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Watchable on Crave, CBC, Prime Video Feb. 13 to 19, 2023

February 13, 2023 /

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

Jonathan Frakes as Will Riker and Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: Picard.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Trae Paatton/Paramount+/CBS Studios Inc.

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

Coaches Luke Willson, Jen Kish, Waneek Horn-Miller, Donovan Bailey, Gilmore Junio
and Clara Hughes on “Canada’s Ultimate Challenge.” PHOTO CREDIT: CBC

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

Billy Crudup as Jack Billings in “Hello Tomorrow!” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV+

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.

Watchable on Disney, Acorn, Crave Feb. 6 to 12, 2023

February 6, 2023 /

Show of the Week: Kindred (Feb. 8, Disney+)

Micah Stock as Kevin and Mallori Johnson as Dana in “Kindred.” PHOTO CREDIT: Tina Rowden/FX

This miniseries opens with what I can only imagine would seem like twin terrors for Black Americans: a young Black woman is lying in the middle of a room in obvious pain, her back striped with the marks of a whipping, and then, once she’s bathed the wounds and dressed, white police officers come pounding on her door.

The woman is Dana (Mallori Johnson, “WeCrashed”) and, when the show jumps back two days, we learn that she has just moved to Los Angeles from Brooklyn with aspirations of becoming a TV writer.

But she hasn’t even unpacked all the boxes in the house she bought after selling her late grandmother’s brownstone when she finds herself being sent back in time some 200 years to a Maryland plantation. The trips continue, lasting seconds, minutes and hours in the present day (2016) but hours, days and weeks in the past.

And Kevin (Micah Stock, “The Right Stuff”), the white waiter whom Dana has just had sex with, accidentally gets sent back with her where they pose as slave and slave owner to fend off the suspicions of plantation owner Thomas Whelin (Ryan Kwanten) and his wife Margaret (Gayle Rankin).

Those are the broad strokes of this time travel drama based on the 1979 novel by Octavia E. Butler.

Without getting too spoilery, Dana comes to learn that her travel is tied to the Whelins’ son Rufus (David Alexander Kaplan): whenever Rufus is in danger Dana comes back to save him. Likewise, whenever Dana feels her own life is in danger she returns to her own time, but she has no control over when she comes and goes.

She also encounters a relative of hers (Sheria Irving), thought long dead in the present but who has similarly travelled back in time and become trapped.

But Dana’s attempt to confide about these alarming episodes to her aunt Denise (Eisa Davis) in the present day is interpreted as a sign of mental illness; her almost cartoonishly nosy white neighbours (Louis Cancelmi and Brooke Bloom) keep intrusively demanding to know what’s going on when they hear Dana screaming each time she returns to the present; and Kevin’s sister (Elizabeth Stanley) sends the police to Dana’s door when her brother disappears.

From what I have read, Butler’s book was meant to explore how a modern Black woman would experience slavery and there is certainly some sense of that in this adaptation — as well as a sense of Kevin’s disgust at the dehumanizing of the enslaved by the Whelins and other white people he encounters.

(Some reviewers have taken issue with the romance between Dana and Kevin, who is Dana’s husband in the book but a virtual stranger to her in the series. I, however, can imagine how people trapped in a foreign, hostile situation would gravitate to, and draw comfort from, each other.)

But I had a hard time buying Kwanten, an Australian actor known mainly for his role in “True Blood,” as a fearsome slave owner, at least up until the very end when he perpetrates violence on Dana and threatens the life of Kevin. Not that I’m suggesting “12 Years a Slave”-style brutality would have been preferable, but Dana seems to experience a fair amount of latitude on the plantation, at least until she doesn’t.

Johnson is sympathetic as an alternately confused, angry, terrified and guilt-ridden 20-something woman, the latter since the slaves she encounters can’t escape their reality the way that she can.

Despite the flaws in this adaptation — developed by playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (“An Octoroon”) — you’ll likely be invested enough in what happens to Dana and Kevin to watch all eight episodes.

The bad news is that the cliff-hangers in the final episode might never get a resolution. FX declined to renew the show for a second season, although Jacobs-Jenkins is said to be shopping it around.

Short Takes

James Nesbitt and Victoria Smurfit in Season 2 of “Bloodlands.” PHOTO CREDIT: Steffan Hill/AcornTV

Bloodlands (Feb. 6, Acorn)

I don’t want to spoil anything for anybody, but if you watched Season 1 of this Northern Irish drama you already know that Detective Chief Inspector Tom Brannick (Northern Irish actor James Nesbitt of “Murphy’s Law” and “The Missing”) is not a good cop. Season 2 ties into Tom’s past sins when a crooked accountant is murdered and found to have connections to a trove of gold that was bound for the IRA but disappeared along with the two men in charge of it, whose skeletal remains turned up at the end of last season. Tom leads the official investigation into the murder while also pursuing a clandestine operation to find the gold with the help of the accountant’s widow, Olivia (Victoria Smurfit, “Ballykissangel,” “Once Upon a Time”). How long can Tom keep all those balls in the air without his clever underlings, Niamh McGovern (Charlene McKenna) and Billy “Birdy” Bird (Chris Walley, “The Young Offenders”), catching on? Also in the mix is the gold’s American gangster owner (Jonjo O’Neill, “The Fall,” “Bad Sisters”), who turns up in Dunfolan demanding its return. It can be taxing to connect all the dots in this series, but it moves along smartly and compellingly, with some emotional payoff in the latter episodes of the season. The final episode leaves some big questions unanswered, but it seems there’s still a chance for a third season, so we’ll see.

Acorn also has Season 2 of “The Madame Blanc Mysteries” (Feb. 6), the very light but pleasant series about crime-solving antiques dealer Jean White (Sally Lindsay) and her compatriots in the French village of Sainte Victoire.

Mohammad Saud and Salik Rehman treat a black kite in their makeshift animal hospital.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

All That Breathes (Feb. 7, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

Beauty can exist in very unlikely places. This documentary finds it in garbage-strewn streets in Delhi, India, where brothers Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, and their co-worker Salik Rehman, rescue and treat injured black kites and other birds. The brothers, who were filmed over three years by doc maker Shaunak Sen, do this at great cost — financial, physical, emotional — and also at the expense of their long-suffering wives and children. Their devotion is writ large in one scene in particular, in which Saud and Salik swim through very cold water to rescue a single kite on a far shore; Nadeem has to wade in himself when they become so exhausted on the way back they feel unable to keep going. The brothers initially treat the birds in a dingy and sometimes flooded basement before an international grant enables them to open a hospital for their Wildlife Rescue organization. Adding to the tension of caring for the thousands of birds — injured by pollution and other human-made causes — is the political unrest and violence taking place in Delhi during filming. Saud, Nadeem and Salik persevere, seemingly unable to stop even if they wanted to. “Delhi is a gaping wound and we’re a tiny Band-Aid on it,” Nadeem says. He adds that “one shouldn’t differentiate between all that breathes” hence the title. Indeed, Sen’s camera frequently documents the creatures that share Delhi with its human population, from rats swarming a garbage-covered lot to monkeys, boars, dogs, goats, cows, horses, even invertebrates swarming a murky puddle. As Nadeem says, “Life itself is kinship.” This doc is up for a Best Documentary Oscar and won the Golden Eye prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Lea Thompson and Stacey Farber in “The Spencer Sisters.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

The Spencer Sisters (Feb. 10, 9 p.m., CTV/CTV.ca)

Despite all the sexy, serialized TV out there sucking up buzz and awards, the procedural isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, particularly the mystery procedural. So you can’t fault CTV for getting in on the action with this new series, particularly when the cast includes Lea Thompson, a legend for the “Back to the Future” films, and Stacey Farber, no slouch herself thanks to “Degrassi” and other credits. Here they play a mother and daughter who stumble into a partnership solving crimes. Victoria (Thompson) is a rich and famous mystery writer whose star is waning; Darby (Farber) is an ex-cop forced to move back in with Mom despite the huge chip on her shoulder over Victoria putting career ahead of family in earlier years. I have some quibbles — for example, how perfunctorily the blow-up of Darby’s police career is handled in the first episode — but if you’re looking for something light that won’t overtax your grey matter you could do worse than this. Thompson and Farber certainly seemed to have a hoot making the show together (you can read my Toronto Star interview with them here).

