Tag: Netflix (Page 3 of 3)

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

May 9, 2022 / Debra Yeo

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.

Watchable on Crave, Prime Video May 2 to 8, 2022

May 2, 2022 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Staircase (May 5, 9:50 p.m., Crave)

Colin Firth and Toni Collette as Michael and Kathleen Peterson in “The Staircase.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO Max

Such is the imperative to feed the TV machine — an estimated 559 scripted series in 2021 and counting — that the medium has started cannibalizing itself, turning one of its most popular nonfiction forms, the true crime documentary, into drama.

There have been hits (“The Girl From Plainville”) and misses (“Joe vs. Carole”). Now comes “The Staircase,” which revisits the story told in the 2004 documentary of the same name about the 2001 death of Kathleen Peterson and subsequent murder conviction of her husband, Michael Peterson.

What makes this HBO Max series mostly work is that it’s as much a family as a crime drama, one that elucidates the human toll when the criminal justice system turns lives inside out and upside down.

Michael, in an excellent performance by Colin Firth, is very much the lead character here as he was in the docuseries, but the miniseries makes space for other members of the family, particularly Kathleen, played by the ever reliable Tony Collette, whom we see in flashback as the warm, energetic but stressed matriarch of an incredibly close blended brood.

The brood, as in real life, splinters after Michael goes on trial for first-degree murder. Kathleen’s daughter Caitlin (Olivia DeJonge) changes her mind about Michael’s innocence and sides with Kathleen’s sisters (Rosemarie DeWitt and Maria Dizzia) against him. His sons Todd (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and Clayton (Dane DeHaan), and adopted daughters Margaret (Sophie Turner) and Martha (Odessa Young) continue to support him, although not without an emotional cost.

Creator Antonio Campos, who also directed six of the nine episodes, doesn’t draw a conclusion as to Michael’s guilt or innocence. Indeed, in the five episodes made available for review, we see two versions of Kathleen’s death recreated: one in which she does indeed fall down the stairs, as Michael claimed; one in which Michael kills her after an argument over gay porn and emails to other men she discovers on his computer.

You will likely find your own opinion changing from episode to episode and scene to scene, not only as the prosecution (Cullen Moss as DA Jim Hardin and Parker Posey as assistant DA Freda Black) and defence (Michael Stuhlbarg as defence lawyer David Rudolf) lay out their cases but as you ponder what appears to be a close, loving relationship between Michael and Kathleen.

“The Staircase” also portrays the shifting, clashing viewpoints of the makers of the 2004 docuseries, including director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (Vincent Vermignon), editor Sophie Brunet (Juliette Binoche) and producer Denis Poncet (Frank Feys). And it moves the action forward to 2017, when Michael pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Kathleen’s death while maintaining his innocence (a circumstance known as an Alford plea) and was released from jail for time served, a development also covered by the doc makers in an addendum to their series.

Therein lies the weakness of “The Staircase,” that almost everything we see here has been extensively covered before. At the same time, a dramatization by a skilled cast can give a story resonance in ways a documentary telling can’t. You might feel you know it all, but Firth and his co-stars give you a reason to keep watching.

Short Takes

Giovanni Cirfiera as Capitano Riva and Emilia Fox as Sylvia Fox in “Signora Volpe.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Moris Puccio/AcornTV

Signora Volpe (May 2, Acorn)

It should be no surprise, given its appeal to an older, female demographic, that the Acorn streaming service features a subset of programming that could be described as “female detectives of a certain age.” This latest entry stars 47-year-old Emilia Fox (“Silent Witness”) as former MI6 agent Sylvia Fox (volpe means fox in Italian) who takes a work sabbatical and buys a house in Italy after a visit to her sister (Tara Fitzgerald, “Game of Thrones”) in the Umbrian town of Panicale. Naturally, Sylvia ends up getting drawn into local crimes, which she helps solve with a combination of smarts and nosiness. It doesn’t hurt that she’s caught the eye of handsome police captain Riva (Giovanni Cirfiera). This is escapist fare with an amiable lead, a beautiful setting and mysteries that are interesting but not overly demanding.

John Gallagher Jr., Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele at the 2021 “Spring Awakening” reunion concert. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known (May 3, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

You should watch this one if you’re a fan of the Tony Award-winning 2006 musical “Spring Awakening,” of musical theatre in general or just shows that make you feel feelings. The documentary lets us be flies on the wall as the original cast reunites in 2021 for a one-night-only fundraising concert for the Actors Fund charity. Footage from the concert is interwoven with rehearsal footage, interviews and original performances of the musical’s rock songs. The show by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik was a hit off-Broadway but was bombing on Broadway until its 11 Tony nominations in 2007 (it won eight, including Best Musical), after which it became a pop culture sensation. The cast — with a special emphasis on its two biggest stars, Jonathan Groff (“Hamilton”) and Lea Michele (“Glee”) — recall the joys and hardships of performing in a show that tackled adolescent sexuality, sexual molestation, abortion and suicide while many were still teenagers themselves. It was clearly a profound, life-changing experience, one that feels rewarding to revisit.

Rebecca Romijn as Number One, Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike and Ethan Peck as Spock in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.” PHOTO CREDIT: Marni Grossman/Paramount Plus/ViacomCBS

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (May 5, 9 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel/Crave)

If you’re feeling a little bewildered by all the “Star Trek” spinoffs, know that this is the one that feels the most like the original series. After becoming a fan favourite on “Star Trek: Discovery,” Anson Mount’s Captain Pike is in full command of the starship Enterprise, backed by faces and names you’ll recognize, including Spock (Ethan Peck), Number One, a.k.a. Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) and nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush). But because this is airing in 2022 and not 1966, there are plenty of regular characters who aren’t white, human males, including Christina Chong as security officer La’an Noonien-Singh, Melissa Navia as pilot Erica Ortegas, Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga (whose character appeared in two episodes of the original series), Andre Dae Kim as transporter chief Kyle and Bruce Horak as Aenar engineer Hemmer. The series picks up after the events of Season 2 of “Discovery” when that ship and its crew jumped 930 years into the future but doesn’t dwell on that. “Strange New Worlds” mostly adopts a planet and/or alien of the week format, based on the five episodes that were made available for review. I’m not gonna lie: both “Discovery” and “Picard” became slogs after their first seasons. “Strange New Worlds” has the potential to become the most enjoyable of the new crop of shows if it can balance its earnestness with humour and camaraderie.

Murder victim Beverly Lynn Smith. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Prime Video

The Unsolved Murder of Beverly Lynn Smith (May 6, Prime Video)

Toronto Star reporter Wendy Gillis, one of the interview subjects in this four-part docuseries, nails what makes it compelling when she says, “There’s so much human emotion involved in this story.” It’s impossible not to feel the tragedy of the loss of Beverly Lynn Smith, who was 22 and the mother of a 10-month-old daughter when she was shot in the back of the head in her kitchen in Raglan, Ont., in 1974. The pain of it is still clearly very real for her family all these years later, particularly her twin sister, Barbra Brown. But the series, directed by Nathalie Bibeau (“The Walrus and the Whistleblower”), also devotes time to the main suspect in the case and the controversial tactics used in the police investigation. Having seen just two episodes, I can’t say what conclusion the series reaches, if any, but the case remains unsolved to this day.

Prime Video also has Season 2 of the teen girls stranded after a plane crash series “The Wilds” (May 6).

Odds and Ends

Mike Myers as Ken Scarborough and Richard McCabe as Exalted Pikeman Higgins in “*The Pentaverate*.” PHOTO CREDIT: Zoe Midford/Netflix

The Netflix premiere that’s bound to inspire the most curiosity if you’re a fan of Canadian comedian Mike Myers is “The Pentaverate” (May 5), his six-part series in which he plays multiple roles, including that of a Toronto reporter named Ken Scarborough who’s out to expose a secret society that’s been influencing world events since 1347. I didn’t get a preview so I can’t tell you if this is “Austin Powers” level stuff or another “The Love Guru.” Netflix also has the documentary “Hold Your Breath: The Ice Dive” (May 3); Season 4 of “The Circle” (May 4); Season 5 of Spanish prison drama “El Marginal” (May 4); docuseries “Meltdown: Three Mile Island” (May 4); Season 3 of Italian drama “Summertime” (May 4); its first Nigerian original series, “Blood Sisters” (May 5); “Clark” (May 5), about the criminal who inspired the term “Stockholm syndrome”; cute animal series “Wild Babies” (May 5); South Korean drama series “The Sound of Magic” (May 6) and Spanish drama “Welcome to Eden” (May 6), about a party on a remote island that goes bad.

I didn’t get a chance to screen Season 2 episodes of “Tehran” (May 6, Apple TV Plus), the Israeli spy drama about a Mossad agent (Niv Sultan) trying to carry out a dangerous mission in Iran, but I will definitely watch, having been a fan of the first season. Apple also has “The Big Conn” (May 6), a docuseries about a half-a-billion-dollar social security fraud in Kentucky, and “To Mom (and Dad) With Love” (May 6), its latest Peanuts special.

If you were a fan of the Prime Video detective drama “Bosch” you’ll want to follow Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) in “Bosch: Legacy” (May 6, IMDb TV), in which the former LAPD cop is now a private detective working with his former enemy Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers).

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 Netflix, Crave April 25 to May 1, 2022

April 25, 2022 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Ozark (April 29, Netflix)

From left, Skylar Gaertner, Sofia Hublitz, Laura Linney and Jason Bateman in “Ozark” Season 4.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the first part of Season 4 of “Ozark.”

Keep an eye on the women in the final heartbreaking episodes of “Ozark.”

The things they do for love of their families drive the twists and turns that make the show’s last seven episodes such an exhilarating ride.

