SHOW OF THE WEEK: SurrealEstate (July 16, 10 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel/CTV.ca)
PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media
Among the influences that “SurrealEstate” will put you in mind of are crime procedurals, the movie “Ghostbusters” and your favourite real estate porn — not to mention a fun throwback to “The Exorcist” in its opening minutes — but this made-in-Canada drama is its own thing.
It’s about a team of realtors, led by Luke Roman (Tim Rozon of “Schitt’s Creek” and “Wynonna Earp”), who specialize in selling “metaphysically engaged properties,” i.e. haunted houses.
The team includes gadget guy August (British-Canadian actor Maurice Dean Wint), researcher and ex-Catholic priest “Father” Phil (Toronto’s Adam Korson), office manager with attitude Zooey (“Wynonna Earp” vet Savannah Basley) and new employee Susan (Sarah Levy of “Schitt’s Creek”).
TV veterans Art Hindle and Jennifer Dale play recurring spectral characters while Tennille Read (“Workin’ Moms”) appears in multiple episodes as Megan, a client with a particularly troublesome house. And fans mourning the dearly departed supernatural dramedy “Wynonna Earp” can take heart from the fact that Wynonna herself, Melanie Scrofano, appears in one episode of “SurrealEstate” and directed two of them.
That’s the who of “SurrealEstate”; how about the what?
As much as comparisons between “SurrealEstate” and the movie “Ghostbusters” with its “Who you gonna call?” catchphrase are inevitable, the TV show is not that. It has its moments of levity, but its apparitions are generally not played for laughs. There isn’t a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man or Green Goblin in sight.
In fact, the ghosts in “SurrealEstate” are often spooky, if not dangerous. They include ancient malevolent demons, houses that hold their occupants prisoner, spirits out for revenge and even living people with deadly paranormal abilities. And the ghosts that aren’t that scary still have serious stories attached, like a little boy who haunts a former nun-run orphanage.
The show was shot in St. John’s and other parts of Newfoundland, which boasts some lovely homes and also apparently some haunted ones (E! posted an interview with Rozon and Levy in which they talked about guest stars feeling an otherworldly presence at their mansion turned hotel).
The series mostly follows a haunting of the week format, with the Roman Agency having to crack the supernatural case and banish the paranormal perp to make the sale, although there’s a through-line involving the very haunted Donovan House, in which Luke takes a particular interest.
As the suave and charismatic but guarded Luke, still wounded over a childhood trauma, Rozon — best known as immortal gunslinger Doc Holliday in “Wynonna Earp” and Alexis’s love interest Mutt on “Schitt’s Creek” — burnishes his leading man credentials. Likewise Levy, who played waitress Twyla (and at one point Mutt’s girlfriend) on “Schitt’s,” gets to be more than just a sounding board behind a cafe counter, portraying a professional overachiever with a messed up personal life.
The other members of the team also get their moments to shine. That lost little boy haunting, for instance, provides a plot detour into Phil’s back story and his conflicted relationship with the church he left. We learn that Zooey, who hides her feelings behind irony, lost her high school sweetheart to drug abuse and now cycles through relationships with unreliable men. We don’t know much about August beyond the fact he’s a whiz with technology and quotes famous authors, but that may change before the season ends.
The fact that the team, even initial skeptic Susan, takes what they do seriously grounds the show despite the paranormal subject matter. You might not believe in ghosts, but the Roman Agency does and that helps us believe in them.
The Beast Must Die (July 12, 10 p.m., AMC)
PHOTO CREDIT: Ludovic Robert/AMC
There’s no ambiguity about the end goal in this crime thriller, based on the 1938 novel by Cecil Day-Lewis (yes, Daniel’s father): “I am going to kill a man,” says bereaved mother Frances Cairnes, played by Cush Jumbo. “I don’t know his name, I don’t know where he lives, I have no idea what he looks like. But I’m going to find him and kill him.”