From left, Lolly Adefope, Mathew Baynton, Jim Howick, Ben Willbond, Laurence Rickard, Yani Xander, Simon Farnaby and Martha Howe-Douglas in “Ghosts.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC Gem

Ghosts (Feb. 10, CBC Gem)

No, sorry folks, I don’t mean the American remake that has become a hit for CBS. I continue to prefer this British original version about Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) and the spirts she learns to co-exist with on the country estate she inherited from a distant relative. This fourth season, based on the two episodes I screened, perhaps doesn’t have as many laugh-out-loud moments as past seasons, but it continues to find sweetness and relatability in the relationship between Alison and the ghosts, and between the spectres themselves. There’s an endearing plot, for instance, in which ever cheerful Georgian lady Kitty (Lolly Adefope) teaches the by-the-books Captain (Ben Willbond) how to stop and smell the roses or, in his case, count the ants. Meanwhile, romantic poet Thomas (Mathew Baynton) develops a fan club among the plague victims in the basement and tries to kick his infatuation with Alison cold turkey; cave man Robin (Laurence Rickard) recognizes an acquaintance in a TV segment; witch-burning victim Mary (Katy Wix) finally reveals some details about her past; and Alison and husband Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) soft-launch a B&B at Button House.

CBC Gem also has the CBC Kids preschool series “Mittens & Pants” (Feb. 6), about best friends Mittens the kitten and Pants the puppy, and their other animal friends.

Odds and Ends

Martin Mull and Gina Rodriguez in “Not Dead Yet.” PHOTO CREDIT: Eric McCandless/ABC

In keeping with the topic of TV characters who see dead people, ABC is launching sitcom “Not Dead Yet” (Feb. 8, 9:30 p.m., CTV2), in which Gina Rodriguez (“Jane the Virgin”) plays a down-on-her-luck journalist who gets hired at her old paper as an obituary writer and gets an assist from the dead people she writes about, who hang around until she gives them a proper send-off. Also starring Hannah Simone, Lauren Ash, Josh Banday and Rick Glassman, it tends to a schmaltzy “you go girl” tone, but it has its moments. CTV also has Season 2 of reality series “Auntie Jillian” (Feb. 11, 8 p.m.), starring YouTube personality Jillian Danford, husband Warren and grown-up kids Myles and Milan.

I would image the big release for many people on Netflix this week is Season 4 of “You” (Feb. 9), its drama about a serial killer (Penn Badgley). The streamer also has Season 6 of time travel romance “Outlander” (Feb. 6); the doc “Bill Russell: Legend” (Feb. 8) about the civil rights icon; and Season 3 of reality after-show “Love Is Blind: After the Altar” (Feb. 10).

W and StackTV are going all in on romcoms with “The Love Club” (Feb. 10, 8 p.m.), four original movies that will debut on subsequent Fridays about four friends who form a club to keep each other out of romantic crises. Each film follows a different woman on her quest to find love. How much you want to bet they all succeed?

Prime Video’s releases include another romantic film — it is almost Valentine’s Day after all — “Somebody I Used to Know” (Feb. 10), starring Dave Franco and Allison Brie; and the series “One Night Only” (Feb. 10), featuring Francophone comedians PA Méthot, Dominic Paquet, Rachid Badouri and Mariana Mazza.

Paramount+ has the docuseries “Boys in Blue” (Feb. 10), about a high school football team coached by members of the Minneapolis Police Department in the post-George Floyd era.

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.

Watchable Jan. 2 to 22, 2023

January 2, 2023 /

Yes, you read that right, this is a 20-day Watchable list since I will be in California from Jan. 5 to 15, partly to attend the Television Critics Association press tour, and won’t be screening anything until I get back. Herewith, some short takes on some shows I checked out during the past week.

Faith Rodgers, one of the victims of singer R. Kelly. PHOTO CREDIT: Lifetime

Surviving R. Kelly: The Final Chapter (Jan. 2, 9 p.m., Lifetime)

The 2019 docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly” and its 2020 followup, “The Reckoning,” are arguably big reasons why the R&B singer is in jail right now, having been convicted in 2021 of racketeering and sex trafficking, and in 2022 of child pornography. This final three-episode instalment of the docuseries follows Kelly’s federal trial, and includes fresh interviews with the sexual assault survivors and their families. This is not an easy watch. What these women (and some men) endured was horrific and has forever changed their lives and the lives of their families.

From left, Jessalyn Wanlim, Dani Kind, Enuka Okuma, Sadie Munroe, Sarah McVie and Catherine Reitman in “Workin’ Moms.” PHOTO CREDIT: Jackie Brown/Wolf + Rabbit Entertainment

Workin’ Moms (Jan. 3, 9 p.m., CBC)

It’s the end of the road for Catherine Reitman’s comedy about a group of Toronto mothers who connected in a Mommy and Me class and then, over seven seasons, took us on a funny, relatable ride as they navigated parenthood, careers, friendship and romance. I watched the first two episodes of Season 7 in preparation for interviewing Reitman and cast members Dani Kind, Enuka Okuma, Sarah McVie and Jessalyn Wanlim (you can read the story here) and can attest that the final season sticks to what made the show a global success. I’m not allowed to tell you how last season’s cliffhanger turned out after Anne (Kind) was hit by a car, but I’m sure you can figure it out on your own. This ain’t “Game of Thrones.”

CBC also has new seasons of charming coming-of-age comedy “Son of a Critch” (Jan. 3, 8:30 p.m.); Jonny Harris’s “Still Standing” (Jan. 4, 8 p.m.); Andrew Phung’s family comedy “Run the Burbs” (Jan. 4, 8:30 p.m.); and detective dramedy “Pretty Hard Cases” (Jan. 4, 9 p.m.), with dream team Meredith MacNeill and Adrienne C. Moore.

Iain Glen and Emily Hampshire in “The Rig.” PHOTO CREDIT: Amazon Studios

The Rig (Jan. 6, Prime Video)

Setting a thriller on an oil rig in the North Sea already guarantees a certain amount of drama. “The Rig” adds a restive crew trapped there by a mysterious fog and a communications breakdown; a series of increasingly bizarre injuries to crew members; and the suggestion there’s an ancient, hostile force at work. The main attraction is the terrific cast, a who’s who of Scottish and British actors alongside Emily Hampshire of “Schitt’s Creek” (you can read my interview with her here), who plays a petrochemical geologist and one of the few women aboard the rig. She gets to play off “Line of Duty” actors Martin Compston, Mark Bonnar, Rochenda Sandall and Richard Pepple, and “Game of Thrones” alum Iain Glen, Mark Addy, Owen Teale and Emun Elliott, plus one truly mammoth co-star: the model of an oil rig built in a Scottish studio.