Keep your eye in particular on Laura Linney, who is stupendous as Wendy Byrde, who we’ve watched over four seasons transform from disgruntled wife, mother and money launderer to ruthless criminal mastermind.

The key question is whether the Byrde family, including Marty (Jason Bateman), daughter Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and son Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), can free themselves from doing business with a Mexican drug cartel without getting killed, and resume a non-criminal life back in Chicago.

I won’t answer that question because it would be a major spoiler and I’m not allowed to discuss anything that happens in the series finale.

As Season 4 resumes, the Byrdes are trying to maintain the precarious deal they’ve struck with Javi (Alfonso Herrera), psychotic nephew of jailed cartel leader Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), and medical company CEO Claire Shaw (Katrina Lenk): Javi supplies the raw material for Shaw Medical’s opioids and Claire funds Wendy’s pet project, a family foundation that will give Wendy major political influence.

But everything is threatened by Ruth (Julia Garner), who’s out for revenge against Javi for murdering her cousin Wyatt and his heroin dealer bride Darlene. Ruth’s actions in Episode 8 tip the dominos that fall throughout the remaining six episodes.

There are other complications: Jonah is still furious with Wendy over the cartel hit on her brother Ben (Tom Pelphrey) and refusing to return to the family business; Ruth enlists old enemies of the Byrdes (and familiar faces from past seasons) to make a play for the Missouri Belle casino, imperilling their main means of laundering money for the cartel; a dangerous new player emerges in Omar’s sister and Javi’s mother, Camila (Veronica Falcon); and private detective Mel Sattem (Adam Rothenberg) is still poking around the Byrdes’ past, this time while investigating the disappearance of Ben.

That last complication brings Wendy’s estranged father, Nathan Davis, to town, a nasty, misogynistic, sanctimonious drunk ably played by Richard Thomas. Nathan is not only bankrolling the search for Ben; he’s threatening Wendy’s relationship with Jonah and Charlotte.

How Wendy responds to that threat allows Linney to do some of her finest acting in the entire series. It also allows a partial rapprochement with Ruth, who knows from horrible fathers, which only makes future developments all the sadder.

In its own twisted way, “Ozark” has always been about family and that continues to drive the plot, whether it’s Ruth trying to avenge a beloved cousin, Camila trying to do right by her son, or Marty and Wendy doing dangerous and morally reprehensible things to keep their children safe.

Those things continue to exact a terrible toll on the people around the Byrdes as well as on Marty’s and Wendy’s psyches. In these last episodes the masks slip: there are still vulnerable human beings behind Wendy’s coldly rational machinations and Marty’s bland efficiency.

It’s a welcome revelation and a reminder of where this all started: with a husband and wife navigating an impossible situation as best they could to keep their family alive. As to where they end up, you’ll have to watch to find out and it’s a wild ride.,

Short Takes

Jon Bernthal, right, as Sgt. Wayne Jenkins in “We Own This City.” PHOTO CREDIT: HBO

We Own This City (April 25, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

When “The Wire” debuted 20 years ago, it posited that the institution of policing, in one American city at least, was broken. Now its creator, David Simon, and his producing partner George Pelecanos are back to tell us nothing has changed. “We Own This City,” based on the book by journalist Justin Fenton, portrays the activities of corrupt officers in Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force, who in real life were jailed for stealing cash and drugs, planting evidence and claiming overtime they hadn’t worked. Jon Bernthal stars as Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, ringleader of the dirty cops but a hero to the brass for all the arrests his unit racks up — this at a time when many officers were refusing to even get out of their cruisers after charges were laid against the cops involved in the death of Freddie Gray. The series jumps around between showing the corrupt task force members in action between 2003 and 2017; the drug investigation that cracks open the task force case; the FBI investigation of the task force members; the efforts of one ill-fated homicide detective (Jamie Hector of “The Wire” and “Bosch”) to distance himself from his time with the task force; and the ultimately fruitless efforts of a civil rights lawyer from the justice department (Wunmi Mosaku) to have troublesome officers held to account. With all that ground to cover over just six episodes, “We Own This City” is not well suited to those with short attention spans, or a distaste for dense, complicated plotting and dialogue. It also occasionally gives way to speechifying, particularly in the segments involving Treat Williams as a police college instructor decrying the futility of the war on drugs. But it hits home when it turns it focus away from the preening, swaggering cops to the mostly poor and Black citizens hurt by their actions, like the father of three whose wrongful arrest and theft of that week’s pay leads to the loss of his job and a hole he might not be able to dig his way out of.

Sophie Rundle and Suranne Jones in Season 2 of “Gentleman Jack.” PHOTO CREDIT Aimee Spinks/HBO

Gentleman Jack (April 25, 10 p.m., HBO/Crave)

Good news for fans of this period drama based on the life of 19th-century diarist Anne Lister: Suranne Jones brings the same mix of humour and vivacity that made her portrayal of Anne such a delight in Season 1. In fact, the gusto with which Anne approaches her various activities is intensified, whether it’s overseeing renovations at family estate Shibden Hall, getting her coal mining business in order or running interference with the relatives of heiress Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle), who are scandalized by the fact she’s about to move in with Lister. Ann and Anne are also navigating their way through some bumps in their unofficial marriage, with Anne pushing for legal changes that will allow them to alter their wills and Ann coming to terms with Lister’s romantic past. I got to speak with Jones, Rundle and “Gentleman Jack” creator Sally Wainwright for the Toronto Star. You can read the story here.

Marilyn Monroe after her wedding to Arthur Miller, right, in “The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes. PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Netflix

The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes (April 27, Netflix)

If you stream this documentary expecting a murder mystery involving transcendent but tragic movie star Marilyn Monroe you’ll be disappointed. Irish author Anthony Summers, on whose research the doc is based, has been clear that he doesn’t believe Marilyn was murdered and that she voluntarily ingested the pills that killed her on Aug. 4, 1962; whether it was suicide or a misjudgment of the dose is still open to interpretation. What the doc does explore is a potential coverup the night of her death due to her romantic relationships with both President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney-General Robert Kennedy. Based on interviews conducted by Summers for his book “Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe” — the audio of which, lip-synced by actors, constitutes the bulk of the film — it’s suggested that Bobby Kennedy visited her home and argued with Marilyn the day she died; that she was still alive when an ambulance got to her Brentwood house and that her body was returned there after she died on the way to hospital, and that members of the FBI scoured the house of any evidence of her connection to the Kennedys before the death was officially reported. The doc also touches briefly on Monroe’s life: a troubled childhood involving sexual abuse, spent in foster homes and an orphanage; her incredible fame and aspirations to be a serious actor; her unhappy marriages to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller. None of this will be new to people who are fans of Monroe, but at the very least it’s a reminder of how much was lost that night in 1962.

Netflix also has comedy special “David Spade: Nothing Personal” (April 26); “Bullsh*t The Game Show” (April 27), hosted by Howie Mandel; and the final episodes of “Grace and Frankie” (April 29).

Elisabeth Moss as Kirby Mazrachi in “Shining Girls.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

Shining Girls (April 29, Apple TV Plus)

If you have no knowledge of the novel on which this series is based, you’ll think at first you’re getting a standard crime drama. Newspaper archivist Kirby (Elisabeth Moss, who also executive produced and directed at least one episode) gets pulled into a murder investigation in 1990s Chicago when it appears the victim has the same cross-shaped cuts on her stomach that Kirby suffered when she was attacked six years before. Working with reporter Dan (Wagner Moura in a sympathetic performance), Kirby discovers multiple potential victims of the same killer whose cases have been ignored by the police. But strange things are happening: Kirby has a cat one moment, a dog the next; her apartment number changes; she lives with her mom Rachel (Amy Brenneman) then suddenly has a husband, photographer Marcus (Chris Chalk). Then we see another woman murdered near the end of Episode 1, but she’s still alive in Episode 3. And there’s a killer (a creepy Jamie Bell) who doesn’t age and appears to be able to predict the future. All is eventually revealed, including the mysterious house that gives the killer his ability to play with time. With its shifting realities, the drama can sometimes feel a little unmoored, but Moss keeps us moving forward and interested in Kirby’s fate. The supporting cast includes Phillipa Soo, Christopher Denham and Moss’s “Handmaid’s Tale” cast mate Madeline Brewer.

Jay Baruchel is host and chief worrywart in the docuseries “We’re All Gonna Die.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

We’re All Gonna Die (April 30, Crave)

If it’s possible to be cheerful while discussing the prospect of humanity’s annihilation then Jay Baruchel is your man. The actor and comedian hosts this six-part docuseries that examines various ways that humans could be wiped off the face of the Earth with humour and a sprinkling of f-bombs (as opposed to nuclear bombs, which are the subject of Episode 2). There are things here to give you pause — paleontologist David Evans’ description in Episode 1 of what happened the day a Manhattan-sized asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs is not for the faint of heart — but the point is made that fear of a thing is sometimes worse than the thing itself. Fearful or not, there’s no harm in giving a listen to what we might be in for. Other episodes deal with pandemics, alien invasion, volcanoes and climate change.

Watchable on Crave, W, Netflix, AMC April 18 to 24, 2022

April 18, 2022 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Man Who Fell to Earth (April 24, 10 p.m., Crave)

Chiwetel Ejiofor as Faraday and Naomie Harris as Justin Falls in “The Man Who Fell to Earth.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Rico Torres/Showtime

The science fiction in this series sequel to the cult film “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” based on the Walter Tevis novel, can feel uncomfortably close to science fact.

It might be difficult for all but the most ardent UFOlogists to imagine beings from other planets walking among us, but when Anthean alien Faraday (Chiwetel Ejiofor) tells his reluctant human collaborator Justin Falls (Naomi Harris) that Earth has until 2030 before temperatures hit extinction level, it doesn’t feel all that far-fetched.

