Because I love television. How about you?

Tag: slavery

Watchable Feb. 7 to 13, 2022

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Hidden Assets (Feb. 13, 9 p.m., Super Channel Fuse and Super Channel on Demand)

Belgian actor Wouter Hendrickx and Irish actor Angeline Ball in “Hidden Assets.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Guillaume Van Leather/Saffron Moon/RTE/AcornTV)

A presumed terrorist bombs a fashion show in Antwerp, Belgium. A drug dealer’s home is raided in Shannon, Ireland, revealing ties to the bombing. And it’s up to Belgian and Irish detectives working together to untangle those connections and try to stop a second attack.

Throw Canada into the mix. Although the action — at least in the two episodes I saw — doesn’t stray from Europe, the drama is a Belgian-Irish-Canadian co-production, with Quebec company Facet4 Media on board alongside Belgium’s Potemkino and Ireland’s Saffron Moon.

The main cast is also either Irish or Belgian. Angeline Ball (who will forever be Imelda in “The Commitments” to me, although she’s done plenty of other TV and film) is detective Emer Berry, who leads the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau. Wouter Hendrickx is Christian De Jong, a Belgian counter-terrorism detective. They forge a working relationship that is neither adversarial nor buddy cop, and their time onscreen is all about the work, as opposed to other series that focus on the troubled home lives of their workaholic leads.

In fact, the series as a whole moves with the kind of brisk, no-nonsense approach that Emer and Christian seem to bring to their jobs. It’s not flashy or histrionic, nor does it get lost in the weeds of its plot: you can follow the threads without strenuous mental gymnastics, but that doesn’t make it boring.

Also part of the mix is Irish expat Bibi Melnick (Irish actor Simone Kirby), who lives in Antwerp with her Canadian husband James (British-Canadian actor Charlie Carrick) and runs a prosperous ship chandler company. She gets dragged into the investigation by the fact two of her employees, both immigrants, are linked to the bombing, and by her estranged brother Fionn (Irish actor Peter Coonan), who has ties to the Irish drug dealer.

Canadian actor Michael Ironside, who has a list of credits longer than my arm, also co-stars as Bibi’s father-in-law, hedge fund mogul Richard Melnick.

Through Bibi and her workers, the show touches on issues of refugee migration, Islamophobia and right-wing political populism. But overall, it seems to be a crime drama that is mainly about the crime and the solving of it.

I have one quibble with a scene in which Berry runs out of the police station to shoot at two gunmen on a motorcycle who have just ruthlessly and efficiently executed a witness. But she and De Jong are likeable leads who seem quite capable of connecting all the dots.

Short Takes

Actor CCH Pounder at a memorial to the enslaved people who led a revolt in Louisiana in 1811.
PHOTO CREDIT: Smithsonian Channel

One Thousand Years of Slavery — The Untold Story (Feb. 7, Smithsonian Channel)

This four-part docuseries comes from the production company of actors Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance (who also narrates) and takes a view of slavery beyond its history in America and the horror stories that we’re used to, sharing the accounts of enslaved people who fought back. The first episode, for instance, covers the history of the 1811 German Coast revolt in Louisiana; the 1831 Jamaican plantation rebellion that led to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire; the 1839 uprising aboard the slave ship Amistad and the survivors of the Clotilda, the last ship to bring African captives to America — illegally — in 1860. The episode’s final story — of Clotilda survivor Matilda McCrear and her three great-granddaughters — demonstrates that the legacy of slavery, despite its odiousness, can be a positive one. At the age of 73, in 1931, Matilda walked 17 miles to the Dallas County Courthouse to claim compensation for being stolen from West Africa. Her claim was denied but, in 1965, her descendants took part in the civil rights marches that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. These stories are told with the help of Black actors and other celebrities, including CCH Pounder, Debbie Allen, Lorraine Toussaint, Dule Hill and Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.

David Oyelowo and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in “The Girl Before.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Amanda Searle/The Girl Before

The Girl Before (Feb. 10, 10 p.m., Crave)

The first hurdle you have to get past in this thriller series based on the JP Delany novel is that anyone would agree to move into a house with such a long list of restrictions, no matter what the rent, particularly a house so unforgivingly austere. Yes, London is undoubtedly a frightfully expensive place to live, but no pictures allowed? No knick-knacks? No books?!? As a lover of things, the single tiny closet struck terror into my heart, never mind the fact that the occupants’ safety might be at risk. But Emma (Jessica Plummer) and Jane (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), both women looking for a clean slate after suffering traumas, do agree to move in — three years apart — and both get romantically involved with Edward Monkford (David Oyelowo), the ridiculously controlling architect who set all those conditions. The mystery revolves around a death in the house. Was it an accident or was it murder? If the latter, who was the killer? The answer, when it comes, isn’t that difficult to guess. As actors, Mbatha-Raw and Plummer acquit themselves respectably, digging into Jane’s and Emma’s pain as well as their strengths, which brings warmth to this otherwise chilly tale. Treat it like the tastefully accoutred whodunit that it is and all will be well.