Prime Video also has the second and final season of “Hunters” (Jan. 13), the Nazi-hunting drama that made a splash in 2020 by giving Al Pacino a rare recurring TV role. Even though his character Meyer Offerman — SPOILER ALERT! — died in Season 1, Pacino is back in flashback. I watched the first new episode, but reviews are embargoed so that’s all I’ll say.

Harry Hamlin and Alexandra Daddario in “Mayfair Witches.” PHOTO CREDIT: Alfonso Bresciani/AMC

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches (Jan. 8, 9 p.m., AMC/AMC+)

Reviews of this series are embargoed until Tuesday, but I’m including it anyway since it’s fair to say yet another TV series based on a beloved trilogy of Anne Rice novels is something of an event. This one stars Alexandra Daddario (“White Lotus”) as Rowan, a neurosurgeon who discovers she has troubling and dangerous powers, and is likely part of a family of witches. Harry Hamlin also stars as Cortland; Cameron Inman (and later Annabeth Gish) as Deirdre; Jack Huston as Lasher and Tongayi Chirisa as Ciprien. It remains to be seen if this will be as big a hit as “Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire” was for AMC.

Andrea Constand in “The Case Against Cosby.” PHOTO CREDIT: CBC

The Case Against Cosby (Jan. 8, 8 p.m., CBC/CBC Gem)

I apologize for recommending two documentaries about sex offenders in one week, but there is definite merit in this film that tells the story of Andrea Constand, the Canadian woman who succeeded in having Bill Cosby convicted of sexual assault. Yes, the conviction was overturned because of an unofficial deal that a district attorney made with Cosby in 2005 that he wouldn’t be prosecuted criminally after admitting in a civil trial that he used Quaaludes to have sex with women, but that’s not the same thing as being found innocent. This doc, directed by Karen Wookey (“Intervention Canada”), also features interviews with other survivors who took part in a trauma retreat with Constand; with her parents and sister; with police, lawyers and journalists involved in the case against Cosby; and with experts in what’s called “counterintuitive victim behaviour,” i.e. the way women behave after they’ve been sexually assaulted by someone they know as opposed to the way we’ve been led to believe they’re supposed to behave.

CBC and CBC Gem also have the docuseries “Stuff the British Stole” (Jan. 6, 8:30 p.m.), based on the podcast about, well, stuff the British have stolen over the centuries from other lands and cultures; the documentary “Last of the Right Whales” (Jan. 6, 9 p.m.) on “The Nature of Things”; and the documentary “Doug and the Slugs and Me” (Jan. 15, 8 p.m.), which is mainly about unlikely 1980s pop star Doug Bennett, directed by his family’s former next-door neighbour, Teresa Alfeld.

In addition, CBC Gem has the Ken Burns docuseries “The U.S. and the Holocaust” (Jan. 13), about America’s failure to rescue more than a fraction of the Jewish refugees trying to escape murder by the Nazis; and the Northern Ireland-set drama “Death and Nightingales” (Jan. 6), which has an intriguing cast in Ann Skelly, Matthew Rhys and Jamie Dornan but is very slow.

From left, Nicholas Ralph, Samuel West, Rachel Shenton, Anna Madeley and Callum Woodhouse in
“All Creatures Great and Small” Season 3. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Playground Entertainment

All Creatures Great and Small (Jan. 8, 9 p.m., PBS/PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel)

This is one of those shows I watch not just out of professional duty but because I really enjoy it. Based on the first two episodes, Season 3 looks to be as delightful as the first two seasons. It opens in 1939 with Yorkshire veterinarian James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) about to marry farmer’s daughter Helen Alderson (Rachel Shenton). Naturally, there are complications — a boisterous bachelor’s party and a herd of cows at risk for disease among them — but the episode title, “Second Time Lucky,” gives a hint of how it turns out. All of the excellent lead cast are back, including Samuel West as irascible head vet Siegfried Farnon, Callum Woodhouse as his somewhat feckless brother Tristan and Anna Madeley as long-suffering housekeeper Mrs. Hall.

PBS also has Season 27 of the U.S. version of “Antiques Roadshow” (Jan. 2, 8 p.m.); and Season 3 of period mystery series “Miss Scarlet and the Duke” (Jan. 8, 8 p.m.); PBS also says it will rebroadcast “The U.S. and the Holocaust” beginning Jan. 6 at 9 p.m., although it’s on the WNED schedule Jan. 9 at 9 p.m.

And because I can’t really resist anything to do with Scotland, the birthplace of two of my grandparents, I screened “Wildheart” (Jan. 18, 8 p.m.), a restorative episode of “Nature” about a Scots pine in what’s left of the Caledonian Forest in the highlands that’s almost 500 years old. Did it really grow from a pine cone tossed aside by Mary, Queen of Scots as a child? I don’t see how one could prove that, but it makes for a whimsical start to telling the life story of this tree and the creatures that have surrounded it for centuries.

From left, Chandni, Roop, Kuki, Chandan and Sarab Singh, the stars of “Bollywed.”

Bollywed (Jan. 12, 8 p.m., CBC/CBC Gem)

If you have ever taken a streetcar along Gerrard Street East in Toronto you have no doubt spotted Chandan Fashion out the window with its distinctive blue and magenta exterior. This docuseries takes viewers inside the shop and the Singh family, who have run the business in Little India for 37 years. As it gained inventory and customers, the shop grew to three storeys, but the first episode makes clear that those floors, as well as the basement, are bursting at the seams as father Kuki brings in more and more merchandise, and kids Chandan and Chandni encourage him to open another location. I suspect that clash of old school business practices vs. modernization will drive the action throughout the series. There’s also a touch of “Say Yes to the Dress” as Chandan helps brides choose their wedding ensembles in the third-floor bridal showroom.

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in “The Last of Us.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

The Last of Us (Jan. 15, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

Reviews of this postapocalyptic drama are embargoed until next week. I don’t think I’m even allowed to tell you whether I like it, so you’ll have to draw your own conclusions from the fact I have singled it out here. It’s based on a video game of the same name about the aftermath of a fungal infection that has wiped out huge swaths of humanity, leaving survivors penned into militaristic quarantine zones. I can at least tell you what I think of the cast, led by Pedro Pascal, a standout in shows like “Narcos,” “Game of Thrones” and “The Mandalorian,” and Bella Ramsey, the enormously talented young actor also seen in “Game of Thrones” and “Catherine Called Birdy.” They play Joel, a hardened survivor, and Ellie, the 14-year-old he is tasked with escorting across the country to a revolutionary group that’s trying to find a cure for the infection. Other cast members include Anna Torv, Merle Dandridge, Gabriel Luna, Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett, Melanie Lynskey and Toronto’s Lamar Johnson.

Crave also has Viking revenge movie “The Northman” (Jan. 6), featuring a super ripped Alexander Skarsgard, which Toronto Star reviewer Peter Howell gave 3.5 out of 4 stars; British crime drama “Without Sin” (Jan. 6); competition series “The Climb” (Jan. 12), in which contestants climb foreboding looking peaks overseen by series creator Jason Momoa; animated Scooby-Doo spinoff “Velma” (Jan. 12), created by and starring Mindy Kaling; and Season 2 of “Your Honor” (Jan. 13), in which Bryan Cranston and Michael Stuhlbarg return as the judge and the mob boss whose lives were upended by a hit-and-run in Season 1.