It also feels fitting that the extraterrestrial who represents Earth’s best hope presents as a Black man and his human companion is a Black woman. It’s a smart casting choice that gives a couple of terrific actors a chance to shine and there’s an implicit analogy in the fact that Black American men and women are often treated as aliens in their own country. (Although I’m not sure what it says that Faraday belongs to his planet’s drone or working class and his fellow ET, Thomas Newton, who is white, is an adept or teacher.)

When we first meet Faraday, we see him as the polished imitation of a human he has become, a self-described “tech god Willy Wonka” holding a theatre full of acolytes rapt, before cutting back to his crash landing as a yellow-eyed alien in the oil fields of Los Alamos, New Mexico.

He has answered the summons, 45 years later, sent out by Newton (played by David Bowie in the movie and Bill Nighy in the series). You’ll recall that Newton was originally sent to Earth to find water for his planet but never made it home, having been corrupted and abused by the earthlings he encountered. Now Anthea is on the brink of oblivion and only a few thousand inhabitants remain.

To save his world, and possibly Earth along with it, Faraday needs to access technology that Newton created and he needs to convince Justin, a disgraced former MIT scientist, to help him do it.

Meanwhile, the CIA, led by an agent named Spencer Clay (Jimmi Simpson), knows that someone new has fallen to Earth and is out to capture him.

And there are other complications. Faraday and Halls recruit a risk specialist named Hatch Flood (Rob Delaney) who lays out what would happen if alien technology allowed the world to quit its oil dependency cold turkey: complete chaos essentially.

That’s about as far as things get in the four episodes made available for review. In those episodes, Faraday begins to shift from wide-eyed, water-guzzling alien — his continual thirst is a source of humour along with his early attempts to learn English— to besuited visitor with a dazzling new energy technology to offer, while Justin begins to break free from the self-imposed prison in which she’s put her brilliant mind.

Obviously, TV and film productions about aliens are really about the human condition. “The Man Who Fell to Earth” posits both hope and threat in its initial episodes, which are driven by the charismatic performance of Ejiofor.

There’s also a strong supporting cast, which besides Harris, Nighy, Delaney and Simpson includes Clarke Peters, Kate Mulgrew and Sonya Cassidy.

It remains to be seen how far along the remaining six episodes take Faraday to fulfilling his mission and the series to fulfilling its promise, but it’s off to a good start.

Crave also has the well reviewed Robert Pattinson movie “The Batman” (April 18); the documentary “Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain” (April 20); Season 2 of “The Flight Attendant” (April 21, 9 p.m.) with Cassie (Kaley Cuoco), sober and moonlighting as a civilian CIA asset; “Gaslit” (April 24, 9 p.m., Starz), a look at the Watergate scandal that focuses mainly on John Mitchell (Sean Penn) and his wife Martha (Julia Roberts); Season 3 of hitman comedy “Barry” (April 24, 10 p.m., HBO); and horror comedy “The Baby” (April 24, 10:30 p.m., HBO).

Short Takes

Brooklyn Letexier-Hart and Elle-Maija Tailfeathers in “Night Raiders.”

National Canadian Film Day (April 20, Crave, Super Channel, Hollywood Suite)

Although it’s a speck compared to the Hollywood behemoth to the south, Canada does have a national film industry, and some of the country’s broadcasters and streamers are celebrating it. The selection on Crave ranges from recently acclaimed Indigenous films such as Tracey Deer’s “Beans” and Danis Goulet’s “Night Raiders” to movies from internationally recognized auteurs like David Cronenberg (“Eastern Promises”) and Denis Villeneuve (“Incendies”). Super Channel has films on three of its channels — Fuse, Vault and Heart & Home — ranging from classics like the 1981 comedy “Porky’s” to 2020’s “Jasmine Road,” about a Syrian family taken in by an Alberta rancher, and 2007’s “The Stone Angel,” based on the Margaret Laurence novel about a cantankerous old woman who refuses to go gentle into that good night. Hollywood Suite, meanwhile, is focusing on Indigenous filmmakers with titles like Jeremy Torrie’s “The Corruption of Divine Providence” and “Indian Horse,” based on the Richard Wagamese novel about a residential school survivor. Check with the channels for times and to see the full selection.

Elle Fanning as Michelle Carter and *Chloë Sevigny* as Lynn Roy in “*The Girl From Plainville*.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Dietl/Hulu

The Girl From Plainville (April 21, 9 p.m., W Network/StackTV)

This series is less a crime drama than a tragedy involving two broken young people. Over eight episodes it tells the story of the real-life case involving the suicide of 18-year-old Conrad Roy III, known as Coco to his family, and his 17-year-old girlfriend Michelle Carter, convicted of involuntary manslaughter for sending him texts encouraging him to kill himself. That Michelle sent the texts is not in dispute, but the drama — aided greatly by the excellent performance of Elle Fanning — makes a convincing argument that she was just as troubled as Conrad. Fanning portrays Michelle as a socially awkward, immature teen with no real friends and a tendency to lie or exaggerate to make herself seem interesting, And for a short period following Conrad’s death, Michelle is the centre of attention as the grieving girlfriend, practising a particularly performative type of grief. The show traces how she and Conrad (Colton Ryan) met in Florida while vacationing with their families and developed an intense two-year relationship founded almost entirely on texts, with the pair living about an hour apart in Massachusetts. Both were prescribed medication for their mental health issues; her for eating disorders, him for depression and anxiety after a previous suicide attempt. Would Conrad have eventually killed himself without Michelle egging him on? Impossible to say. His death is clearly a heartbreaking tragedy, both for the loss of his potential and the grief of his family (Chloe Sevigny is also excellent as his mother, Lynn Roy). Only the real Michelle Carter can say why she told Conrad to get back in his carbon monoxide-filled truck in July 2014 after he started to lose his nerve, and she never testified at her trial and has stayed out of the public eye since her release from jail in January 2020. But the drama makes it possible to see Michelle as a troubled human being rather than just a monster.

Alan Doyle gives Griff Rhys Jones a lesson in preparing cod tongue in “Griff’s Canadian Adventure.” PHOTO CREDIT: Blue Ant Media

Griff’s Canadian Adventure (April 21, 8 p.m., BBC First)

Welsh comedian Griff Rhys Jones would be the first to admit he can but scratch the surface in a travel series about “one of the largest slabs of the inhabited world,” but that doesn’t make his attempt to encapsulate Canada in these six episodes less entertaining. Only the first one was made available for review, in which Jones starts his almost 8,000-kilometre journey in Newfoundland, visiting spots like Conception Bay, St. John’s, Petty Harbour and Bell Island. The greatest hits are here — Signal Hill, the Jellybean Row Houses, moose, fish, kitchen parties — but also attractions that might not be top of mind, like the Bell Island iron ore mines, targeted by Hitler’s submarines in the Second World War. Jones is an engaging visitor, with an itinerary that includes Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and British Columbia. (Sorry, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon, you didn’t make the cut.) At least he’s focused on Canada rather than “those noisy people in the basement,” as he calls Americans.

Odds and Ends

Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman in Season 6 of ” Better Call Saul.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television

“Better Call Saul” is the show I most wanted to preview this week, but the screener gods were not smiling on me. Nonetheless I have every confidence that the sixth and final season, which debuts April 18 at 9 p.m. on AMC and AMC Plus, is going to be worth the wait.

Another highly anticipated debut this week is Season 2 of “Russian Doll” on Netflix on April 20. The streamer also has the documentary “White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch” (April 19); Spanish-language drama “The Marked Heart” (April 20); the Turkish thriller series “Yakamoz S-245” (April 20); the Japanese comedy series “He’s Expecting” (April 21); Season 5 of real estate reality show “Selling Sunset” (April 22); gay coming-of-age series “Heartstopper” (April 22); and French body-swapping drama “The 7 Lives of Lea” (April 22).

I didn’t screen the documentary film “Polar Bear” (April 22, Disney Plus) because reviews were embargoed until the debut, but I imagine it will be both beautiful and heartrending.

Prime Video has “A Very British Scandal” (April 22), companion to the Emmy-winning “A Very English Scandal.” Two-time Emmy winner Claire Foy (“The Crown”) stars as Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, who was the subject of a vicious smear campaign during her 1963 divorce from the duke (Paul Bettany).

Apple TV Plus’s offerings this week include the docuseries “They Call Me Magic” (April 22) about basketball great Magic Johnson and “The Long Game: Bigger Than Basketball” (April 22) about player Makur Maker.

Finally, OMNI TV has “Abroad” (April 24, 8:30 p.m.), a new sketch comedy series starring Filipina comedian Isabel Kanaan.

Watchable on Crave, Netflix, Hollywood Suite April 4-10, 2022

April 4, 2022 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Allegation (April 7, 9 p.m., Hollywood Suite)

Peter Kurth as defence lawyer Richard Schlesinger in “The Allegation.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Screen shot/Hollywood Suite

That some of the world’s worst injustices come from so-called justice systems is surely not a shock to anyone who keeps abreast of current affairs, but the point is made in a particularly eloquent and entertaining way in this German drama.

It’s based on a real 1990s German child abuse case — and will have echoes for anyone who remembers the “satanic panic” cases in California in the 1980s and Saskatchewan in the 1990s — but you needn’t know the antecedents to enjoy this smart and gripping show.

It begins with a doctor in the small town of Ottern examining an unseen six-year-old girl and pronouncing “beyond reasonable medical doubt” that she’s been subjected to chronic sexual abuse. The nurse who takes the photos during the exam texts a friend about it, which sets off a chain-reaction social media frenzy of condemnation for the perpetrator.

