience,” developed with Nathalie Younglai, a writer on “Coroner.” Over nine 10-minute episodes, line cook Jayden (Alex Mallari Jr.) begins and ends a romance with medical resident Avery (Rong Fu) but gets to try to set things right — repeatedly — after an encounter with a child no one else can hear or see. The series offers good-natured humour, quintessential Toronto scenes and a charismatic leading man. “Homeschooled,” created by Karen Knox and Gwenlyn Cumyn, offers delightfully quirky characters, led by home-schooled best friends Greta (Veronika Slowikowska) and Farzanah (Eman Ayaz) as they extol their own “rare creativity and scholastic genius” while reviling the “trads,” i.e. kids who go to regular school.
Odds and Ends
One of the most anticipated debuts of the week is the very long awaited third and final season of Donald Glover’s “Atlanta” (March 24, 10 p.m., FX), which sees Earn (Glover), Van (Zazie Beetz) and Darius (LaKeith Stanfield) accompanying Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) on his tour of Europe. But first, the season opens with an episode about a Black boy (Christopher Farrar) and two white foster mothers that very effectively demonstrates the downsides of white saviourism.
I wasn’t able to get an advance look at it, but “Canada’s Got Talent” is coming to Citytv (March 22, 8 p.m.) and appears to be a chip off the “America’s Got Talent” block, which Canadian viewers gobble up, unlike the version that aired in 2012. “AGT” vet Howie Mandel is one of the judges for the homegrown spinoff along with Lilly Singh, Kardinal Offishall and Trish Stratus. Country singer Lindsay Ell is host.
Crave has French-language crime drama “Une Affaire Criminelle” (“A Criminal Affair”) (March 23) as well as the movie “Moonshot” (March 24), about a couple of college students who head to Mars.
Disney Plus has sci-fi series “Parallels” (March 23), about four teenage friends who are sent into separate timelines by a mysterious event.
K. Trevor Wilson, Jared Keeso and Nathan Dales, and friends, in Season 9 of “Letterkenny.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media
Maybe it’s the particular genius of Canadians to make comedies about places in which not much happens. I mean, think about it, “Schitt’s Creek,” our most successful comedy ever based on worldwide acclaim and Emmy Awards won, was set almost entirely in a small, sleepy town and, more often than not, in two motel rooms. Brent Butt and crew spun six seasons out of Dog River in “Corner Gas,” a place where there wasn’t a lot going on. And the “Trailer Park Boys” hatched their hare-brained schemes in a mobile home park.
In “Letterkenny,” the main preoccupations are drinking, fighting, fornicating (or at least talking about it a lot) and, occasionally, chorin’. On paper, it sounds ridiculous. In practice, thanks to the commitment of series creator Jared Keeso and the rest of the cast to their oddball, small-town characters, and the skill with which they navigate the trademark rapid-fire dialogue, it’s pretty brilliant.
Not everything hits the net, of course, if I can use that phrase in keeping with the show’s hockey obsession. The first episode of the new season has one of those big fight set pieces that are so much fun (they remind me a tiny bit of the ones in the old “Batman” show of the 1960s, minus the cartoon “Blam!” and “Kapow!” exclamations and with even cooler music). But the American and Canadian armed forces guys who turn up to help and then hang around shirtless in the bar didn’t really up the comedy quotient for me.
On the other hand, there’s a dialogue in another episode between main characters Wayne (Keeso), Daryl (Nathan Dales), Squirrelly Dan (K. Trevor Wilson) and Katy (Michelle Mylett) about whether whistling sounds can come from parts of the anatomy besides the mouth that had me in stitches.
And you probably won’t want to miss Mark Forward’s master classes in cringe comedy as Coach forces his beer league players, including Jonesy (Andrew Herr) and Reilly (Dylan Playfair), to listen to monologues about his late wife Barb’s erotic skills.
“Letterkenny” also has its sweet moments of caring and camaraderie. Even oversexed bartender Gail (Lisa Codrington) gets a little love this season.
Bridgerton (Dec. 25, Netflix)
Rege-Jean Page as Simon Basset, Lord Hastings, and Phoebe Dynevor as Daphne Bridgerton in “Bridgerton.” PHOTO CREDIT: Liam Daniel/Netflix
Attention lovers of period drama and star-crossed romance, Shonda Rhimes and her team have a Christmas gift for you.
I’d love to tell you what I think of it, but alas, review coverage is embargoed until Tuesday.