“Shadowland,” based on an Atlantic magazine investigation of conspiracy theories, debuts Jan. 21. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of History

Shadowland (Jan. 21, 9 p.m., History/STACKTV)

If there’s one thing we all became familiar with over the two years (now into its third) of the COVID-19 pandemic it’s conspiracy theories. This docuseries, based on a series of articles in the Atlantic magazine, takes a deep dive into the subject by having documentary teams interview the holders of these theories about their beliefs. The subjects include a woman in Pennsylvania who has bought so completely into the belief that the world is being controlled by a “deep state” cabal of elites that she risks going to jail for her part in the Jan. 6 riot rather than subject herself to the authority of the court. Other subjects include a Montreal woman, former journalist and rabid anti-vaxxer who has moved to San Francisco with her boyfriend, the so-called “Google whistleblower.” The series is directed by Joe Berlinger, an Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated documentarian.

And while we’re on the subject of conspiracy theories, they are also the subject of the first episode of “Truth & Lies,” a docuseries debuting on TVO Jan. 17 at 9 p.m. The series from Emmy nominee Lewis Cohen takes a more historical approach. In the opener, for instance, it draws a line between the “blood libel” conspiracy theory of the 12th century that claimed Jews harvested the blood of Christian children, to the modern claim that Democrats are child pornographers using children for their blood. Other episodes look at war propaganda, scandals, money, religion and influencers.

Also, back to the Corus Entertainment slate, Showcase has “Irreverent” (Jan. 8, 9 p.m.), about a criminal mediator who has to flee Chicago for Australia and pose as a minister; and the latest David E. Kelley series, “The Calling” (Jan. 16, 9 p.m.), about a particularly dedicated NYPD detective. And W Network has the Hallmark series “The Way Home” (Jan. 22, 8 p.m.), which stars Andie MacDowell, Chyler Leigh and Sadie Laflamme-Snow as three generations of an estranged family and is set, at least in part, in a Canadian farm town.

Odds and Ends

Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman in 1975 in a scene from “The Last Movie Stars.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Warner Brothers

I very much wanted to review “The Last Movie Stars,” the docuseries about actors and spouses Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, directed by movie star Ethan Hawke, that got rapturous reviews when it debuted in the U.S. It finally makes its Canadian premiere Jan. 12 on Hollywood Suite, but screeners won’t be available until after I’ve left for California.

Speaking of stars, Matthew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawes are certainly that, particularly if you’ve watched “Succession” or any number of British series that they’ve been in. The real-life couple plays British politician John Stonehouse and his wife Barbara in “Stonehouse” (Jan. 17, BritBox). The MP was at the centre of a scandal in the U.K. after faking his own death in 1974. Reviews, unfortunately, are embargoed until next week.

Let’s get to Netflix. I liked the first season of the soapy but charming “Ginny & Georgia,” but there was an embargo on Season 2 episodes, which debut Jan. 5. More (not all) Netflix premieres: documentary “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street” (Jan. 4); doc “Mumbai Mafia: Police vs. the Underworld” (Jan. 6); Season 2 of “Vikings: Valhalla” (Jan. 12); tennis documentary “Break Point” (Jan. 13); “That ’70s Show” spinoff “That ’90s Show” (Jan. 19); so-called reality series “Bling Empire: New York” (Jan. 20).

Your Disney+ pick is “If These Walls Could Sing” (Jan. 6), the story of Abbey Road Studios as told by Mary McCartney, daughter of Beatle Paul McCartney. Also, buzzy movie “The Menu” has its streaming debut Jan. 4.

Apple TV+ has docuseries “Super League: The War for Football” (Jan. 13) and by football they mean soccer. It also has the fourth and final season of “Servant” (Jan. 13).

David Attenborough is back with yet another nature documentary, “Dynasties II” (Jan. 8, 9 p.m., BBC Earth), which follows families of elephants, macaques, cheetahs, pumas, meerkats and hyenas.

I don’t usually write up Paramount+ series since they don’t often send me releases, but that seems to be changing. On Jan. 19, the streamer has the Canadian debut of “The Chemistry of Death,” based on two Simon Beckett novels, starring Harry Treadaway (“Penny Dreadful”) as former forensic anthropologist David Hunter.

And finally, the tarnished “Golden Globe Awards” are back and will air Jan. 10 at 8 p.m. on Citytv.

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.

CORRECTION, JAN. 22, 2023: Edited because I accidentally misspelled Murray Bartlett’s last name in the “Last of Us” entry.

Watchable on Super Channel, PBS, Netflix Dec. 26-Jan. 1, 2023

December 26, 2022 /

I will take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year. Not a lot of new stuff out this week and a lot of what is new I didn’t have screeners for, but the floodgates will open in earnest as January continues.

Short Takes

A scene from “Ice-Breaker: The ’72 Summit Series.” PHOTO CREDIT: Super Channel

Ice-Breaker: The ’72 Summit Series (Dec. 27, 9 p.m., Super Channel Fuse)

If you’re having a sense of deja vu, yes, I did write about a show connected to the 1972 hockey “Summit Series” between the Russians and Canadians back in September, when I made the CBC docuseries “Summit ’72” my show of the week. This documentary film by Robbie Hart (“I Am Not a Rock Star”) covers some of the same ground — the shocking Game 1 loss to the Soviets, the Canadian fans booing in Vancouver, Phil Esposito’s rousing speech, the Canucks’ underdog status going into the final games, Paul Henderson’s series-winning goal — but it also puts a bigger focus on the geopolitical implications of the games, which is not surprising since it’s based on a book by former diplomat Gary J. Smith, “Ice War Diplomat: Hockey Meets Cold War Politics at the 1972 Summit Series.” Smith is interviewed along with hockey folks like Wayne Gretzky, Ron Maclean, Harnarayan Singh, Angela James and Daniele Sauvageau (interviews with a handful of the Canadian ’72 players appear to be archival). The doc also includes footage shot in Moscow and fresh interviews with Russian players Vladislav Tretiak, Alexander Yakushev and Boris Mikhailov. The film’s thesis is that the Summit Series changed the game of hockey forever and even changed Canada’s national identity. If that’s true — and having been only 10 when the series was played I can’t vouch for that — then I believe it’s also true that the national identity is in constant flux as Canada grows and diversifies. And I can’t help but wonder whether hockey will play as big a part in the mythology of this country 50 years from now.

Groucho Marx and Dick Cavett on “The Dick Cavett Show” in June 1969. PHOTO CREDIT: Ron Baldwin

“American Masters: Cavett & Groucho” (Dec. 27, 8 p.m., PBS)

Speaking of nostalgia, this episode of the PBS series “American Masters” takes viewers back not just to the 1960s and ’70s when comedian Groucho Marx made seven appearances on his friend Dick Cavett’s talk show, but to the age of vaudeville and early film when Groucho and the other Marx Brothers became famous. Groucho went on to achieve individual fame as the host of TV quiz show “You Bet Your Life.” By the time he started appearing on “Cavett,” he was in his late 70s, but he and Cavett had been friends since meeting at the funeral of playwright George S. Kaufman when Groucho was 70 and Cavett 25. Cavett, now 86 — the same age Groucho was when he died in 1977 — says he got “perhaps the last of Groucho’s prime” on his talk show. Whether that translates to modern audiences for whom Groucho’s comedy style will seem old-fashioned remains to be seen, but the story of the friendship between the men is a touching one and it’s clear that Cavett still has nothing but the highest regard for his comedy hero.

PBS also has the concert special “Great Performances: From Vienna: The New Year’s Celebration 2023” (Jan. 1, 8 p.m.), featuring music by Strauss and others conducted by Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Möst, performances by the Vienna State Ballet and host Hugh Bonneville of “Downton Abbey.”