Then suddenly we’re in Berlin, in the company of a defence lawyer whose best days appear to be behind him, being woken in the middle of the night to represent a woman accused of killing her husband for the life insurance money.

Peter Kurth, whom you’ll remember if you watched another excellent German drama, “Babylon Berlin,” is masterful as lawyer Richard Schlesinger. He’s a wounded bear of a man whose somewhat slovenly appearance and curmudgeonly demeanour belie a sharp intelligence and keen understanding of human nature.

But mob enforcer Azra (German-Iranian actor Narges Rashidi) is even sharper. Though we first meet her when she’s beating Schlesinger up — a warning over a gambling debt he owes — they become allies and even friends of a sort. She helps him see a small detail that destroys the seemingly open-and-shut case against the accused husband killer and then asks him to defend a man in the child abuse case in Ottern on behalf of an unnamed client.

By the time we revisit it, the case has expanded to 16 children, 26 adults accused of running a child sex ring and public outrage at a fever pitch. Although there’s no corroborating physical evidence and all of the accused have denied the allegations, the statements of the children attesting to the abuse seem like an insurmountable obstacle for the various defence lawyers.

But when Schlesinger digs in, he finds that the investigation was taken away from the local police and handed over to a child psychiatrist with no criminal justice training, overseen by an inexperienced public prosecutor who shares her unshakeable belief that the children are telling the truth.

I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone, but it’s both fascinating and thrilling to watch Schlesinger work the case, tearing holes in what seem like rock solid facts. It’s also worth noting that no matter how convincing his arguments, public belief in the guilt of the accused remains resolute.

Schlesinger tells the child psychiatrist, Ina Reuth (Katharina M. Schubert), that morality has to be separated from the law, which might seem counterintuitive but later appears indisputable in light of the harm done in Ottern.

The plot of this drama turns on very dark perceptions, but there’s also a lightness to it. Schlesinger’s interactions with various secondary characters are funny, whether it’s the exasperated pet store employee who sells him a goldfish, the front desk clerk at his Ottern hotel or the priest who lets him store his files in the monastery’s scriptorium. But the tonal shifts are never jarring.

The best shows, like truth, aren’t black and white, and “The Allegation” is one of these.

Short Takes

Ansel Elgort and Hideaki Ito in “Tokyo Vice.” PHOTO CREDIT: Eros Hoagland/HBO Max

Tokyo Vice (April 7, 11 p.m., Crave)

The first couple of episodes of this much anticipated series seem less about vice than a sort of “an American in Tokyo” tale as U.S. expat Jake (Ansel Elgort) fulfills his dream of becoming the first foreigner to work for a prestigious Japanese newspaper in 1999. All floppy-haired, gung-ho energy, Jake tries to navigate the newsroom’s restrictive rules, where he is dismissively referred to as “gaijin” (foreigner in Japanese), and to ingratiate himself with the vice cops who could help him do more than rewrite police press releases. I suppose it makes sense since the show is based on the memoir of the real Jake Adelstein, about his years on the Tokyo crime beat for the Yomiuri Shinbun daily, but the show didn’t start to jell for me until the third episode. That’s when Jake’s story becomes more intertwined with other characters’, including veteran detective Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe), American hostess bar employee Samantha (Rachel Keller) and junior Yakuza member Sato (Sho Kasamatsu). Watanabe’s fellow Oscar nominee, Rinko Kikuchi, also co-stars as Jake’s supervisor Eimi. We know from the opening minutes of the series that it’s all leading to a showdown two years later between Jake, Katagiri and the organized crime group over a story they don’t want Jake to write. Non-spoiler alert: Jake lived to tell the tale. Much of the dialogue is in Japanese with subtitles, which shouldn’t be an issue for anyone, although it’s challenging initially to figure out the hierarchy among the Yakuza. And the series benefits from the authenticity of being shot on location in Tokyo. I have to be honest though; maybe it’s just Ansel Elgort overload, having recently watched him in “West Side Story,” but Jake was the least appealing character for me.

Crave also has Season 3 of “A Black Lady Sketch Show” (April 8, 11 p.m., HBO) and the docuseries “The Invisible Pilot” (April 4, 9 p.m., HBO), which plays a bit of a trick on viewers: you think you’re watching the story of a man, Gary Betzner, who inexplicably committed suicide by jumping off a bridge in 1977, and it becomes a completely different story halfway through the first episode.

From left, Joy Delima, Chris Peters and Yari van der Linden in “Dirty Lines.” PHOTO CREDIT: Netflix

Dirty Lines (April 8, Netflix)

There’s a bumper crop of new shows on Netflix this week but — out of those I had access to — I chose to focus on this Dutch dramedy based on the true story of Europe’s first erotic phone line company. It may be hard to believe in the age of on-demand internet porn, but there was a time when people would pay to listen to recordings of sexy stories. “Dirty Lines” is not actually that dirty; it’s more about how its characters navigate their own relationships with sex and other people, including the two brothers behind Teledutch: Frank (Minne Koole), a husband and father-to-be who’s ambivalent about monogamy, and Ramon (Chris Peters), also a married father who’s secretly gay. Our way into the story is Marly (Joy Delima), a young, sexually inexperienced student whose life changes after she’s caught on camera by a news crew while doing a one-off recording for Teledutch. It turns out she’s horrible at play-acting sex but very good at turning sexual fantasies into phone scripts, which gives her a much needed job and boost in confidence. The drama is set in late 1980s Amsterdam against the backdrop of cultural developments like the rise of house music and political ones like the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s not a must-see, more of a nostalgic, gently humorous diversion.

On a much more serious note, Netflix also has the docuseries “Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story” (April 6), which was not available to screen, about the English TV star who raised millions for charity but was found after his death in 2011 to have sexually abused as many as 500 children and adults. April 6 also brings reality series “The Ultimatum: Marry or Move on,” in which commitment-phobes have to decide whether to wed their current partners while playing footsie with other people’s significant others, and “Green Mothers’ Club,” a South Korean drama about the friendships and rivalries between five grade school moms. There are two more docs on April 7, “Return to Space,” about NASA astronauts hitching a ride to the International Space Station with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and series “Senzo: Murder of a Soccer Star,” about the slaying of South Africa’s Senzo Meyiwa. Dramas “Queen of the South” (April 7) and “Elite” (April 8) return with fifth seasons. And April 9 brings two more South Korean shows, “My Liberation Notes” and “Our Blues.”

Odds and Ends

From left, Alexander Elliot, Keana Lyn and Rohan Campbell in “The Hardy Boys.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Corus Entertainment

If you enjoyed the first season of the latest adaptation of “The Hardy Boys” novels — and I found it entertaining — you’ll be pleased to know the second season is debuting April 4 at 8 p.m. on YTV and StackTV. Brothers Frank (Rohan Campbell) and Joe Hardy (Alexander Elliot) are back solving mysteries with friends Callie (Keana Lyn), Chet (Adam Swain), Phil (Cristian Perri) and Biff (Riley O’Donnell). And there’s a new girl in town, Belinda (Krista Nazaire).

Irish mysteries are usually right up my alley so I regret I didn’t have time to screen Acorn’s latest original series, “Harry Wild,” debuting April 4. “Harry” is Harriet, played by veteran English actor Jane Seymour. The retired English professor starts interfering in a murder case being investigated by her police detective son (Kevin Ryan) and enlists the teen who mugged her (Rohan Nedd) as her sidekick.

Apple TV Plus has “Pinecone & Pony” (April 8), a kids’ show based on a book by Canadian author Kate Beaton about a warrior-in-training and her equine best friend.

Prime Video’s new offering this week is the movie “All the Old Knives” (April 8), starring Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton as CIA agents and former lovers who have to root out a mole.

If you’re a fan of American history and/or Ken Burns films, know that his two-part documentary “Benjamin Franklin” debuts on PBS April 4 and 5 at 8 p.m., with Mandy Patinkin providing the voice of Franklin.

Watchable March 28-April 3, 2022

March 28, 2022 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Revenge of the Black Best Friend (March 31, CBC Gem)

From left, Daren A. Herbert, Dante Jemmott, Tymika Tafari, Olunike Adeliyi and Victoria Taylor
in “Revenge of the Black Best Friend.” PHOTO CREDIT: Duane Cole/CBC Gem

The saying “It’s funny ’cause it’s true” could be a tag line for this clever and entertaining web series from CBC host and playwright Amanda Parris.

Parris and her writers’ room lampoon the film and TV industry’s very real (and not funny) marginalization of Black actors and creators in a way that will have you nodding your head in recognition while you chuckle.

The series grew from Parris’s own reflections on movies and TV shows she enjoyed when she was younger and her recognition when she rewatched them of how much they minimized the Black characters.

Those productions aren’t name-checked in “Revenge of the Black Best Friend,” but you’ll suss them out anyway, whether it’s 2000 movie “Bring It On” (white cheerleading squad steals Black squad’s cheers); 2009 TV series “Glee” (white character Rachel gets the solos, superior Black singer Mercedes is kept in the background); or 1997 cult TV hit “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (white lead Buffy kicks demon butt while Black slayer Kendra gets killed off after three episodes).

And even if you haven’t seen any of those shows or movies, you have surely seen others just like them.

The conceit of “Revenge” is that a self-help guru, talk show host and author named Dr. Toni Shakur — played by the talented Olunike Adeliyi of “The Porter” (and lots of other stuff if you check her IMDb page) — is out to shake up the “white narrative industrial complex” by helping Black performers get their due.

Or, as she tells one Black actor, in a nod to the (often broken) promises made to lure Black immigrants to Canada in the 1700s and 1800s, “I’m getting you your proverbial 40 acres and a mule.”