Jumbo, known in North America for “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” brings Frances’s pain to anguished, visceral life as well as her fierce intelligence.
Her 6-year-old son Martin was killed by a hit-and-run driver on a vacation visit to the Isle of Wight and the local police have mishandled the investigation. So Frances, a widowed teacher, takes matters into her own hands: leaving her job and apartment, disguising her identity, and tracking down a suspect with as much dedication and ingenuity as a crack detective.
That’s how she comes to meet rich developer George Rafferty (the ever reliable Jared Harris), after befriending his much younger sister-in-law Lena (Mia Tomlinson) on the pretext of shadowing her for a mystery novel she’s writing. Frances ends up moving into a cottage on the Rafferty estate, where she has a close-up view of George’s casual cruelty and the dysfunction of the family, which includes George’s harridan of a sister Joy (Geraldine James, Marilla on “Anne With an E”), his troubled wife Violet (Maeve Dermody) and bullied son Phil (Barney Sayburn).
Frances has to keep up the pretence of being a writer — not easy to do when her grief can swamp her at a moment’s notice — and try to win the confidence of the odious George while avoiding police detective Nigel Strangeways (Billy Howle), who has decided to reopen the case.
Did George really kill Martin? Will Frances really kill him?
Along the way to answering those questions we delve into Strangeways’ own trauma over witnessing the death of his former partner, as well as the Rafferty family dynamics, but this is Jumbo’s and Harris’s show and it’s not always clear who’s the cat and who’s the mouse in their interactions. Frances has the force of her resolve on her side, but George has his cunning and entitlement.
When the resolution comes — after a couple of twists that keep us guessing — it’s hard to say that anybody has really won.
Schmigadoon! (July 16, Apple TV Plus)
A Martin Short leprechaun and Cecily Strong singing. Aaron Tveit swaggering and Jane Krakowski high kicking. Kristin and Ariana with voices that ring, these are a few of my new favourite things.
With apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein, if you recognize that I’m playing with the song “My Favorite Things” from the 1959 musical and 1965 movie “The Sound of Music,” you’re likely already predisposed to enjoy this comedy, an affectionately mocking love letter to the musical.
It stars Cecily Strong of “Saturday Night Live” and fellow comedian Keegan-Michael Key (“MADtv,” “Key and Peele”) as Melissa and Josh, a pair of Manhattan doctors who meet cute by the hospital vending machine, start a romance and, several years later, are trying to reconnect on a couples’ retreat when they wander off a hiking trail and end up in the old-fashioned town of Schmigadoon.
Yes, that’s a play on “Brigadoon,” the 1947 Lerner and Loewe musical (and later movie) about two tourists who stumble into a magical Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years.
If you’re a fan of musicals, you’ll enjoy spotting all the references to the canon packed into “Schmigadoon!” They start from the moment Melissa and Josh follow a “Wizard of Oz”-like path into town where the citizens greet them with an exuberant song and dance that will put you in mind of “Oklahoma!”
Musical hater Josh can’t wait to blow the old-timey (and very fake looking) town while musical lover Melissa treats the townsfolks’ penchant for breaking into song like an entertaining diversion, but when they try to leave the next day the portal back to the real world has closed. A leprechaun (Martin Short) informs them that they can’t go until they find true love. Not only are they trapped; the love they thought they shared has been exposed as a lie.
Josh and Melissa quickly break up, which leaves them free to explore other romantic entanglements. For Josh that includes farmer’s daughter Betsy (Disney star Dove Cameron), channelling both “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and “Oklahoma!”; and schoolmarm Emma Tate (Ariana DeBose of “Hamilton”), a ringer for Marian the Librarian from “The Music Man.” Melissa’s admirers include Danny Bailey, a Billy Bigelow stand-in (“Carousel”) played with appropriate bad boy swagger by Broadway vet Aaron Tveit; and Doc Lopez (Mexican heartthrob Jaime Camil), a Captain von Trapp-like disciplinarian (“The Sound of Music”).