Odds and Ends

Charlie Cox stars in “Treason.” PHOTO CREDIT: Netflix

The Netflix series I would have screened had it been available last week is “Treason” (Dec. 26), starring Charlie Cox (“Daredevil”) as an MI6 agent whose future is called into question after he’s reunited with a Russian spy with whom he had a past. Netflix also has Season 5 of “The Circle” (Dec. 28); a Spanish comedy series called “Alpha Males” (Dec. 30); the Noah Baumbach film “White Noise” (Dec. 30) starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig; the special “Best of Stand Up 2022” (Dec. 31); the heist series “Kaleidoscope” (Jan. 1); the Brazilian series “Lady Voyeur” (Jan. 1) and other stuff.

My pick for Crave this week, just based on the description, is “Kingdom of Dreams” (Dec. 30), a docuseries about the global fashion business from the early 1990s to the 2010s. Canadian fashion icon Jeanne Beker is a producer. Crave also has “The Rocky Collection” dropping on Dec. 30, which includes all six films plus the documentary “40 Years of Rocky: The Birth of a Classic,” narrated by Sylvester Stallone. Its New Year’s offering is “Lizzo: Live in Concert” (Dec. 31, 8 p.m.).

Speaking of New Year’s, CBC TV and CBC Gem have “Canada’s New Year’s Eve: Countdown to 2023” at 11 p.m. on Dec. 31, hosted by Rick Mercer and featuring music from Chad Price, Devon Cole, James Barker Band, JJ Wilde, Kardinal Offishall, Leela Gilday, OKAY TK, Savannah Ré and Vincent Vallières.

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.

Watchable on PBS, Disney, Crave Dec. 19 to 25, 2022

December 19, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Call the Midwife Holiday Special (Dec. 25, 9 p.m., PBS)

Leonie Elliott, Helen George and Megan Cusack in the “Call the Midwife Holiday Special.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Neal Street Productions and BBC Studios

If you want to feel good about the human race at this time of year I can think of few things more likely to engender that sentiment than the annual “Call the Midwife Holiday Special.”

Is it unbashedly sentimental? In spades, but that doesn’t mean it’s Pollyanna-ish.

Truth be told, I resisted watching the show for some years, despite it being a favourite of my late mother-in-law’s. Alas, by the time I had succumbed to its charms, it was too late to share that appreciation with her. But I shall share it with you.

Essentially, the British series is about a group of midwives — both nuns and laywomen — working out of a convent in an impoverished area of East London. It begins in 1957. Season 11, released earlier this year on PBS, advanced the time period to 1967.

(In Canada, you can catch up on previous seasons on BritBox and CBC Gem, which starts streaming Season 11 on Dec. 22.)

Obviously the show deals with subjects historically pigeonholed as women’s issues, including pregnancy and childbirth, infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, birth defects, maternal mortality, birth control, sexual assault and lack of access to safe abortions. But it also deals with general social ills: poverty, mental illness, spousal violence, alcoholism, racism, homophobia, gentrification, and medical ignorance and prejudice, to name just some. (A quibble: I suspect in real 1960s London, Jamaican nurse Lucille would have been subject to a lot more racism than the show portrays.)

This year’s Christmas special reintroduces Rhoda and Bernie Mullucks (Liz White and Chris Reilly), who had a thalidomide baby in Season 5 (thalidomide was prescribed to pregnant women to fight nausea in the 1950s and early ’60s, and was found to cause birth defects).

Rhoda is pregnant with her fourth child, fearful that her new baby will also have disabilities, and dreading having to divide her attention between an infant and daughter Susan, who was born with deformed arms and legs. Susan is being discriminated against at school because of her disability, and Bernie is spending his free time at the pub rather than deal with his worries for the new baby and his guilt over Susan’s condition.

Another plot line involves a young, pregnant woman just released from jail who’s subjected to total indifference by the welfare official supposedly there to help her and is kicked out of her rooming house when she goes into labour.

If you’re familiar with past iterations of the “Call the Midwife Holiday Special,” you probably suspect both these situations will be resolved with happy endings, although that’s not always the case in the series.

The episode’s feel-good plot involves a Christmas talent show organized by handyman Fred (Cliff Parisi) and wife Violet (Annabelle Apsion) to help mitigate the after-effects of Season 11’s fatal train crash.

Besides Day 1 character Fred, the special also checks in with originals Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter), Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt), Dr. Turner (Stephen McGann, the real-life husband of series creator Heidi Thomas), Shelagh Turner (Laura Main) and Nurse Trixie (Helen George).

Trixie and Sister Frances (Ella Bruccoleri) undergo some significant plot developments, but Nurse Lucille (Leonie Elliott) and husband Cyril (Zephryn Taitte), Nurse Nancy (Megan Cusack), Nurse Crane (Linda Bassett), receptionist Millicent (Georgie Glen), Fred’s cousin Reggie (Daniel Laurie), the Turners’ son Timothy (Max Macmillan) and Trixie’s rich boyfriend, Matthew (Olly Rix), also figure in the action.

One of the beauties of “Call the Midwife” is that its revolving cast of characters doesn’t lessen enjoyment of the show. Sure, you miss people who have left the series, but the new characters fit easily into the ebb and flow of life in Poplar, and it seems we’re in for more additions when Season 12 debuts in 2023.

In the meantime, there’s this holiday special with the show’s usual mix of comedy and drama, sorrow and joy, and an abundance of kindness. Enjoy and keep the tissues handy.

Short Takes

The Flagmakers (Dec. 21, Disney+)

For the immigrants and refugees who work at Eder Flag in Oak Park, Wisconsin, sewing and shipping five million American flags a year is part of their American dream. They’ve come from countries like Serbia, Iraq, Bosnia, Puerto Rico, Tanzania, Mexico, fleeing war and other hardships, or just seeking better lives for themselves and their families. They toil alongside native-born Americans like SugarRay and Barb, a Trump supporter who nonetheless forms seemingly genuine connections with her diverse co-workers. Sewing manager Radica, who left Serbia with her husband after her house was bombed, believes every flag created at Eder has a soul, but she also feels betrayed when the Stars and Stripes are brandished during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, even used as a weapon against a police officer. SugarRay, meanwhile, is trying to reconcile the country he loves with the country where fellow Black man George Floyd was murdered. “When you start to learn more about how this country was built for Black and brown people it really doesn’t kind of include you,” he says. And Ali, who fled war in Iraq with his wife and children, initially believes life in America is beautiful, a belief that is challenged when he’s hit and knocked unconscious while shopping at Walmart with his family. Radica theorizes that while America isn’t perfect, that’s its beauty, but she also ends up moving back to Serbia. The work at Eder, meanwhile, goes on. This doc, which runs just 36 minutes, was co-directed by Sharon Liese and Oscar winner Cynthia Wade.

Disney also has the streaming debut of “Strange World” (Dec. 23), the animated film starring the voices of Jake Gyllenhaal, Gabrielle Union and Dennis Quaid.

Things get tense between Dan (K. Trevor Wilson) and Stewart (Tyler Johnston) as Wayne (Jared Keeso) steps in during the Season 11 premiere of “Letterkenny.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

Letterkenny (Dec. 25, Crave)

On the surface, “Letterkenny” would seem to be merely a clever and sometimes strange comedy in which the jokes fly at the speed of light. However, there are decidedly serious things going on under the surface, which is how a group discussion about the merits of various types of potato chips in the Season 11 premiere is really about topics like loneliness, racism, familial love and friendship. And underneath all of that, always, is a love of Canada. Only one episode of the new season was made available for review, but the synopsis put out by Crave says the new episodes will also encompass “lost dogs, an influencer invasion, Skid business, a mystery at the church bake sale, unwanted guests at beer league and the Degens stirring up trouble.” Bottom line, if you’re already a fan of Jared Keeso’s ode to his small-town Ontario upbringing, expect more of what you love.