The show — which Parris says owes a debt to the 1987 movie satire “Hollywood Shuffle” — is full of that kind of smart, knowing comedy, whether it’s a protester carrying a sign that says “How many ethnicities will you let Rob Schneider play?” or a patronizing white director who boasts that his profile picture is “still a black square.”

As the series progresses — I screened four episodes — it becomes clear that Dr. Toni is not immune to the kind of diminishment she’s helping others battle. Or, to quote another great line, she too is “lost in a sea of caucacity.”

Black actors, naturally, are front and centre in “Revenge,” which also features an all-Black writing and directing team. It seems ridiculous that in 2021 we’re still hedging over whether Black performers can carry a show. But if you have doubts, I suggest you watch “Revenge of the Black Best Friend.”

And while we’re on the subject of giving creators and performers of colour their due, you should also make some time —and with 15-minute episodes we’re not talking a prohibitive amount of time — for web series “Topline” (March 31, CBC Gem) by Filipino writer-director Romeo Candido.

Charismatic actor Cyrena Fiel stars as Filipina teenager Tala. She’s a dutiful daughter with an alter ego, a singer-songwriter named Illisha. When one of the songs that “Illisha” recorded in Tala’s suburban bathroom goes viral, Tala gets invited to join the songwriting team at a Toronto studio. But keeping that secret from her father, who’s getting by on disability benefits and whatever Tala and her sister Gabby earn at their part-time jobs, is clearly setting up some conflict.

Short Takes

Sarah Lancashire as Julia Child in “Julia.” PHOTO CREDIT: Seacia Pavao/HBO Max

Julia (March 31, 10 p.m., Crave)

If you never experienced the real Julia Child, this series from Daniel Goldfarb (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) will give you a sense of why the American cookbook author and TV host was so beloved. That’s mainly down to English actor Sarah Lancashire, who’s beloved herself for shows like “Happy Valley,” “Last Tango in Halifax” and “Coronation Street.” Although she’s a good four inches shorter than the real Child and her voice is pitched higher, it’s the emotional rather than the physical that makes her portrayal such a delight. Lancashire’s Child is warm, charismatic and humble, a woman with a zest for both life and cooking who suffers very relatable self-doubt. The series also benefits from a crackerjack supporting cast, including David Hyde Pierce as Julia’s husband Paul, his “Frasier” castmate Bebe Neuwirth as her best friend Avis, and Brittany Bradford and Fran Kanz as the public television producers responsible for her seminal program “The French Chef.” That TV series started out as a modest, even amateurish, stab at a cooking show on Boston’s PBS outlet in 1962 and spread across the country, lasting until 1973. “Julia” isn’t what you’d call a high-stakes drama, but it does a creditable job of depicting the sexism of the era. I doubt Child would have called herself a feminist but, as “Julia” tells it, she had to run an old boys’ gauntlet to get her show on the air, particularly as a woman who wasn’t conventionally attractive. “Julia” is in some ways as down to earth as its namesake, a good old-fashioned linear TV series, but I found it very easy to watch and enjoy.

Crave also has a couple of documentaries: HBO’s “How to Survive a Pandemic” (March 29, 9 p.m.), about the race to develop and distribute COVID-19 vaccines; and the Oscar-nominated HBO short “When We Were Bullies” (March 30, 9 p.m.). The latter is a treatise on memory and social responsibility as filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt is reminded of a disturbing incident that happened at his elementary school 50 years before and tries to figure out why it bothers him so much a half-century later.

Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb in “Slow Horses.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

Slow Horses (April 1, Apple TV)

The first couple of episodes of this series live up to the slow part of its name. After a pulse-pounding opening in which wet-behind-the-ears MI5 agent River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) fails to stop a terrorist from blowing up a train station, we’re thrust into so-called Slough House, a purgatory for second-rate and past-their-prime spies led by Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), who calls his collection of rejects “M-I-fucking-useless.” Obviously, if River — sent down after his bomb fiasco, which was actually a training exercise — and his new colleagues were really useless we wouldn’t be watching the show, but it takes its time giving us a reason to care about these sad sacks. Once it does, though, it’s a decent enough spy caper, with Jackson and his charges sucked into a a case involving a young Muslim man, Hassan (Antonio Aakeel), kidnapped by a white supremacist group and an MI5 boss (Kristin Scott Thomas) who’s playing with Hassan’s life to score political points. “Horses” doesn’t reinvent the espionage wheel, but you’ll probably want to stick around to see how it all turns out. And you can do worse than to have an actor of Oldman’s calibre on your small screen.

From left, Darren Boyd, Rhianne Barreto, Christopher Walken, Clare Perkins, Gamba Cole
and Stephen Merchant in “The Outlaws.” PHOTO CREDIT: Amazon Studios

The Outlaws (April 1, Prime Video)

I have to be honest, I didn’t like this show much after the first episode, which seemed an uneasy mix of comedy and drama with characters that were more like caricatures. Luckily, it gets better as we find out more about the very different people thrown together to do community service in Bristol, England, after committing petty crimes. Even insufferable businessman John (Darren Boyd), spouting reactionary, politically incorrect nonsense, starts to seem sympathetic. While trying to atone for their misdemeanours, the team gets drawn into a dangerous criminal mess involving a bag of stolen drug money. It seems a safe bet the misfits will all pull together to get out of the jam. Stephen Merchant, a co-creator with Ricky Gervais of shows like the original “The Office” and “Extras,” co-created this one and also stars as geeky lawyer Gregory. The marquee star is Christopher Walken, playing American draft dodger and forger Frank in his own inimitable manner. And keep an eye out for Jessica Gunning, who’s a hoot as corrections supervisor Diane.

Prime Video also has the space movie “Moonfall” (April 1), starring Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson and John Bradley of “Game of Thrones” as astronauts who have to save the Earth from colliding with the moon.

Odds and Ends

Disney Plus has yet another Marvel series debuting this week with “Moon Knight” (March 30), starring Oscar Isaac as a former Marine with dissociative identity disorder who gains the powers of an Egyptian moon god, and my apologies for not screening it for you, but I have kind of hit peak Marvel. Ethan Hawke also stars as villain Arthur Harrow. Also on the Disney slate this week, “Death on the Nile” (March 30), a film based on the Agatha Christie novel with Kenneth Branagh, who won an Oscar Sunday night for his screenplay for “Belfast,” both directing and starring as Hercule Poirot.

Netflix offerings this week include “The Bubble” (April 1), a film comedy about the cast and crew of a blockbuster movie sequel shooting the film while in a pandemic bubble. It’s got a big cast of proven comedy stars and Judd Apatow directed. Netflix also has Apollo 10-1/2: A Space Age Childhood (April 1), an animated film from “Boyhood” director Richard Linklater about a space-mad kid growing up in Houston around the time of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

If you’re into food reality shows, there’s a new competition series coming to Food Network Canada March 28 at at 10 p.m.: “Wall of Chefs” spinoff “Wall of Bakers,” in which amateur bakers battle for $10,000 and bragging rights.

Global TV has the new CBS comedy “How We Roll” (March 31, 9:30 p.m.), starring Pete Holmes as a Midwest father who gets laid off from his factory job and decides to become a professional bowler.

Finally, the Magnolia Network launches in Canada this week. The network, a creation of the popular home reno couple Chip and Joanna Gaines, offers a wide spectrum of lifestyle programming including the Gaines’ own “Fixer Upper: Welcome Home” beginning March 30 at 9 p.m. See magnolianetwork.ca for the full slate of programming.

Watchable Sept. 27-Oct. 3, 2021

September 27, 2021 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Maid (Netflix, Oct. 1)

Margaret Qualley as Alex and Rylea Nevaeh Whittet as Maddy in “Maid.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Ricardo Hubbs/Netflix

In a year of TV that has had its share of shows about rich people, “Maid” takes us to the opposite end of the scale.

Alex (Margaret Qualley), the maid of the title, is very far from rich. When she flees her abusive boyfriend with their daughter in the middle of the night, she has nothing to her name but her car, a couple of bags of possessions and $18.

She doesn’t want to go to a domestic violence shelter because boyfriend Sean (Nick Robinson) didn’t punch her, just the wall. But she can’t get access to subsidized housing or daycare without a job, and she can’t go to her interview for a $12-an-hour housekeeping job with her daughter in tow. Her only child care options are her mentally ill mother (played by Qualley’s real mother, Andie MacDowell) and her estranged father, who’s moved on with his new family.

Whatever kindnesses are shown to help Alex start to scramble out of the hole are countered by new setbacks — a car accident, a custody suit by Sean, finding an apartment only to be chased out by mould — and there are unkindnesses, like the disdain of the grocery clerk and other customers over Alex using food stamps, or the rich client (Anika Noni Rose) who won’t pay Alex because she didn’t scrub the lawn furniture to her liking.

Alex perseveres, doing what she must to provide for daughter Maddy and learning to value herself along the way.

The show can be bleak, especially in the first episode, but it’s based on the real life of Stephanie Land, author of the memoir “Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive.” I have no doubt there are thousands and thousands of Alexes out there — and I imagine life would be even tougher for destitute single mothers who aren’t attractive, young white women.

At the very least, “Maid” makes you think: about poverty, about domestic violence, about how the situation you’re born into can determine your path in life. And because it treats its characters like people and not caricatures, “Maid” also entertains without feeling didactic.

Netflix also has one of the buzziest shows of the week, the doc “Britney Vs Spears” (Sept. 28), about Spears’ fight to end her conservatorship, which I was not able to review; “Attack of the Hollywood Cliches,” in which Rob Lowe leads a tour of common movie tropes, debuting Sept. 28, plus all episodes of “Seinfeld” starting on Oct. 1.

