Tag: Canada's Climate Challenge

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Star Trek: Picard (Feb. 16, 9 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel/Crave)

Jean-Luc himself, Patrick Stewart, says the third season of “Star Trek: Picard” is not a “Star Trek: The Next Generation” reunion, which may be so, but adding characters from that beloved show to this “Trek” spinoff gives it a much needed reset.

I watched the first two seasons of this series built around the greatest starship captain ever (sorry, Captain Kirk) mainly out of loyalty to the franchise — I started watching “The Original Series” as a kid in the 1960s — but I’m not going to pretend they were indispensable additions to the canon.

What made Captain Picard so memorable as a character came in relation to the “Next Generation” crew members who served with him on the USS Enterprise-D. Although there were appearances by “Next Gen” originals like Will Riker and Deanna Troi in the first two seasons of “Picard,” he was mainly surrounded by new characters who never really gelled.

Is anybody going to be reminiscing decades from now about Picard’s adventures with Agnes or Rios or Tallinn? Unlikely.

So, yes, it’s good news that Picard is back with Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), Worf (Michael Dorn), Troi (Marina Sirtis) and a facsimile of Data (Brent Spiner) on yet another mission to save Starfleet and the galaxy.

“Voyager” vet Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) is also still around and central to the plot.

The bad news is that some of the first two seasons’ sins — hamfisted exposition, clunky dialogue and occasionally gimmicky plotting — persist.

Season 3 opens with Picard getting an encrypted distress call from Crusher, whom he hasn’t spoken to in more than two decades. She and a mysterious passenger (if I tell you anything about him, I think CBS will send someone to my door with a Klingon bat’leth) are under attack just outside Federation space.

Picard enlists a game Riker to ride to Beverly’s rescue, which they do with the help of Seven and a not so game Captain Shaw (Todd Stashwick), the new commander of Will’s old ship the Titan and the season’s best new character. (Sidney La Forge, daughter of Geordi, played by Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut, is no slouch either, while Burton’s real-life daughter Mica plays a small role as Geordi’s daughter Alandra.)

There’s also a new baddie, Vadic, a scenery-chewing Amanda Plummer.

Meanwhile, Raffi (Michelle Hurd) — the only character remaining from Picard’s seasons 1 and 2 crew — is on the planet M’talas Prime trying to figure out who stole deadly weapons from the Daystrom Station, a subplot that doesn’t really get interesting until she teams up with Worf who, in an overstretched gag, is now a meditating, chamomile tea-drinking pacifist.

The first four episodes of Season 3 are devoted to Picard, Riker et al on the Titan extricating themselves from what appears to be a hopeless situation involving Vadic’s relentless pursuit of Crusher’s passenger, a powerful new weapon, a saboteur on board and the deadly energy of the nebula in which the Titan becomes trapped. It’s a lot, but it can’t really be no-win since we know there are six more episodes to go.

This also provides time for Picard, Riker and Crusher to revisit their relationships; for Shaw to earn both our antipathy and our admiration; for Picard to get to know a significant new character with links to his past; and for the Titan crew and its new additions to display typical “Star Trek” can-do, we’re all in this together initiative.

The plot threads really start to come together in episodes 5 and 6 (the only other episodes provided to critics) and we finally get to see most of the returned “Next Generation” characters together in the same room.

There are also Easter eggs and callbacks to shows like “Voyager,” “Deep Space Nine” and even “The Original Series” that I don’t want to spoil by spelling them out.

Bottom line: if you were a “Next Generation” fan you will overlook the series’ flaws for the pleasure of seeing the crew members reunite, even if it’s not a reunion per se.

Short Takes

Canada’s Ultimate Challenge (Feb. 16, 8 p.m., CBC/CBC Gem)

CBC has jumped into the physical competition series game with this show that’s a bit like “The Amazing Race” on steroids — if you stripped out everything on that show but the physical challenges and turned them up to 11. I’m not an aficionado of series like “American Ninja Warrior,” but I was gripped watching the competitors on “Canada’s Ultimate Challenge” tough it out in the first episode — especially when one member of each team had to traverse dangling obstacles underneath a 100-metre-high suspension bridge in Squamish, B.C., not just once but twice. There are six teams of four, each coached by a former athlete — including Olympians Donovan Bailey, Clara Hughes, Jen Kish, Gilmore Junio and Waneek Horn-Miller, and former Super Bowl champion Luke Willson — and competing to win a trip to the Paris Olympics. Over eight weeks, they travel across the country with landmarks like the Whistler Olympic Park ski jumps turned into obstacle courses, racking up points until teams start getting eliminated and only one remains.