“Bridgerton” is the first original scripted series from Rhimes’ Shondaland as part of her Netflix deal. Created by her “Scandal” protege Chris Van Dusen, it’s based on the “Bridgerton” novels of Julia Quinn, about an aristocratic family in Regency London and their romantic pursuits.
Refreshingly, some of the other aristocrats are played by Black actors, including Rege-Jean Page (“Roots”) as the dashing Lord Hastings, Adjoa Andoh (“Doctor Who”) as Lady Danbury and Golda Rosheuvel (“Silent Witness”) as Queen Charlotte.
Phoebe Dynevor (“Younger”) also stars as Hastings’ romantic interest, Daphne Bridgerton, and Dame Julie Andrews gives voice to Lady Whistledown, the gossip whose scandal sheet keeps all the lords and ladies on their toes.
Soul (Dec. 25, Disney Plus)
Jamie Foxx gives voice to Joe Gardner, the protagonist of the new animated film “Soul.” PHOTO CREDIT: Disney/Pixar
This new animated film from Disney and Pete Docter (“Up,” “Inside Out”) could be subtitled “The Meaning of Life.”
For main character Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a music teacher living a fairly mundane life in New York City, there’s only one thing from which he derives meaning: jazz music, which he longs to play professionally at the Half Note club.
He finally gets his shot, asked by a former student to fill in at a gig with legendary saxophone player Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett), but Joe is so enraptured after his tryout that he doesn’t pay attention to where he’s walking and steps into an open manhole. Next thing you know, he finds himself minus his body, on a conveyor belt to the Great Beyond.
Joe manages to escape to a more hospitable spiritual realm called the Great Before, where souls — portrayed as child-like, amorphous blue-green blobs — are assigned personalities. But they can’t travel to Earth and into bodies until they find a spark, something that fires their will to live. Mentors, experienced souls stopping in on their way to the Great Beyond, help them do that.
In his desperate scramble to get back to Earth and to his gig, Joe gets mistaken for a mentor and paired with 22 (Tina Fey), a soul who has decided she has no interest in living and has already foiled mentors like Mother Teresa, Muhammad Ali and Marie Antoinette.
After they end up in the Zone, a place where lost souls wander, Joe and 22 get help from a hippie mystic named Moonwind (Graham Norton), who leaves his body at regularly scheduled intervals, to get to New York. But the re-entry into Joe’s body doesn’t go quite as planned. I won’t tell you how because that would spoil the fun of a delightful interlude in the film.
Once on Earth, 22 finds delight in almost everything: the taste of pizza, the sound of a trombone, a seedling falling from a tree. Her enthusiasm opens Joe’s eyes to the fact there’s more to life than jazz and that he’s been missing out on a lot because of his obsession.
I won’t spoil the ending for you, although this being Disney you can probably surmise that it’s an uplifting one. It’s a sweet, beautifully animated take on a weighty subject.
Odds and Ends
Yannick Bisson in character as William Murdoch with musicians of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on the “Murdoch Mysteries” set. PHOTO CREDIT: Acorn TV
If you’re a fan of the long-running Canadian detective series “Murdoch Mysteries,” the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and classical music, the special “A Music Lover’s Guide to Murdoch Mysteries” (Dec. 24, Acorn TV) will be right up your alley. Seven members of the TSO gather on the series’ police office set to play a selection of songs that Murdoch might have listened to in the early 20th century. The selections include Ravel, Brahms, Canadian composer Laura Gertrude Lemon, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, Scott Joplin and the beautiful “Blue Danube Waltz” by Strauss, as well as music composed by Robert Carli for the show. “Murdoch” star Yannick Bisson hosts in character and there are clips from the series interspersed with the music.
If you’re a fan of rich people behaving badly and/or manufactured reality show drama, tune into “House of Ho” (Dec. 21, 8 p.m., Super Channel Fuse). The docuseries follows Vietnamese immigrant turned wealthy Houston businessman Binh Ho and wife Hue, his spoiled son Washington, daughter Judy and other relations. Frankly, Binh’s patriarchal attitudes and Washington’s seeming neglect of his wife and kids to go drinking and gambling with clients left a bad taste in my mouth.
If you enjoyed the most recent season of “The Mandalorian,” which ended with that blockbuster finale on Friday, you might enjoy “Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian ‘Making of Season 2′” (Dec. 25, Disney Plus).
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