The show also stars former “Cabaret” MC Alan Cumming as Mayor Menlove (get it?); Ann Harada of “Avenue Q” as his wife, Florence; Kristin Chenoweth as town scold Mildred Layton, who puts her “Wicked” pipes on display in a fun number that borrows from “The Music Man”; Fred Armisen as her husband, Reverend Layton; and Jane Krakowski in a small but impactful role as the Doc’s fiancee, the Countess (yep, “The Sound of Music” again).
Showrunner and musical theatre lover Cinco Paul created the series with his “Despicable Me” co-writer Ken Daurio, with “SNL’s” Lorne Michaels executive producing. Paul wrote the songs, which are pitch perfect imitations of what you’d hear in a real golden age musical but also wink at the inherent silliness of the form, not to mention the sexism (the racism isn’t explicitly confronted aside from the fact the cast includes non-white faces).
Kudos are due to the ensemble of singers and dancers who bring the musical numbers to life (Mississauga’s Amanda Cleghorn of “So You Think You Can Dance Canada” among them). Strong, a musical fan in real life (as is Key), gets to join in on the singing and hoofing.
I have no idea how “Schmigadoon!” will play with the musical-adverse, but if you love them, as corny as it sounds, it might just put a song in your heart.
Short Takes
“Please Please Me” at Abbey Road Studios in 1961. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Terry O’Neill
Icon: Music Through the Lens (July 16, 9 p.m., PBS)
Watching this series will remind you just how much music appreciation is a visual as well as an aural experience. Over six episodes featuring dozens of interviews and many, many pictures, the docuseries takes us into the world of music photography from the point of view of the takers and the taken. The first episode, which I screened, is a treasure trove of stories about capturing everyone on camera from Robert Johnson to the Beatles and Rolling Stones; Jimi Hendrix to Joy Division; B.B. King to Bob Marley; Beyonce to Billie Eilish; and Sinead O’Connor to Snoop Dogg. Future episodes, on subsequent Fridays, explore concert images, record covers, magazine images, music photography as art and the future of the medium in the digital era.
Levi: Becoming Himself (July 16, CBC Gem)
This touching and thought-provoking documentary may open your eyes and your heart to what it’s like to be a transgender teen. For Vancouver’s Levi Nahirney, transitioning from female to male is just one part of an identity that also includes being Vietnamese-Canadian, a twin and an adoptee. Obviously there have been challenges — including homophobia and transphobia — but the film isn’t a downer. Levi, now 19, has lots of support from twin Kailyn, adoptive parents Tom and Lois — who recounts that Levi was 3 when he first began asking why he wasn’t a boy — his birth family, his friends and the online LGBTQ community. Levi is sharing his story in the hope of inspiring other trans people. “I want to be someone who could potentially save someone’s life,” he says.
Odds and Ends
“Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes” (July 12, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave) revisits Ronan Farrow’s investigation into the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations, work that earned him a Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a podcast and bestselling book. The news release for this docuseries promises “new insights into this culture-shaking story.”
Crave also has “100 Foot Wave” (July 18, 10 p.m., HBO/Crave), about the 10-year journey of surfer Garrett McNamara to conquer a 100-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal.
On the Netflix slate this week are Season 2 of popular coming of age drama “Never Have I Ever” (July 15), starring Mississauga’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan; the new reality show “My Unorthodox Life” (July 14) about shoe designer Julia Haart and her escape from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community she grew up in; and crime series “Heist” (July 14), which substitutes major thefts for the usual murders.
Amazon has the second season of the fashion competition series “Making the Cut” (July 16), starring “Project Runway” escapees Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, and the sure to be popular horror movie sequel “A Quiet Place II” (July 13), written and directed by John Krasinski, and starring him and real-life wife Emily Blunt.
NOTE: The dates and times listed here are in Eastern Standard Time, and reflect information provided to me and cross-checked 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.
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