CBC and CBC Gem also have Season 2 of the far less arduous but also entertaining competition series “Best in Miniature” (Feb. 19, 7 p.m.) and the doc “Apocalypse B” (Feb. 17, 8 p.m., on “The Nature of Things”) about radical ideas for how to turn down the heat on the planet and potentially curtail the effects of climate change.

A Spy Among Friends (Feb. 17, Prime Video)

This is a miniseries that demands your concentration so if you’re tempted to google the names of the real-life people it portrays, best to hit pause when you do so, otherwise you’ll lose the thread of the intricate plot. It tells the story of Kim Philby (Guy Pearce), a notorious British MI6 agent and Soviet spy who defected to Moscow after he was exposed in 1963. The story is set primarily in ’63 after Philby has fled to Russia. Nicholas Elliott (Damian Lewis), Philby’s former friend and fellow MI6 agent, is under suspicion since he was tasked with bringing Philby back to London from Beirut when he got away. MI5 agent Lily Thomas (Anna Maxwell Martin, “Line of Duty,” “The Bletchley Circle”) is in charge of questioning Elliott, who is also under surveillance by the CIA. Got all that? Good, because there’s more. The series also flashes back to Elliott’s and Philby’s pasts, including their efforts against the Nazis during the Second World War and their once close friendship. It’s a series built on conversations punctuated by bursts of action. Luckily, the actors doing the talking are excellent ones. Both Pearce and Lewis are Emmy winners for good reason, and Maxwell Martin more than holds her own.

Prime also has a double dose of Cara Delevingne. The English actor plays herself in “Planet Sex With Cara Delevingne” (Feb. 14), in which she travels the world on erotic adventures; and she stars as a fairy opposite Orlando Bloom in the long delayed second season of fantasy series “Carnival Row” (Feb. 17) .

Thunder Bay (Feb. 17, Crave)

In this four-part docuseries, Anishinaabe journalist Ryan McMahon investigates the deaths of Indigenous people in the city of Thunder Bay and links them to the city’s history of anti-Indigenous racism. If you pay attention to the news, you’ll have already heard of cases like the Seven Fallen Feathers — seven Indigenous teenagers who died in unexplained circumstances in Thunder Bay — and Barbara Kentner, an Indigenous woman who died after a white man threw a trailer hitch at her from a moving car and then laughed about it. (Brayden Bushby was sentenced to eight years in jail for manslaughter in the case.) Here’s a sobering thought revealed in the series: a third of all Indigenous hate crimes in Canada are reported in Thunder Bay. Indigenous people interviewed by McMahon in the first episode says it’s routine to have things thrown at them, whether physical objects or “go back to the rez” type insults. The series, based on McMahon’s Canadaland podcast of the same name, explores that racism along with theories about the unexplained deaths and the role police have played in failing to investigate them properly. It’s ugly, shameful stuff.

Crave also has the streaming debut of “The Woman King” (Feb. 17), in which Oscar winner Viola Davis plays the leader of the women warriors who protected the Kingdom of Dahomey in Africa in the 1800s.

Odds and Ends

One of the week’s most intriguing debuts is “Hello Tomorrow!” (Feb. 17, Apple TV+), a comedy drama in which Billy Crudup stars as a salesman who hawks real estate on the moon with evangelical flair. It’s one of 10 new shows I recommended after attending the Television Critics Association press tour last month but which I haven’t reviewed because of an embargo. Apple also has a new season of surfing series “Make or Break” (Feb. 17) and the movie “Sharper” starring Julianne Moore (Feb. 17).

The most interesting Netflix release this week is “African Queens” (Feb. 15), a series that is part drama, part documentary that tells the story of female rulers in Africa, beginning with Njinga, a warrior princess in Ndongo in present-day Angola. The series is executive produced by Jada Pinkett Smith. Netflix also has “Perfect Match” (Feb. 14), a dating series that puts together alumni of various Netflix reality shows; “Full Swing” (Feb. 15), a docuseries about professional golfers; and Season 3 of sitcom “The Upshaws” (Feb. 16).

Disney+ offers the documentary “j-Hope in the Box” (Feb. 17), in which the member of Korean supergroup BTS is profiled as he creates his first solo album.

The PBS Masterpiece Channel, available on Prime Video in Canada, has popular Norwegian series “Acquitted” (Feb. 17), about a businessman who returns to his hometown 20 years after he was acquitted of murdering his high school girlfriend.

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.