Odds and Ends

Lily Collins and Lucien Laviscount in Season 3 of “Emily in Paris.”
PHOTO CREDIT. Stéphanie Branchu/Netflix © 2022

I apologize to all the “Emily in Paris” fans, but I was unable to get through the first episode of the first season when it debuted, such was my revulsion. And while I have considered going back for a reassessment given its continuing popularity I just haven’t had the time, so I’m no use to you at all as Season 3 debuts on Netflix on Dec. 21. Also dropping on Netflix this week: drama series “Trolley” (Dec. 19), about a congressman’s wife and family secrets; Season 4 of the docuseries “I Am a Killer” (Dec. 21); Season 2 of Japanese sci-fi drama “Alice in Borderland”; the streaming debut of “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (Dec. 23); the streaming debut of “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” (Dec. 25); Brazilian comedy series “Time Hustler” (Dec. 25), in which a man is hit on the head and wakes up in 1927, where he’s mistaken for a famous bandit; and prequel series “The Witcher: Blood Origin” (Dec. 25), starring Michelle Yeoh and Lenny Henry (“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”).

This just in: if you’re Team William and Kate or you just want to study their faces for signs of how they really feel about “Harry & Meghan,” BritBox will have “Royal Carols: Together at Christmas,” the special hosted by the new Princess of Wales, on Dec. 24. It’s dedicated to the late Queen Elizabeth II and, naturally, William, King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla were in attendance.

Anybody who has Paramount+ will no doubt want to watch box office megahit “Top Gun: Maverick” when it starts streaming Dec. 22.

Prime Video’s big debut this week is the third season of “Jack Ryan” (Dec. 21), starring John Krasinski as the titular action hero.

Apple TV+ has the animated short film “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” (Dec. 25), based on the Charlie Mackesy book. And Apple is also making the classic “A Charlie Brown Christmas” available free between Dec. 22 and 25.

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.

Watchable on Prime Video, CBC, Netflix Nov. 28 to Dec. 4, 2022

November 28, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Three Pines (Dec. 2, Prime Video)

Alfred Molina as Armand Gamache in “Three Pines.” PHOTO CREDIT: Amazon Studios

I’m not sure what could be more Canadian than a murder surreptitiously committed during a curling match in a seemingly placid Quebec village.

That’s the case that introduces us to the TV version of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, the hero of Louise Penny’s bestselling mystery novels, brought to life by Alfred Molina (“Spider-Man,” “Frida”) in this eight-part series.

If you’re looking for flashy and gory, this isn’t the show for you; if you’re interested in a mystery series anchored in character and place, and the secrets that those hold, then settle in.

The show, like the books, is mainly set in the village of Three Pines in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. Though Gamache, an officer with the Quebec provincial police, is based in Montreal, he keeps getting drawn back to the small community. Even when the murders don’t happen there, there is inevitably some connection with the outwardly idyllic place.

Molina leads a strong cast that includes Rossif Sutherland, Ella-Maija Tailfeathers and Sarah Booth as fellow officers Jean-Guy Beauvoir, Isabelle Lacoste and Yvette Nichol, and the wonderful Tantoo Cardinal as gallery owner Bea Mayer.

Molina told the Toronto Star that Gamache isn’t the typical troubled male detective, something that will no doubt be old hat for viewers who have read Penny’s books. His Gamache is kind without being a pushover; authoritative without being a tough guy; smart and intuitive without being a showoff. And he carries painful secrets of his own, although they don’t interfere with his ability to do his job or his loving relationship with his wife, Reine-Marie (Marie-France Lambert).

The show also departs from the books in a significant way, by adding a storyline that runs throughout the eight episodes anchored in Canada’s shameful history of murdered and missing Indigenous women, and residential schools.

A former residential school and its history of atrocities figure into at least four of the episodes. And Gamache gets personally involved, despite the displeasure of his superiors, in trying to help an Indigenous family whose daughter has disappeared along with her boyfriend, initially dismissed as runaways despite her family’s insistence she would never leave her baby daughter behind.

If you watched CBC’s promising but short-lived series “Trickster” you’ll recognize actors Crystle Lightning, Georgina Lightning and Anna Lambe in this storyline.

“Three Pines,” as is fitting for a show set in Quebec, switches between English and French dialogue, another way it differentiates itself as a made- and set-in-Canada series.

But don’t watch it just because it’s Canadian; watch it because you’ll be drawn in by its stories of all too human crimes and the good-hearted man trying to solve them.

Odds and Ends

Cat fancier Kim Langille and her retired champion Bobby. PHOTO CREDIT: Markham Street Films

Sorry readers, but I chose to spend a weekend in Niagara-on-the-Lake rather than screening shows as I do most weekends, so I haven’t watched pretty much all of what’s on this list.

I did screen “Catwalk 2: The Comeback Cats” (Dec. 2, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem), a sequel to the documentary “Catwalk” (still available to stream on CBC Gem), which apparently became a hit on CBC and Netflix with its tale of rivalry on the Canadian cat show circuit. Things get even, well, cattier in No. 2. With her prize Turkish Angora Bobby retired, Kim Langille attempts to gain the glory that eluded Bobby with his son, Chance. But after Kim gets banned from the  Canadian Cat Association, both she and Bobby mount a comeback.

Netflix, as usual, has a lot. There’s a new instalment of crime docuseries “Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields” (Nov. 29) and the title pretty much says it all; the food competition “Snack VS. Chef” (Nov. 30), about recreating classic snacks; the documentary “Take Your Pills: Xanax” (Nov. 30); another doc, “The Masked Scammer” (Dec. 1), about a French con man; Season 2, Part 1 of the tearjerker “Firefly Lane” (Dec. 2); a series with the intriguing name “Hot Skull” (Dec. 2), about a virus that spreads through verbal communication; the film “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (Dec. 2), based on what was once considered a scandalous novel by D.H. Lawrence, starring Emma Corrin (“The Crown”) and Jack O’Connell (“The North Water,” “Godless”); Season 2 of reality TV show “My Unorthodox Life” (Dec. 2); and documentary “Sr.” (Dec. 2), actor Robert Downey Jr.’s tribute to his late filmmaker father, Robert Downey Sr.

I was not as blown away by Gary Oldman-starring spy drama “Slow Horses” as some critics were, but that doesn’t mean I won’t watch Season 2 when it debuts Dec. 2 on Apple TV+.

Crave has a documentary with a great title, “Meet Me in the Bathroom” (Nov. 29), which chronicles the New York music scene of the early 2000s, when bands like the Strokes, Vampire Weekend, LCD Soundsystem, TV on the Radio and the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s were the next big things. Also streaming: Season 2 of “Gossip Girl” (Dec. 1); the docuseries “Branson” (Dec. 1), about entrepreneur, daredevil and space pioneer Richard Branson; the docuseries “Cocaine, Prison & Likes: Isabelle’s True Story,” (Dec. 2), about convicted drug smugglers Isabelle Lagace and Melina Roberge, the so-called “Cocaine Cowgirls” who inspired the recent Prime Video movie “Sugar”; and the limited series “George & Tammy” (Dec. 4), in which Jessica Chastain plays Tammy Wynette to Michael Shannon’s George Jones.

The Disney+ offerings include “Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules” (Dec. 2); the fantasy movie “Darby and the Dead” (Dec. 1); and TV series “Willow” (Nov. 30), a sequel of sorts to the 1988 Ron Howard-George Lucas film, with Warwick Davis reprising his role as Willow.