Crave also has the documentary “Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine” (Feb. 7), about one of Canada’s better known rock bands; the “docu-comedy” “Pillow Talk” (Feb. 10), which explores relationships between four real-life couples and one pair of roommates, playing fictionalized versions of themselves, with all the interactions happening in the bedroom; the Steven Soderbergh movie “KIMI” (Feb. 10); spinoff series “Power Book IV: Force” (Feb. 6, 9 p.m.); and Season 2 of “Dollface” (Feb. 11).

Judge Emma Waddell admires a mini Manhattan townhouse in “Best in Miniature.”
PHOTO CREDIT: CBC Gem

Best in Miniature (Feb. 11, CBC Gem)

Speaking of things, one wonders what Edward Monkford would make of the doll-sized objects in “Best in Miniature.” Tiny pieces of furniture and decor, even working fireplaces and chandeliers, may not have much practical purpose, but they’re certainly fun to look at and to watch being created. This competition series starts with 11 miniaturists, Canadians and Americans with one Brit thrown in, who are vying for $10,000 and a residency at the school of the International Guild of Miniature Artisans in Maine. The contestants’ only limits are imagination and skill — and the ticking clock — as they craft their mini dream homes, which include a five-storey townhouse, an Atlanta mansion, a haunted house, an A-frame cottage, a medieval lair for sibling witches, even a shipping container home. The detail of some of their minuscule creations is truly amazing, particularly when it comes to furnishing their homes. Judges Emma Waddell and Micheal Lambie pick a winner each week and send one competitor home. Aba Amuquandoh is the host. The series comes from Toronto’s marblemedia, the company behind the popular “Blown Away.”

CBC Gem also has “The Head” (Feb. 7), a mystery about a massacre at an Antarctic research station.

Odds and Ends

Julia Garner as con artist Anna Delvey, a.k.a. Anna Sorokin, in “Inventing Anna.”
PHOTO CREDIT: David Giesbrecht/Netflix

I have watched two episodes of the Shonda Rhimes-created series “Inventing Anna” (Feb. 11, Netflix) and I have thoughts, which I would love to share with you, except reviews are — sigh — embargoed. It’s based on the true story of Russian Anna Sorokin, who conned thousands upon thousands of dollars out of banks, hotels and New York’s elite by pretending to be a German heiress named Anna Delvey. The Netflix series uses a fictionalized reporter played by Anna Chlumsky to frame the tale. It’s a fascinating story and if you’d like to hear the real details from people who were involved, I recommend the podcast “Fake Heiress.” Netflix also has Season 2 of “Love is Blind” (Feb. 11), the spinoff “Love Is Blind Japan” (Feb. 8) and Season 4 of the animated sitcom “Disenchantment” (Feb. 9).

Disney Plus has the Korean drama “Snowdrop” (Feb. 9) about a forbidden romance between a couple of university students (Jung Hae-In and Jisoo of K-pop band Blackpink) in 1980s Seoul.

British streaming services have a couple of female-led detective dramas on tap. First up is Season 4 of “Agatha Raisin” (Feb. 7, Acorn), starring Ashley Jensen (“After Life”) as the stylish amateur sleuth. BritBox introduces a new crime enthusiast in “Sister Boniface Mysteries” (Feb. 8), with Lorna Watson as a Vespa-driving Catholic nun solving mysteries in the 1960s English countryside.

Prime Video’s offerings include another rom-com, “I Want You Back” (Feb. 11), in which Charlie Day and Jenny Slate play 30-somethings who are trying to win back their former partners with each other’s help, except we can all guess they’ll end up together, right? Prime Video also has “LOL: Last One Laughing Brazil” (Feb. 11).

From OUTtv comes the LGBTQ dating series “Dating Unlocked” (Feb. 11). The daters here represent a range of gender and sexual identities. And they’re not all looking for love in the traditional sense — some just want hookups, some are polyamorous — but the desire for human connection is something they can all get behind. Non-binary “intimacy nerd” Yaz is the charismatic host.

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 the week of May 10, 2021

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Underground Railroad (May 14, Amazon)

Thuso Mbedu as Cora in “The Underground Railroad.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Amazon

It feels strange to describe something that deals with the abomination of slavery as beautiful, but “The Underground Railroad” is a gorgeous piece of television, grandly cinematic, even when it’s laying bare ugliness.

That seems fitting given that it’s the debut TV project of Barry Jenkins, renowned as the director and co-writer of Oscar-winning films “Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

He couldn’t have taken on a more ambitious task: a 10-episode adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Colson Whitehead.

Jenkins has created an epic that envelops you with its sights and sounds and feelings, with images that seep into your consciousness like fragments of vivid dreams.

He’s aided brilliantly by cinematographer James Laxton and composer Nicholas Britell, who also collaborated on his movies. Thanks to them, the look and sound of the series are truly striking. But none of that would matter if the performances didn’t live up to the esthetics.

Thuso Mbedu, a South African actor who’s unknown in North America — but presumably not for long — imbues Cora, the teenage slave whose journey we follow, with fierce intelligence and profound spirit. Cora navigates myriad emotions and states of being along with the many miles she travels and Mbedu dynamically conveys them all, often using just her face and her large, expressive eyes.

