Tag: David Attenborough

SHOWS OF THE WEEK: Life in Color (April 22, Netflix) and Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World (April 22, 8 p.m., BBC Earth)

On one level, these shows have nothing in common, other than the fact they’re both being released on Earth Day, but I see them as linked due to the preoccupations of their stars with saving the planet.

At 94, David Attenborough, who hosts and conceived “Life in Color,” is the old pro. The numerous nature documentaries he has presented are in one sense the carrot to the stick of environmental activism. They show us the wonders of our world in the hope we’ll be enamoured enough of their beauty to try to stop them from being wiped out.

This particular series uses special cameras to reveal the colours of nature, including ones that humans can’t perceive with the naked eye. Many of the species in the first episode are gorgeous birds — macaws, peacocks, pink flamingos, toucans, hummingbirds, birds of paradise — but also creatures you wouldn’t necessarily think of as beautiful, including fiddler crabs, peacock mantis shrimp and strawberry poison dart frogs.

Attenborough gives them all their due, explaining the function of each animal’s colours, to communicate, to attract mates, to warn off rivals and predators. Not a word was spoken, in that first episode anyway, about environmental destruction or species extinction, but I couldn’t help thinking back to the episode I had watched of “Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World,” in which a scientist said 20 to 30 per cent of the world’s species are “committed to extinction by 2050” if current climate warming trends continue.

Quite honestly, I am in awe of 18-year-old Greta Thunberg, of her dedication to fighting climate change, which seems like a monumental and dispiriting task. But as she says, “Hope doesn’t come from words, hope only comes from action.” So when the UN Climate Change Conference in 2019 was relocated to Spain from Chile — to which Greta and her father had planned to drive from North America — she refuses to take a seven-hour flight to Madrid, instead enduring a 20-day journey by catamaran across the Atlantic Ocean in November.

By that point in the docuseries, Greta had already attended a climate strike in Edmonton, Alberta; visited dying pine forests in Jasper National Park; surveyed the rapidly melting Athabasca Glacier, which will never recover even if the world wakes the hell up and starts taking greenhouse gas reduction seriously; and travelled to Paradise, California, virtually wiped out by a wildfire in 2018, before setting out from Virginia for her ocean journey.

The series makes the point that people may be too exhausted from the COVID-19 pandemic to face another crisis, but it also makes the point that we are running out of time. Even if the 196 nations that signed the Paris Climate Agreement were to stick to their vow to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5 C, it’s already too late to undo some of the damage.

I honestly don’t know if the Earth can be pulled back from the abyss, but bless people like Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough for trying.

Cruel Summer (April 20, 9 p.m., ABC Spark)

This YA drama, which has the distinction of being executive-produced by Jessica Biel (“The Sinner”), is really a story of two young women, told over three summers from 1993 to 1995.

Jeanette (Chiara Aurelia, “Tell Me Your Secrets”) is the quintessential nerd when we first meet her, right down to the glasses and braces, while Kate (Olivia Holt, “Cloak & Dagger”) is the stereotypical popular girl, blond and self-assured.

But identities and allegiances shift. After Kate is kidnapped, Jeanette becomes the popular one, to the point of taking Kate’s place with her boyfriend (Froy Gutierrez, “Teen Wolf”) and her best friends. And in 1995, after Jeanette has been accused of playing a role in Kate’s captivity, she is a pariah in her small Texas town.

What may seem straightforward in the first episode is anything but. As the story builds, shifting back and forth between timelines and points of view, the villain looks more like the victim and vice versa. The deceptions and obfuscations extend to the adults involved, including Jeanette’s mother Cindy (Sarah Drew) and Kate’s mom Joy (Andrea Anders). Allius Barnes and Harley Quinn Smith (Kevin Smith’s daughter) also play key roles as Jeanette’s friends Vincent and Mallory. 

The standout here is Aurelia, who convincingly portrays Jeanette’s transformation from sweet, trusting teenager to cynical outcast. She gets help from hair and wardrobe, with three distinct looks for each time shift, but the evolution is more than just physical.

With its plot twists and layered characters, “Cruel Summer” is a YA show that grown-ups can enjoy too.

Short Takes

The Parker Andersons/Amelia Parker (April 19, Super Channel Heart & Home, 8 and 8:30 p.m.)

These linked sitcoms about a Black man, a white woman and their blended family seem to have their hearts in the right place. They were created by Toronto producer Frank van Keeken (“The Next Step,” “Lost & Found Music Studios”), who is white, but overhauled by Toronto writer Anthony Q. Farrell (“The Office,” “Secret Life of Boys”), who is Black. He brought together a diverse team of BIPOC writers to redo the original scripts to make them true to the lives of their Black characters. The cast is primarily Canadian and the show comes from a Canadian production company, Marblemedia, in partnership with Mormon-owned BYUtv. (NOW Magazine has an interesting story about that unlikely pairing, if you’d like to read it here.) Whereas “The Parker Andersons” focuses on British widower Tony Parker (Arnold Pinnock, “Travelers”) and his new American wife Cleo Anderson (Kate Hewlett, “Degrassi”), who each have a son and daughter, “Amelia Parker” is mainly about Tony’s daughter (Millie Davis, “Odd Squad”), who has stopped talking since her mother died (which, in the episodes I saw, no one treated as anything to be alarmed about). Of the two shows, I found “Amelia Parker” the more interesting, engaging take. I found “Parker Andersons” a little saccharine, but then again so was “The Brady Bunch.”

American Oz (April 19, 9 p.m., PBS)

There is no question that American author Lyman Frank Baum left the world an enduring piece of art when he published “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” in 1900. But did you know he wrote 14 Oz sequels, among his dozens of other novels? I didn’t until I watched this episode of “American Experience.” Baum was a 44-year-old father of four who had failed at various careers — chicken breeder, theatre impresario, storeowner, travelling salesman, newspaper publisher — when he wrote the children’s book that fulfilled his dream of becoming a great author. “American Oz” paints Baum as a literary pioneer, a prolific creator, a dedicated father and a champion of women’s rights, but he was also a purveyor of the racism of his time. In his South Dakota newspaper, he called for the extermination of the Native Americans who remained after being robbed of their land, even slaughtered, in the name of white progress. That and the racial stereotypes in some of Baum’s other books are blemishes on a life otherwise lived in aspiration and imagination.

Odds and Ends

Even nine seasons in, it can be fun watching people cook on alarmingly tight deadlines. So yes, “Top Chef Canada” is back, despite the pandemic, with 11 new competitors (April 19, 10 p.m., Food Network Canada/StackTV). Unfortunately I can’t really tell you more than that because reviews are embargoed until after the show airs.

I would have liked to get a look at “Secrets of the Whales” (April 22, Disney Plus), executive-produced by Canada’s own James Cameron (“Titanic,” “Avatar”), but alas, I never got  the chance. Still, it looks like the kind of nature show that will both exhilarate you and break your heart.

I haven’t checked out Netflix’s “Shadow and Bone” (April 23) because, frankly, there’s no point watching shows that I can’t write about due to embargoes, but if you like CGI-laden fantasy series full of telegenic young actors who speak with British accents then have at ‘er.

A new season of “Black Lady Sketch Show” comes to HBO and Crave (April 16, 11 p.m.), with Robin Thede and her cast of, well, Black ladies.

WHOOPS! I had “Top Chef Canada” listed as airing on Global TV rather than Food Network Canada. Apologies. Guess I was extra tired Monday morning.

NOTE: The dates and times listed here reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible against broadcast and streaming schedules, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of series 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.