Short Takes

William Randolph Hearst, centre, with party attendees, from left, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and Princess Bibesco. PHOTO CREDIT: Marc Wanamaker/Bison Archives

Citizen Hearst (Sept. 27, 9 p.m., PBS)

The name William Randolph Hearst probably doesn’t mean much to you unless you’ve visited his “castle” in San Simeon, Calif., or you’re a fan of movies like “Citizen Kane” and “Mank,” the recent Oscar nominee about the making of “Citizen Kane.” But this “American Experience” docuseries is a reminder that he was once one of the richest, most powerful men in America and a fascinating bundle of contradictions: a media mogul who built his empire appealing to the working classes but who vehemently opposed political policies that would benefit ordinary working people; a millionaire who turned his nose up at high society; a crusader who fought corporate and political corruption but who also used his newspapers for repulsive causes, including promoting hatred against Asian Americans. Then there was his fascinating private life: the estate he virtually willed into being on a hilltop on the California coast; his unquenchable appetite for collecting art and antiques and other treasures; his decades-long affair with actress Marion Davies, the lady of Hearst Castle while wife Millicent remained in New York. Ambitious, hedonistic, arrogant, domineering but also a visionary in his younger days, Hearst is deserving of the description “larger than life.” “Citizen Hearst” covers it all in its two parts in more detail than I can do justice to here, and is also a captivating look back at the golden age of newspapers.

PBS also has one of my favourites, the period weepie “Call the Midwife,” debuting its 10th season Oct. 3 at 8 p.m., while detective drama “Grantchester” begins its sixth season the same night at 9 p.m.

La Brea (Sept. 28, 10 p.m., CTV)

From left, Chiké Okonkwo, Natalie Zea and Jon Seda in “La Brea.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Enticknap/NBC

If CGI disaster footage make your heart beat faster you’ll enjoy at least the opening minutes of “La Brea,” in which a giant sinkhole opens in a Los Angeles street, swallowing vehicles, people and buildings at a breakneck pace — although the sinkhole conveniently pauses long enough for mom Eve (Natalie Zea) to say goodbye to her teenage daughter Izzy (Zyra Gorecki) as Eve clings to the edge of the pavement before dropping into the void. Teenage son Josh (Jack Harris) has also been swallowed up and Izzy reunites with estranged dad Gavin (Eoin Macken), an ex-air force pilot who’s been seeing things since a crash in the desert three years before — a skill that comes in handy when he has visions that indicate his wife and son and all the other disappeared Angelenos are alive in some sort of alternate Los Angeles. And they are indeed alive, or at least some of them are, as are some dangerous prehistoric animals. It feels a bit like “Lost” crossed with “Jurassic Park,” minus the dinosaurs — although I’ve only seen one episode so who knows? Maybe the dinosaurs will show up. Oh and there are shady government operatives who are trying to keep the truth from Gavin and the rest of the world. Of course there are. With its cheesy dialogue, stock character types and hackneyed disaster tropes, “La Brea” feels like a sinkhole for TV show ideas.

CTV also has the third season of its Canadian original sitcom “Jann”, starring Jann Arden, debuting Sept. 27 at 8 p.m.

Inside the Toronto Maple Leafs locker room during the most recent NHL season in “All or Nothing.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Amazon Prime Video

All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs (Oct. 1, Amazon Prime Video)

I haven’t voluntarily watched a hockey game in at least a decade, but even I found this docuseries look at the Toronto Maple Leafs interesting — enough to binge two of the five episodes before I ran out of time. It also felt a bit like my duty as a Torontonian to watch it. If you live in Toronto you can’t escape knowing about the fortunes of the Leafs, who have possibly the most long-suffering and loyal fans in the NHL. The series is a behind-the-scenes look at the team during the 2020-21 season and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say it ended disastrously, with the Leafs getting bounced out of the first round of the playoffs by their arch-rivals the Montreal Canadiens despite the Leafs being at the top of the North Division. What I found particularly interesting was that the series makes it clear that loss wasn’t a fluke or a turn of bad luck, but the culmination of issues that coach Sheldon Keefe had identified early in the season. The big question, of course, is whether those issues can be fixed this season or whether Leafs fans will once again be disappointed in their longing for the team to end a 54-year Stanley Cup drought.

Odds and Ends

I think it’s fair to say there can be no reconciliation without truth and the commercial-free broadcast “National Day for Truth and Reconciliation” (Sept. 30, 8 p.m., CBC, CBC Gem) aims to tell some of that by sharing the stories of Indigenous people affected by Canada’s residential school system, as well as music and ceremonies from across the country. It’s hosted by Inuk singer, songwriter, broadcaster and activist Elisapie.

If you’re a British detective drama fan, the venerable “Midsomer Murders” has the second half of its 22nd season debuting Sept. 27 on AcornTV.

NOTE: The listings 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.

Watchable Aug. 23 to 29, 2021

August 23, 2021 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: 9/11: One Day in America (Aug. 29, 9 p.m., National Geographic)

An aerial view of Ground Zero in Manhattan burning. PHOTO CREDIT: NIST

I used to have an acquaintance who, every Sept. 11, would share her story online of escaping the World Trade Center on the day the towers fell in 2001.

I lost touch with Adrienne so it’s been years since I read her account. I no longer recall which tower she was in or what floor she was on, but I remember how her words never failed to grip me no matter how many times I read them.

Watching an episode of “9/11: One Day in America” reminded me of her story. The six-part series uses equally powerful stories from survivors to recount that horrible day minute by minute, from the first attack by a hijacked commercial jet on the North Tower of the trade centre, to the subsequent attacks on the South Tower and the Pentagon, to the crash of hijacked Flight 93 in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew stormed the cockpit. Two thousand, 977 people died that day 20 years ago.

That death toll is small compared to the ongoing fatality rate of the COVID-19 pandemic, but no one who remembers that day will ever forget what they were doing when they heard the news or — for those of us who felt immune from terrorism as North Americans — how profoundly it shook their world view.

The difference between “One Day in America” and other Sept. 11 documentaries I’ve seen is that it shares survivors’ stories without any narration or expert commentary; just their words supplemented by video and audio footage of the events.

Following a virtual screening I attended of Episode 2, “The South Tower,” executive producer T.J. Martin explained that he and co-producer Dan Lindsay (“Undefeated”) wanted to present an oral history of the day, free from the “geopolitics” that had attached themselves to Sept. 11, as “a conduit for empathy.”

I can’t imagine listening to the eyewitness accounts and not feeling empathy. Consider Stanley Praimnath, whose office on the South Tower’s 81st floor was in the direct path of the jetliner. Somehow surviving after pieces of the plane flattened walls and mangled furniture, he was saved when Brian Clark, who was making his way down from the 84th floor, heard his cries for help.

Brian and nine or 10 others were stopped on the 81st floor landing by a woman who told them they had to go back up. His companions retraced their steps and died. Brian chose to stay and help Stanley. Together, they made their way to the ground, effectively saving each other’s lives.

Kathy Comerford, who was blown out of her shoes on the 70th floor, recalls how people helped each other on the way out, especially how security guard Rick Rescorla sang to calm the terrified evacuees when they reached the 44th floor. He died in the collapse of the South Tower after refusing to leave so he could make sure he hadn’t missed anyone.

That’s just a fraction of what you’ll see and hear, and I won’t pretend it’s an easy watch. I have left out the more graphic memories from emergency responders at the scene. What makes it worthwhile is the humanity that shines through.

After Episode 1 on Aug. 29, episodes 2 and 3 air Aug. 30 at 9 and 10 p.m.; episodes 4 and 5 on Aug. 31 at 9 and 10 p.m., and episode 6 on Sept. 1 at 9 p.m.

American Horror Stories (Aug. 25, Disney Plus)

If you are a fan of the Ryan Murphy-Brad Falchuk brand of gore mixed with sex and humour, this series might be right up your alley.

Personally I was a bit blood-and-guts fatigued after four episodes.

Not to mention that the content skews very YA in that the protagonists, at least from what I saw, are mostly teenagers (well, 20- and 30-somethings playing teenagers).

Although billed as an anthology series, episodes 1 and 2 are a two-parter that takes place in the infamous “Murder House” of “American Horror Story” Season 1, while the finale (which I did not screen) returns to that venue.

The first episodes feature Sierra McCormick (“The Vast of Night”) as Scarlett, the lesbian daughter of a gay couple (Matt Bomer and Gavin Creel) who plan to turn the house into a spooky B&B. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out those plans go awry, particularly since Scarlett has a taste for ultra-violent porn, a good fit for a house full of ghosts of murders past.

I didn’t find Scarlett particularly sympathetic, not even as the target of a group of mean girls led by her crush Maya (Paris Jackson).

The same applies to other characters like Chad (Rhenzy Feliz) in Episode 3, whose obsession with getting into his reluctant girlfriend’s pants leads him to a drive-in where a banned movie that purportedly turns its audience into killers is playing. And don’t get me started on the sociopathic social media influencer “bros” in Episode 4, who mess with the wrong mall Santa.

There’s at least some fun to be had in those episodes from seeing old pros like Adrienne Barbeau and Danny Trejo in small but choice roles.

But overall the series leaves me with an impression I’ve had from other Murphy-Falchuk efforts, that it’s style over substance.

“American Horror Story” also returns this week, with the 10th instalment, “Double Feature,” debuting on FX Aug. 25 at 10 p.m. I wasn’t able to get an advance look at that one.

Clickbait (Aug. 25, Netflix)

Zoe Kazan stars as the sister of a kidnap victim in “Clickbait” (with Kate Lister as a pesky reporter). PHOTO CREDIT: Ben King/Netflix

There are lots of excellent crime dramas out there. “Clickbait” isn’t one of them.