If you like British female-led mystery series, “Whitstable Pearl,” starring Kerry Godliman (“After Life”), is back for a second season on Acorn on Nov. 28.

Finally, the fact that Christmas is less than a month away is inescapable, so you might as well watch “The Original Santa Claus Parade” on CTV on Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. This time, there was a proper parade to film in the streets of Toronto and not just a bunch of floats rolling along without any spectators at Canada’s Wonderland.

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.

Watchable on FX, Crave, CBC Gem Aug. 29 to Sept. 4, 2022

August 29, 2022 /

Please note: My show of the week is “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” which debuts on Prime Video on Sept. 2, but reviews are embargoed until Wednesday morning, when I will be out of town on an overnight trip. I will post a review here either later this week or next Monday.

The Patient (Aug. 30, Disney Plus)

Steve Carell as Dr. Alan Strauss and Domhnall Gleeson as Sam Fortner in “The Patient.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Suzanne Tenner/FX

The series is called “The Patient,” but it’s the doctor who’s the star.

Steve Carell gives a wonderfully nuanced and sympathetic performance as a psychiatrist being held prisoner by a serial killer in this drama from Joel Fields and Joseph Weisberg, showrunner and creator, respectively, of “The Americans.”

It’s clear from the moment that “Gene” (Domhnall Gleeson, “Star Wars,” “Harry Potter”) shows up at Dr. Alan Strauss’s home office that something is off about him. From behind purple sunglasses, Gene gives a superficial account of his father’s violent abuse and the fact it has fucked him up.

When Alan says they have to go deeper to make real progress, Gene unilaterally decides on an exclusive course of treatment by kidnapping Alan and confining him to a dingy room in the basement of the home he shares with his mother Candace (Linda Emond), convinced that the doctor can cure him of his homicidal urges.

Obviously, Sam, which is Gene’s real name, is grossly bastardizing the therapeutic process, but we are rooting for Alan, hoping against hope he can connect with whatever shred of conscience Sam possesses. To fail to do so implies he’ll end up like the rest of Sam’s mostly nameless and faceless victims, his possessions inside Sam’s box of prosaic trophies.

Gleeson also does very good work as Sam, although he has less to dig into than Carell. The series doesn’t elucidate Sam’s psychopathy beyond his father’s violence and references to him being an odd kid. We know he’s good at his job as a restaurant inspector, loves food and Kenny Chesney, was married once and indulges in daily extra-large Dunkin’ Donuts coffees. But we skim the surface of his psyche.

Our emotional foothold comes through Alan, who’s grieving the recent death of his wife Beth (Laura Niemi, “This Is Us”), a cantor at a Reform Jewish synagogue, and his rift with his son Ezra (Andrew Leeds, “Barry”), whose adoption of Orthodox Judaism angered both his parents.

Alan is not physically mistreated in his captivity beyond the injury of being chained to the floor but — though Sam is mostly courteous and apologetic — the horror is palpable of being confined by a murderous, emotionally unstable captor with only words to use in your defence.

We explore Alan’s fear and confusion and despair and resolve through nightmares and flashbacks and imaginary sessions with his own therapist Charlie (David Alan Grier, “The Carmichael Show”).

These forays into Alan’s mind break up his two-hander scenes with Sam, while Candace, Sam’s ex Mary (Emily Davis), a few of his co-workers and a couple of his victims also figure in the action. (The series benefits from half-hour instalments that keep the show’s talkiness palatable.)

But it’s Alan who commands our attention and our empathy, and in whose fate we’re most invested.

Short Takes

Franz Linda and Tom Wlaschiha return in Season 3 of “Das Boot.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC Gem

Das Boot (Sept. 1, CBC Gem)

The first two seasons of this World War II drama were stealthy, kind of like the submarine of the title, in the way they hooked you on the tale of individuals on opposite sides of the conflict in Nazi-occupied France. Season 3, set in 1943, relocates the action to Germany and Britain. In the former, a push is on to build and crew new U-boats to destroy Allied supply lines; in Britain, the navy is refitting its own ships in a bid to destroy those U-boats. Our key characters initially are German engineer Robert Ehrenberg (Franz Dinda), who played a seminal role in the turmoil aboard U-boat 612 in Season 2; British commander Jack Swinburne (Ray Stevenson), who is fixated on wiping out as many submarines as possible after his son’s supply convoy is torpedoed by one; and German investigator Hagen Forster (Tom Wlaschiha of “Game of Thrones” and “Stranger Things”), who’s sent to Lisbon to try to discover who killed a Gestapo spy there. Trust me, there will be plenty more plot threads to follow as the season continues, both on land and sea, with U-949 about to go into service with a young, inexperienced commander and criminals among the crew. I would recommend catching up on seasons 1 and 2 on Gem before you dive into this one since that will deepen your appreciation of returning characters like Ehrenberg and Forster.

CBC Gem also has the original YA comedy “Fakes” (Sept. 1) about two best friends in Vancouver (Emilija Baranac and Jennifer Tong) who build one of the largest fake ID operations in North America; and Season 2 of charming YA period drama “Malory Towers” (Sept. 1) about the adventures of the inmates at a British girls’ boarding school after WWII. You can also check out Season 1 of the Canadian YA series “The Next Step” (Sept. 2), which is set at an elite dance school.

McEnroe (Sept. 2, Crave)

For those old enough to remember John McEnroe before he was the narrator of “Never Have I Ever,” this documentary is a nostalgia trip to a time when tennis giants walked the Earth, McEnroe among them. The documentary by Barney Douglas revisits the glory days of the late 1970s and early ’80s when McEnroe was ranked first in the world and played greats like Vitas Gerulaitis, Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors. It also recounts the not so great parts of his life and career, including the on-court tantrums that made McEnroe an enfant terrible, his turbulent marriage to actor Tatum O’Neal amid drug use and infidelity, his failings as a father to the children from his first marriage and his difficult relationship with his own dad. McEnroe gives his own perspective on all of it, while walking the streets of New York City over a single night. Current wife, singer Patty Smyth weighs in as do his kids, and friends and colleagues like Borg, former women’s No. 1 player Billie Jean King and even Rolling Stone Keith Richards.

Crave also has Season 2 of “1 Queen 5 Queers” (Sept. 1), in which drag royalty Brooke Lynn Hytes moderates unfiltered conversations about queer life and culture.

Odds and Ends

Cast members socialize in “Dated & Related.” PHOTO CREDIT: Ana Blumenkron/Netflix

We have another dump of content of dubious quality from Netflix, led by the “reality” series “Dated & Related” (Sept. 2), in which pairs of over-endowed, under-dressed siblings travel to France ostensibly to find love — and cash — while their brothers or sisters look on. Reviews are embargoed, but I doubt I’d have anything to say that would make you want to watch it. Then there’s the movie “Fenced In” (Sept. 1), a comedy about a man who has to endure loud neighbours; the comedy special “Liss Pereira: Adulting” (Sept. 1); the rom-com “Love in the Villa” (Sept. 1), which if nothing else will let you hear Tom Hopper of “Umbrella Academy” use his native British accent; French series “Off the Hook” (Sept. 1), in which roommates decide to abandon their phones and other devices; yet another real estate series, “Buy My House” (Sept. 2), in which Americans try to get real estate investors to purchase their properties; limited series “Devil in Ohio” (Sept. 2),ß about a young girl taken in by a psychiatrist (Emily Deschanel) after she escapes a cult who — surprise! — turns out to be a cuckoo in the nest; Season 2 of “Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives” (Sept. 2); Turkish movie “The Festival of Troubadours” (Sept. 2); witchy Spanish YA series “You’re Nothing Special” (Sept. 2); and the South Korean series “Little Women” (Sept. 3), based on the Louisa May Alcott novel.

