Tag: H.P. Lovecraft

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Lovecraft Country, Aug. 16, 9 p.m., HBO

The monsters, ghosts and other supernatural beings are not the most horrifying thing about this series, based on the 2016 novel by Matt Ruff and inspired by the “cosmic horror” stories of H.P. Lovecraft. After all, when you can be shot just for ordering a meal in a diner, monsters are just another indignity to overcome and sometimes the lesser of evils.

As star Jurnee Smollett told TV writers last week at the virtual Television Critics Association panel for the show, “Racism is such a demonic spirit, you know, it’s something that we are still fighting off.” You just have to outrun a monster, she said, whereas you don’t really know where the racism is going to come from next.

This is demonstrated by the fact the series is set not in the Jim Crow Deep South, but in the northern U.S. in the mid-1950s. As co-creator Misha Green (“Underground”) said on the same panel, “Jim Crow was everywhere at the time.”

Korean War veteran Atticus (Jonathan Majors), his high school friend Letitia (Smollett) and his uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) take a road trip from Chicago to Massachusetts, the spiritual home of Lovecraft’s stories, in search of Atticus’s father Montrose (Michael Kenneth Williams). When the monsters first show up, after the trio have already been endangered again and again by malevolent white men, it’s something of a relief.

Green, who co-created the show with Jordan Peele, an Oscar winner for his horror film “Get Out,” told the New York Times she drew on various influences to create the 10-episode series, not just horror films like “The Shining” and “Amityville Horror” but movies like “Eyes Wide Shut,” the “Indiana Jones” films and “The Goonies.” The series also references Black authors, poets and musicians, with a soundtrack that mixes period and contemporary songs.

The result is a series that’s smart, suspenseful, enjoyable and gorgeous to look at (Green had a much bigger budget for this than her slave drama “Underground”). Each episode is its own self-contained adventure but also part of a larger mythology involving Atticus’s heritage, with a recurring pair of white antagonists.

As Atticus and Letitia, both struggling to make peace with their dysfunctional families, Majors and Smollett keep the whole thing grounded and keep us, the audience, willing to follow wherever they lead.

Nahanni: River of Forgiveness (Aug. 11, 11 a.m., CBC documentary)

I missed flagging this ahead of its broadcast premiere on Aug. 9, not because it wasn’t worthy but just because I was extra busy last week. In this documentary directed by Geoff Bowie, Indigenous people from both the Mountain and Dehcho Dene nations of the Northwest Territories join together for a traditional 500-kilometre journey on the Nahanni River.

It’s a way to feel closer to their ancestors, who would have made this journey every spring in boats they built themselves from moose hides. A moose-skin boat hadn’t made the trip in more than a century, which is the jumping off point for the documentary and for the journey taken by Dehcho Chief Herb Norwegian and his companions.

As suggested by the title, the trip is more than physical — although it’s also very physical, not least because the participants, of all ages, build the moose-hide boat themselves. But the journey is also about making spiritual connections with the past, building pride in identities and about healing. Everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, bears the scars of colonialism and especially the warehousing of Indigenous children in residential schools — a national disgrace that Canada still hasn’t come to grips with.

Journalist and radio host Lawrence Nayally, who’s very open about his struggles with depression and anxiety, compares the holes that the boat develops to the “empty promises” of Canada to the Dene and other Indigenous people. “It’s up for our generation to repair it and keep the dream afloat . . . And we’ve gotta do it together.”

“Nahanni: River of Forgiveness” also airs at 3 and 7 p.m. on Aug. 11 on documentary and will eventually be available on CBC Gem.

Ted Lasso (Aug. 14, Apple TV Plus)

This is a classic fish-out-of water tale with the spin that the “fish” is a minor Kansas football coach hired to manage a professional soccer team in England with absolutely no knowledge of the game or of England, for that matter. Since I don’t watch sports on TV, I’m not familiar with the character the series is based on, originated to help NBC Sports promo Premier League soccer games. Perhaps that’s why I found Jason Sudeikis as Ted more charming in the role than some other critics.

It certainly isn’t a groundbreaking comedy and, given the subject matter, it’s very much male-focused. But Hannah Waddingham (“Game of Thrones,” “Sex Education”) and Juno Temple (“Dirty John,” “Vinyl”) hold up their end as the team’s embittered owner and the girlfriend of its star player, respectively.

It’s not a spoiler alert to say that Ted, with his relentlessly sunny attitude, eventually wins over the team and its cynical fans. Whether he also wins over viewers remains to be seen.

Odds and Ends

“World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji (Aug. 14, Amazon) is a new 10-episode series dubbed “the ultimate expedition race.” Unfortunately, no one is allowed to post reviews until the day it debuts, but it features 66 teams from 30 countries who race non-stop for 11 days across hundreds of miles of terrain, including mountains, jungles and oceans. It sounds exhausting and hopefully also entertaining. There are two sets of Canadian competitors: Team True North and Team Canada Adventure.

If you’ve been watching “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” for the last seven seasons (I confess, I have not), you’ll want to catch the two-part series finale beginning Aug. 12 at 9 p.m. on CTV. That same night, “World of Dance” wraps its fourth season at 7 p.m. on CTV.

Over on Global TV, “The Titan Games” ends its second season Aug. 10 at 8 p.m.

Disney Plus has the third-season premiere of “Weird But True” and the comedy “Magic Camp,” both dropping on Aug. 14.