I presume it’s meant to be a commentary on the ubiquity of technology, albeit not a very nuanced one. The plot is driven by seemingly devoted husband and father Nick (Adrian Grenier) being kidnapped and popping up in a video holding hand-lettered signs that say he abuses women and that he’ll die when the video reaches five million views.

Cue the search, in which the Oakland police piggyback on the work of citizen investigators who create a geocaching app to find Nick, while the cops and his family follow up clues on social media sites, dating apps, CCTV footage and so on.

The actors do what they can with a weak and cliched script, but the characterizations are so shallow you’d hurt yourself if you dove into them.

Take Nick’s sister Pia, played by Zoe Kazan (“The Big Sick”), who spends most of her time stomping around being either angry or sad and not much in between. Betty Gabriel (“Defending Jacob”) plays Nick’s seemingly perfect wife Sophie and Australian actor Phoenix Raei is ambitious but caring detective Roshan Amir, who’s Muslim, which we know because we see snippets of him praying, and his mother trying to feed him and asking why he hasn’t been promoted to homicide yet. See what I mean about cliches?

Anyway, by the time I watched four of the eight episodes, I really didn’t care whether Nick was a good guy or a bad guy, or what happened to him.

You’d be better off to check out “Motel Makeover” (Aug. 25), which follows media darlings April Brown and Sarah Sklash, proprietors of the trendy June Motel in Prince Edward County, as they “Junify” a 24-room motel, plus restaurant and pool, in Sauble Beach over just five months.

April Brown and Sarah Sklash check out a dated room in the former Knight’s Inn.
PHOTO CREDIT: Geoff George/Courtesy of Netflix

If you’re not put off by the pair’s cheerful go-girl energy, there are pleasures to be had in watching them transform a mess of 1970s wood panelling and smelly carpets into the stuff that millennial dreams are made of.

Personally, I’m a sucker for a nice paint job and some thrift-store treasure hunting.

Also on Netflix this week are the animated spinoff “The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf” (Aug. 23); Part 4 of the comedy series “Family Reunion” (Aug. 24) and the film “He’s All That” (Aug. 27).

Odds and Ends

Poet Rupi Kaur in the special “Rupi Kaur Live.” PHOTO CREDIT: Amrita Singh

You can see immensely popular Indian-Canadian poet Rupi Kaur in the special “Rupi Kaur Live,” coming to Amazon Prime Video on Aug. 27. According to Amazon, the one-hour show, filmed in Los Angeles pre-pandemic, fuses poetry, humour, spoken word, music and visuals.

Attention “Mandalorian” fans, Disney Plus has a tidbit for you while you await Season 3, with “Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian,” a look at the making of the Season 2 finale and the reappearance of Luke Skywalker, dropping on Aug. 25.

Personally I’m stoked for the return of “Inspector Morse” prequel series “Endeavour,” coming to the PBS Masterpiece Amazon Prime Video channel on Aug. 23.

Speaking of PBS, if you’re a fan of TV historian Lucy Worsley, she’s back with three new episodes of “Royal Myths & Secrets,” beginning Aug. 29 at 8 p.m., delving into Henry VIII’s Reformation, England’s Regency era and the Russian Revolution.

Watchable the week of May 31, 2021

May 31, 2021 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Sweet Tooth (June 4, Netflix)

Christian Convery as Gus in “Sweet Tooth.” PHOTO CREDIT: Kirsty Griffin/Netflix

Up until I watched “Sweet Tooth” I wouldn’t have thought a dystopian drama could be heartwarming, but this series based on the Jeff Lemire comic books is one of the most moving shows I’ve seen.

It’s not that there isn’t darkness here; the story is, after all, set 10 years after a virus has laid waste to the world as we know it, so there’s death and fear, cruelty and ignorance, but also goodness and innocence and, yes, sweetness and hope.

Most of that is down to the title character, a boy named Gus who’s part human and part deer, nicknamed Sweet Tooth for his love of candy. And he’s not the only hybrid, the term for children who began to be born with the physical features of animals at the same time the virus emerged. But Gus was raised in isolation so, when he finally emerges into what’s left of the world, he’s a naif: able to fend for himself in a practical sense but with no real idea of just how dangerous humans can be.

His protector and his teacher in that regard, reluctantly so, is a jaded ex-football player named Tommy Jepperd (Nonso Anozie) who has just enough humanity left in him not to turn his back on Gus.

There are others who seek to protect the hybrids, including an orphaned young woman who calls herself Bear (Stefania LaVie Owen) and Aimee (Dania Ramirez), a former therapist who has set up a sanctuary for hybrids at an abandoned zoo. But they’re up against a paramilitary force known as the Last Men who are intent on wiping out the hybrids, whom some blame for causing the virus.

The other key character is Dr. Singh (Adeel Akhtar), whose only concern is keeping his sick wife alive and her condition hidden from nosy and potentially murderous neighbours.

These character strands are pursued separately at first, but it’s obvious they’ll eventually be pulled into Gus’s orbit, which is a good thing. The series is at its best whenever Gus is onscreen. He is truly the heart of the story, and the casting gods were smiling on the production team (which includes actor Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan as executive producers, and Jim Mickle as showrunner and director) when they found Christian Convery to play him.

The young Canadian actor perfectly embodies Gus’s guileless innocence and his persistent faith that things will work out, even when everything around him suggests otherwise.

On the face of it, a postapocalyptic drama might not seem like the optimal entertainment for a pandemic-weary world, but “Sweet Tooth” reminds us of the human capacity for good even at the worst of times.

Netflix also has Season 2 of “Feel Good,” debuting May 28, the dramedy in which Canadian comedian Mae Martin plays a fictionalized version of herself. As the season begins, Mae returns to Canada and to rehab, leaving George (Charlotte Ritchie) behind in London.

Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten (May 31, 9 p.m., PBS)

Forensic archeologists excavate a suspected mass grave at Tulsa’s Oaklawn Cemetery in October 2020 in “Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Jonathan Silvers/Saybrook Productions

Monday is Memorial Day in the U.S., which honours that country’s military. It’s also the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, a confluence that lends a certain irony given that members of the National Guard were reportedly present when a white mob razed a Black neighbourhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from May 31 to June 1, 1921, murdering as many as 300 Black citizens, leaving thousands more homeless.

If you don’t know anything about the massacre, you’re not alone. This doc makes the point that even some Tulsa residents didn’t know about it until fairly recently. I personally had never heard of it before viewing the 2019 fantasy series “Watchmen.”

But this film, directed by Jonathan Silvers and produced by Washington Post reporter DeNeen L. Brown, both recounts the history of the atrocity and draws a line from it to ongoing anti-Black racism, not just physical violence but mental, emotional and economic oppression of Black communities.

At the time, Tulsa’s Greenwood area was a thriving neighbourhood, known as the Black Wall Street for its wealth. In just 16 hours more than 35 square blocks were destroyed, a tragedy that was blamed on its victims.

It began after a young Black man was falsely accused of assaulting a white woman in an elevator and other Black men went to the city’s jail, some with guns, to protect him from being lynched by the crowd of white men that had gathered. After a melee broke out and the Black men fled back to Greenwood, the attack began.

The white mob was unimpeded by the city’s police, some of them even deputized by the force. None of those men, some of whom can be seen proudly posing in photographs, were ever held accountable.

And the story of what’s called one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history is still being written: the legal fight for reparations to survivors and descendants of victims is ongoing; and this summer, bodies that might belong to massacre victims will be exhumed from a mass grave in a city cemetery.

Girls5eva (June 3, 9 p.m., W Network)

Paula Pell, Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Busy Philipps in “Girls5eva.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Heidi Gutman/Peacock)

Think of “Girls5eva” as the TV equivalent of a pop song: fun, a little frothy and catchy enough to get stuck in your head.

The latest from executive producers Tina Fey and Robert Carlock (“30 Rock”), created by Meredith Scardino, a writer on Fey’s and Carlock’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Girls5eva” lampoons 1990s and early 2000s girl groups, and the sexism and commercialism surrounding them.

The group of the title is sort of a New York version of the Spice Girls . . . if the Spice Girls faded into obscurity after one hit.

When hip-hop star Lil Stinker (Jeremiah Craft) samples that hit, “Famous 5eva” (cuz 4eva’s too short), the four surviving “girls” get booked to back Stinker on “The Tonight Show,” leading to dreams of renewed stardom.

Easier said than done, of course, for a group of 40somethings in an industry in which, as their sleazy former manager Larry (Jonathan Hadary) says, “For ladies, 35 is checkout time. That’s a quote from our greatest president.” (The point is made in an even funnier way by legendary producer Alf Musik, played by Stephen Colbert, who writes Girls5Eva a song called “Invisible Woman.”)

But “chill one” Dawn (Sara Bareilles), “hot one” Summer (Busy Philipps), “fierce one” Wickie (Renee Elise Goldsberry) and gay one Gloria (Paula Pell) persevere through others’ indifference and their own self-doubt, learning to write their own songs (with the help of a fantasy Dolly Parton, played by Fey) and to think outside the boxes they were put in by the music biz.

The first season culminates in a snatched moment of glory that is preposterous, predictable and emotionally satisfying all at once.

It took me a few episodes to warm up to “Girls5eva” but, once I did, I was fully invested in the group making good, even narcissistic Wickie (Goldsberry), who gets the best lines.

Speaking of lines, the jokes fly by fast so best pay attention. Same goes for the clever lyrics of the songs, written mainly by Scardino and composer Jeff Richmond, with real life singer/songwriter Bareilles pitching in on a couple of them. (My favourite, though it’s not a Girls5eva tune, is “New York Lonely Boy,” which pokes fun at Gen X parents and their fedora-wearing, sushi-eating only children: “The Strand is his Disneyland.”)