I would have screened “The Midwich Cuckoos” (Sept. 1, 9 p.m., Showcase/StackTV), an adaptation of the 1957 sci-fi novel about all the women in a British town mysteriously becoming pregnant, if only because it stars Keeley Hawes of “Spooks,” “Line of Duty,” “Bodyguard” and much more.

AMC+ has animated sci-fi series “Pantheon” (Sept. 1), about a bullied teen who receives messages from the consciousness of her dead father (Daniel Dae Kim).

Finally, if you’re a “Rick and Morty” fan, the much hyped Season 6 of the animated comedy debuts on Adult Swim and StackTV Sept. 4 at 11 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.

Watchable on Crave, Netflix, Prime Video July 25 to 31, 2022

July 25, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: City on a Hill (July 29, Crave)

Kevin Bacon as Jackie Rohr and Aldis Hodge as DeCourcy Ward in “City on a Hill.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Francisco Roman/SHOWTIME

Jackie Rohr is a bastard: a corrupt ex-FBI agent, a murderer, a booze- and drug-abusing philanderer, someone who’ll throw just about anyone under the bus to save his own skin. There’s no good reason to root for him and yet the character, as played by Kevin Bacon, compels you to watch him.

As Season 3 of this Boston-set crime drama opens, Jackie — having quit the FBI last season rather than be fired — is tending bar and burning through his emergency funds when his old FBI mentor offers him a private security job at $2,000 a week, which would be a real windfall in 1993.

But it soon becomes clear that his rich boss, Sinclair Dryden (Corbin Bernsen), is doing reprehensible things, which means Jackie has to decide whether to take the high road or keep his mouth shut for the money.

The other star of the series, Jackie’s sometime nemesis, sometime collaborator DeCourcy Ward (Aldis Hodge), who is as moral as Jackie is bent, has a shot at becoming Suffolk County district attorney if he gets his boss some high profile wins. But he resists quickly prosecuting the case of an alleged police killer when it becomes clear the young Black man was likely set up.

Both Jackie’s and DeCourcy’s wives are dealing with their own trauma: Jenny Rohr (Jill Hennessy) from sexual abuse at the hands of her estranged father and Siobhan Quays (Lauren E. Banks) from being shot last season and having a miscarriage.

Jenny finds new purpose volunteering at a community centre, where she re-establishes contact with Irish priest Diarmuid Doyle (Mark Ryder), which angers Jackie. And Siobhan, who has quit her law firm to work with the American Civil Liberties Union, goes up against the powerful forces behind the Big Dig megaproject when a worker is injured on the job.

This season also gives Boston police officer Chris Caysen (Matthew Del Negro) way more to do, helping root out corruption within the force.

The series is reminiscent of “The Wire” in its focus on the rot within the political and justice systems, although it doesn’t have that series’ finesse. There’s also a little “Homicide: Life on the Street” DNA, with Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson executive-producing both shows. (Boston boosters Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are also EPs on “Hill.”)

“City on a Hill” doesn’t tread new ground in the genre, but if you’ve already seen seasons 1 and 2 — and I’d recommend doing so before digging into Season 3 — you’ll want to keep following its characters, particularly the reprehensible but irresistible Jackie.

As Siobhan’s therapist says, “Most of life falls into grey areas,” which is certainly the case in “City on a Hill.”

Crave also has the spinoff “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” (July 28), in which a new set of teenagers is tormented by someone who goes by the initial “A”; and the comedy special “Dave Merheje: I Love You Habibi” (July 29).

Short Takes

Charlotte Law, a mother who fought to take down the Is Anyone Up? porn site after her daughter
was victimized, in “The Most Hated Man on the Internet.” PHOTO CREDIT: Netflix © 2022

The Most Hated Man on the Internet (July 27, Netflix)

I’ll be honest, I watched this docuseries because the Netflix releases that I most wanted to review were embargoed, but I only got through two of the three episodes. I was so thoroughly disgusted by Hunter Moore, the “man” of the title, who started a repository of internet evil in 2010 known as IsAnyoneUp.com, that’s all I could stomach. Sure, the series is meant to be about the victims and the people who brought Moore down, chiefly Charlotte Law — a mother whose daughter’s topless photos were hacked and displayed on the “revenge porn” site — but it also devotes time to the nastiness spewed by Moore and his degenerate cult of followers. Do we need this show to remind us that crap posted on the internet can ruin people’s lives to the point of making them want to kill themselves? I’m not sure we do but, if you disagree, “The Most Hated Man on the Internet” is there for the watching.

Netflix also has “Keep Breathing” (July 28), the British Columbia-filmed drama about a lawyer (Melissa Barrera) who has to fend for herself when a small plane crashes in the wilderness; “Uncoupled” (July 29), the Neil Patrick Harris comedy about a gay real estate agent whose life is upended when his partner leaves him; the docuseries “Street Food: USA” (July 26); the third season of “Dream Home Makeover” (July 27); Season 4 of car-flipping show “Car Masters: Rust to Riches” (July 27) and rom-com “Purple Hearts” (July 29).

Odds and Ends

Fina Strazza, Sofia Rosinsky, Riley Lai Nelet and Camryn Jones in ” Paper Girls.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Anjali Pinto/Amazon Studios

“Paper Girls,” the sci-fi drama about four 12-year-olds who get caught in a war between time travellers while out delivering papers in 1988, would have likely been my show of the week had reviews not been embargoed until July 29, the day it debuts on Prime Video.

Apple TV+ has “Surface” (July 29), which stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a woman trying to rebuild her life after a suicide attempt, and “Amber Brown” (July 29), based on the Paula Danziger books, about a young girl using art and music to cope with her parents’ divorce.

Disney+ has Season 3 of “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” (July 27); and “Light & Magic” (July 27), a behind-the-scenes look at  Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects arm of “Star Wars” creator George Lucas’s Lucasfilm,

Before he was Jean-Luc Picard on “Star Trek,” Patrick Stewart was a science professor who helped the British government solve dangerous cases in “Eleventh Hour,” which comes to BritBox on July 26.

Finally, if you’re a fan of Gordie Lucius’s daffy science show “Frick, I Love Nature,” CBC Gem has a bonus episode on July 27 about animals that live in the Arctic.

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.

Watchable on Prime Video, Crave, Netflix May 16-22, 2022

May 16, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Night Sky (May 20, Prime Video)

J.K. Simmons and Sissy Spacek in “Night Sky.” PHOTO CREDIT: Chuck Hodes/Amazon Studios

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

Alison Oliver and Joe Alwyn in “Conversations With Friends.” PHOTO CREDIT: Enda Bowe/Hulu

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.

Ryan and Kiki survey the house full of detritus they’ve just bought on “Hoarder House Flippers.”
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.

George Carlin as seen in “George Carlin’s American Dream.”
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

Emma and James in “Love on the Spectrum U.S.” PHOTO CREDIT: David Scott Holloway/Netflix

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.

Watchable on Crave, Disney Plus May 9 to 15, 2022

May 9, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Hacks (May 12, 11 p.m., Crave)

Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder in Season 2 of “Hacks.” PHOTO CREDIT: Karen Ballard/HBO Max

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

A kitty gets some TLC from staff at RAPS Animal Hospital in “Pets & Pickers.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

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.

Lexi Underwood and Chosen Jacobs in “Sneakerella.” PHOTO CREDIT: Disney

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.

Harlan Blayne Kytwayhat and Jared Keeso in “Shoresy.” PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

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

From left, Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson
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.

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