Sorry folks, it’s another week without a show of the week, mainly because I spent my limited screening hours watching eight episodes of “Kindred” before realizing it’s debuting only on Hulu this week, which we don’t get in Canada. Onwards . . .

Short Takes

Rebuilding Notre Dame (Dec. 14, 9 p.m., PBS)

Notre-Dame de Paris before the 2019 fire that almost destroyed it.
PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Lawrence/Alamy Stock Photo

I know exactly where I was the moment I fell in love with Paris: atop one of the towers of Notre-Dame, gazing out at the city on a perfect blue-sky day, surrounded by some of the cathedral’s famous gargoyles. Certainly anyone who loves that city and has spent time in that ancient church was stricken when fire destroyed its roof and threatened the entire 850-year-old structure in April 2019. I returned on a recent visit; the plaza in front of the church was swarmed with people, but the building was off limits, surrounded by construction hoarding. This episode of “Nova” explains what’s going on behind the hoarding as hundreds of workers toil to rebuild the cathedral exactly as it was before the fire in time for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. It’s a mammoth, painstaking task but one that promises to reveal a splendour that hasn’t been seen since the 13th century. This is an uplifting documentary and an interesting one for anyone with a love of history, architecture and/or the City of Light.

PBS has told me repeatedly that “American Masters: The Adventures of Saul Bellow” — about the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American author — is debuting Dec. 12 at 8 p.m.,, but it’s not in the online listings for Buffalo’s WNED, so make of that what you will.

Margarita Levieva and David Tennant in “Litvinenko.” PHOTO CREDIT: ITVX/Sundance Now

Litvinenko (Dec. 16, AMC+/Sundance Now)

If you’ve seen any advertising for this four-episode drama, you have likely seen the face of a bald-headed David Tennant, looking very ill in a hospital bed. In fact, Tennant is in only the first episode playing late Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko and, despite my enduring love of David Tennant, I have to say he is not overly convincing in the role apart from getting the hospital look right. The series is really about what happened after Litvinenko died in 2006 from ingesting Polonium-210 at a London hotel: about the police investigation that pointed the finger at two Russian assassins and the public inquiry that concluded the killing was likely approved by President Vladimir Putin himself — just as Litvinenko claimed on his death bed. The show is a pretty standard police procedural — aside from the fact the detectives get to interview the murder victim — but it’s loaded with very good actors whom you’ll know if you watch any British TV. Mark Bonnar (“Line of Duty,” “Shetland,” “Guilt”) and Neil Maskell (“Humans,” “Utopia”) play cops; Stephen Campbell Moore (“War of the Worlds,” “Titanic”) is a lawyer who pushes for a public inquiry; and Russian-American Margarita Levieva (“The Deuce”) is Litvinenko’s widow, Marina. At the very least the timing is interesting, providing another view of just what a murderous thug Putin is as he continues to try to destroy Ukraine.

Odds and Ends

David Letterman with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix

It’s another jam-packed week for Netflix content. I know I’ll be watching the next three episodes of the docuseries “Harry & Meghan” (Dec. 15) — you can read my review of the first three for the Toronto Star here — and there will be huge interest in “My Next Guest With David Letterman and Volodymyr Zelenskyy” (Dec. 12), for which Letterman went to Kyiv, Ukraine, to meet with the Ukrainian president and Man of the Year. Also on my radar, “Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Murder Mystery” (Dec. 15), in which star Will Arnett’s friend and “SmartLess” podcast co-host Jason Bateman gets to improv his way through solving the slaying of Kris Kringle alongside Maya Rudolph. Then there’s the second season of “Last Chance U: Basketball” (Dec. 13); Polish 1970s-set drama series “Glitter” (Dec. 14); docuseries “Don’t Pick Up the Phone” (Dec. 14), about scammers who talked fast-food managers into strip-searching their employees; documentary “Kangaroo Valley” (Dec. 14), about a baby kangaroo trying to survive in the Outback; action drama “The Recruit” (Dec. 16), in which teen heartthrob Noah Centineo gets to play a grown-up CIA lawyer; Norwegian miniseries “A Storm for Christmas” (Dec. 16), about travellers stranded at the Oslo airport; the Alejandro G. Inarritu film “Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” (Dec. 16); and documentary “The Volcano: Rescue From Whakaari” (Dec. 16), about a New Zealand eruption in 2019.

Disney’s main offering this week is the series “National Treasure: Edge of History” (Dec. 14), a followup to the movie franchise with a new Latina heroine, Jess Valenzuela (Lisette Olivera). It also has the critically acclaimed movie starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, “The Banshees of Inisherin” (Dec. 14).

If you’re not choking on baking shows yet, CTV has the new series “Cross Country Cake Off” (Dec. 15, 9 p.m.), starring Mary Berg and Andrew Han.

Finally, specialty channel Love Nature has the Africa-set docuseries “Chasing the Rains” (Dec. 18, 8 p.m.), narrated by Adjoa Andoh, a.k.a. Lady Danbury of “Bridgerton.”

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.