“Girls5eva” isn’t particularly deep or envelope-pushing but, like an earworm, it doesn’t have to be to grab your attention.

Short Takes

Mary Galloway and Kaitlyn Yott as Abe and Daka in “Querencia.” PHOTO CREDIT: APTN lumi

Querencia (June 1, 11 p.m., APTN lumi)

This is the first original series for APTN lumi, the streaming service of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. It’s about the relationship between two Indigenous queer women, winningly played by series creator and director Mary Galloway and Kaitlyn Yott. Daka (Yott) has come to Vancouver to try her luck as a dancer, despite her misgivings and those of her family. Abe (Galloway), a musician, has been on her own for a while and, unlike Yott, is out of touch with her Indigenous traditions. A misunderstanding on the part of Daka’s new roommate brings them together, even though Daka has previously identified as straight, and a spark is struck. The series, a clear-eyed and compassionate look at two young women growing into the people they want to be, will be part of the Inside Out Festival, screening virtually beginning June 2 at noon. There will also be a premiere event June 1 hosted by imagineNATIVE with musical performances and a Q&A.

Ballerina Boys (June 4, 9 p.m., PBS)

Josh Thake, left, and Duane Gosa perform with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.
PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Nespola/Courtesy of Merrywidow Films LLC

Anything that brings together the art forms of ballet and drag seems like a good thing to me, which would seem to be proven by the fact Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has been in existence for some 47 years. This documentary, a Pride Month offering from PBS’s “American Masters,” makes it clear that behind the comedic aspect of men in tutus with faux Russian names there is serious discipline and respect for ballet tradition. Started in New York in the years following the Stonewall riots as “kind of a lark,” in the words of co-founder Peter Anastos, the Trocks grew into a genuine ballet company, one that tours all over the world when it’s not locked down. Despite early disapproval by what Anastos calls “the muckety muck dance establishment,” the company persevered, quite a feat in the ’90s when it lost half its dancers to AIDS. It brings ballet to audiences who wouldn’t know a plie from a pirouette, and to places that aren’t exactly gay-friendly. And it’s clear the dancers love what they do, despite the pain of pointe shoes; they talk in the doc about how performing in drag makes them feel like themselves. The film ends fittingly with a 2019 performance in Central Park of George Balanchine’s “Stars and Stripes” commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

Odds and Ends

I didn’t get an advance look at “Lisey’s Story” (June 4), the Apple TV Plus series that Stephen King adapted from his own novel, although reviews I’ve read suggest that’s not a bad thing. You’ll have to judge for yourself. The cast is certainly top notch, including Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Joan Allen and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Amazon debuts “Dom” (June 4), a crime series based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and based on a true story about a man who’s part of the drug trade and his police officer father.

The Smithsonian Channel has the original series “Searching for Secrets” (June 6), which digs into hidden history in “the world’s most iconic cities.” The list includes New York, London, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris and Singapore. Sorry Toronto.

Watchable the week of Sept. 14, 2020

September 14, 2020 / Debra Yeo

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Third Day (Sept. 14, 9 p.m., HBO)

Jude Law and Katherine Waterston in “The Third Day.” PHOTO CREDIT: Robert Ludovic/HBO

This miniseries was co-created by Felix Barrett, founder of Punchdrunk, the theatre company that gave the world the groundbreaking immersive play “Sleep No More,” and there is indeed a touch of the immersive about it.

There’s a hallucinatory quality to what’s onscreen that sometimes makes you feel like you’re losing your grip on reality right along with Sam, played by Jude Law, the married father and small business owner who effectively gets trapped on a very strange island off the British coast.

The other creator is Dennis Kelly, known in the U.K. as the man behind the ultra-violent thriller “Utopia,” with which “The Third Day” shares a use of super-saturated colour, which helps to heighten the sense of unreality.

I’ve seen five of the six episodes — the first three starring Law, the latter starring Naomie Harris (“Moonlight”) — but there’s also a live broadcast to come in between the two parts, described as “an immersive, experiential event,” which obviously nobody has seen yet.

I can tell you that what I have seen is permeated with an unrelenting sense of dread.

Sam ends up on tiny Osea Island when he encounters a troubled young woman from there and drives her home, but circumstances conspire to keep him on the island, not least the fact that the causeway linking it to the mainland is accessible only when the tide is out.

Despite the smiling hospitality of people like the Martins (Paddy Considine and Emily Watson), who run the local pub, there’s a clear sense that Osea is no place for outsiders. Sam catches glimpses of pagan-seeming rituals; there are disembowelled animals strewn about and menacing men in fish-head masks. The longer he stays, the greater the impression that he’s in danger and, also, that there’s no one he can trust. Even his seeming ally, a fellow visitor named Jess (Katherine Waterston), appears to be hiding things.

When Helen (Harris) arrives with her two daughters months after the events involving Sam, there’s not even a pretence of a welcome. The islanders want her gone, but she stubbornly refuses to leave, saying she planned the trip as a birthday surprise for her oldest daughter — although it becomes clear she has an ulterior motive for being there.

The series gets into some quasi-religious mythology that’s a little farfetched, but it works well when it plays up the terror of being stuck in a strange place with no way home.

Ratched (Sept. 18, Netflix)

Sarah Paulson as Mildred Ratched in “Ratched.” PHOTO CREDIT: Saeed Adyani/Netflix

Ryan Murphy’s latest project for Netflix, co-created with Evan Romansky, is the origin story of literary and cinema villain Nurse Ratched of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” I’m not convinced anyone was clamouring for a look at how the cruel, manipulative character from the 1962 novel and 1975 film became who she was, but here we are.

Don’t look to “Ratched” for nuanced psychological drama; it’s pure melodrama. And like “Hollywood,” the Murphy co-creation that debuted on Netflix in May, it’s more style than substance.

It’s definitely lovely to look at. Mildred Ratched, played by Murphy favourite Sarah Paulson, dresses in colourful period fashions when she’s not in her turquoise nurse’s uniform. And the mental hospital where she connives her way into a job looks more like an elegant hotel than an asylum.

This Nurse Ratched is a rigidly self-controlled, sexually repressed manipulator with a dark past who has a very specific reason for putting herself in the employ of Dr. Hanover (Jon Jon Briones), which I won’t reveal because it would be a spoiler. But she’s not wholly unsympathetic.

The series opens with a gruesome multiple murder by a man (“American Horror Story” alum Finn Wittrock) who comes into Hanover’s and Ratched’s care, and some of the mental hospital’s treatments are barbaric.

Judy Davis co-stars as Ratched’s nemesis, head nurse Betsy Bucket. Vincent D’Onofrio plays the state governor, who uses the mental hospital as a prop for his re-election campaign, and Cynthia Nixon is his assistant, a closeted lesbian.

Sharon Stone also chews some scenery as a very rich woman with a grudge against Dr. Hanover.

Odds and Ends

Jack Dylan Grazer and Jordan Kristine Seamon star in “We Are Who We Are.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Yannis Drakoulidis/HBO

If you’re a fan of Luca Guadagnino’s previous work, especially the Oscar-nominated gay love story “Call Me By Your Name,” then you will likely take to “We Are Who We Are” (Sept. 14, 10 p.m., HBO), a series he co-created and directed about two teenagers exploring their sexual and gender identities on an American air force base in Italy. It stars Jack Dylan Grazer as Fraser, a New York teen who grudgingly comes to Italy with his mother Sarah (Chloe Sevigny), the new commander of the base, and her wife Maggie (Alice Braga). Kid Cudi also co-stars as one of the soldiers under Sarah’s command and the father of Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamon), with whom Fraser forms a close friendship.

This week offers three pandemic-tailored awards shows. First up are the TIFF Tribute Awards (Sept. 15, 8 p.m., CTV), which will honour Kate Winslet and Sir Anthony Hopkins among others, with the stars checking in virtually. Next are the Academy of Country Music Awards (Sept. 16, 8 p.m., Global, CBS), hosted by Keith Urban and broadcast live from three venues in Nashville with a live performance by Taylor Swift. Finally, the Primetime Emmy Awards go virtual (Sept. 20, 8 p.m., CTV, ABC) with Jimmy Kimmel hosting from Los Angeles and the rest of the stars appearing via video call-in.

For those of you who love British TV and the work of Sally Wainwright in particular (“Happy Valley,” “Gentleman Jack”), the dramedy “Last Tango in Halifax” is back for a fourth season (Sept. 20, 8 p.m., PBS). Senior citizens Alan (Derek Jacobi) and Celia (Ann Reid) have been married seven years when the series resumes, but there are frictions to be overcome. Sarah Lancashire (“Happy Valley”) and Nicola Walker (“Unforgotten”) resume their roles as Celia’s and Alan’s adult daughters.

BritBox has a new show debuting, “Don’t Forget the Driver” (Sept. 15), which was co-created by and stars prolific actor Toby Jones as a put-upon single father who makes a living driving day-trippers on coach excursions from the seaside town of Bognor Regis in England. The series is gently comedic but also deals with deadly serious issues, specifically the worldwide refugee crisis.

Tag: Netflix (Page 3 of 3)

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

Watchable on Crave, Prime Video May 2 to 8, 2022

Watchable on Netflix, Crave April 25 to May 1, 2022

Watchable on Crave, W, Netflix, AMC April 18 to 24, 2022

Watchable on Crave, Netflix, Hollywood Suite April 4-10, 2022

Watchable March 28-April 3, 2022

Watchable Sept. 27-Oct. 3, 2021

Watchable Aug. 23 to 29, 2021

Watchable the week of May 31, 2021

Watchable the week of Sept. 14, 2020

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