Praise is also due to Aaron Pierre as Cora’s fellow plantation slave Caesar; Sheila Atim as her mother, Mabel; William Jackson Harper as Royal, a free Black man who aids Cora; Joel Edgerton as slave catcher Ridgeway and, especially, Chase Dillon as Homer, the young Black boy who helps Ridgeway do his dirty work.

When we first meet Cora she’s picking cotton in Georgia, marked by the abandonment of her mother, who left the plantation years before.

Cora flees on the Underground Railroad, which, in the show as in the book, is an actual subterranean train system. (Some of the most haunting parts of the soundscape are heard waiting for trains underground; the Earth itself seems to be moaning.) From there we follow Cora from state to state and from one type of white treachery to another.

The series deals more in the psychic wounds of slavery than the physical ones, although the first episode features graphic violence that put me in mind of “12 Years a Slave.” It’s clear that even for the Black men and women we meet who aren’t enslaved, freedom is fragile and requires constant vigilance.

Ridgeway, who’s the most fully formed character besides Cora, chases her relentlessly, obsessed with the daughter since the mother was the only slave he couldn’t catch.

Cora must elude not only Ridgeway, but her own image of herself as someone so unworthy of love that her own mother abandoned her. When she finally breaks through the anger, her joy is short-lived, quashed by a brutal betrayal that is both shocking and predictable.

But Cora is a survivor, even when she doesn’t want to be. As she makes yet another escape, it’s not clear where she’ll end up and whether she’ll be safe there; we can only hope she’ll find true freedom, in both mind and spirit, a hope that extends to her descendants and the descendants of all those enslaved.

The Crime of the Century (May 10 and 11, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

A graveyard scene underscores the cost of the opioid crisis in “The Crime of the Century.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

Infuriating and depressing: that’s how I would describe this two-part documentary by Alex Gibney, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning filmmaker behind docs like “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and “Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief.”

But it’s also worth watching for a lucid and detailed explanation of the American opioid crisis.

There are villains galore here, everyone from profit-obsessed drug company executives and sales reps, to doctors and pharmacists who take bribes to dispense ridiculously powerful pills to patients, to the corrupt Federal Drug Administration officer who allowed oxycontin to be declared safe for chronic pain relief, to the politicians who push big pharma interests in exchange for campaign contributions, to the justice department officials who buried evidence of drug company wrongdoing in exchange for guilty pleas and slap-on-the-wrist fines.

What is abundantly clear is that the opioid epidemic, which has killed some 500,000 Americans in the last 20 years, is also an epidemic of greed.

Opium — from which drugs like morphine, heroin and oxycodone are derived — has been cultivated since the reign of King Tut and has fuelled western profit and addiction for at least a couple of centuries, but Gibney pins the origins of the current epidemic on three brothers from Brooklyn and their pharmaceutical company.

It was the Sackler brothers, whom Gibney describes as “some of the world’s most successful drug pushers,” and Purdue Pharma who came up with OxyContin, a continuous-release form of Oxycodone.

But the drug’s original use, end-of-life cancer pain, wasn’t lucrative enough so the FDA was convinced to allow a claim that the drug’s delayed absorption mechanism reduced the likelihood of addiction — and Purdue and other drug-makers that followed its lead were off to the races.

Evidence began to mount not long after that Oxy was being used as a street drug, crushed and snorted, or dissolved and injected, but Purdue’s line was that the addicts were at fault, not the pills.

And then there’s fentanyl, another powerful drug initially meant for cancer patients, which is the subject of much of the second episode of the doc.

The resulting carnage is assessed by journalists (the Washington Post is a partner in the series), concerned doctors, drug company whistleblowers, people who’ve seen the deaths firsthand and crusaders like Joe Rannazzisi, who lost his Drug Enforcement Administration job for speaking out against a U.S. law that makes it harder to crack down on drug distributors who supply the so-called “pill mills” that flourish in Florida and elsewhere.

Gibney piles outrage upon outrage, more than I can do justice to here. Your best bet is to watch for yourself.

Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer (May 11, 8 p.m., PBS)

Author Steven Johnson and broadcaster David Olusoga guide viewers through “Extra Life.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Nutopia

What could be more timely than a history of vaccination as we line up for our COVID-19 shots? Personally, I had no idea that the forerunner of today’s inoculations was a practice known as variolation — making a small incision in the arm and smearing it with smallpox fluid— that was imported to the United States in the 1700s via an African slave named Onesimus.

Engaging hosts Steven Johnson and David Olusoga take us through that history, including the development of the world’s first vaccine by British doctor Edward Jenner in the late 1700s, to the eventual eradication of smallpox, a disease that killed many millions of people going back centuries. It was vanquished by 73 countries working together in the 1960s and ’70s to vaccinate everyone on the planet, an achievement that holds a measure of hope for today’s pandemic battle.

As epidemiologist Larry Brilliant says, “People forget what human beings can do when we’re unencumbered by divisiveness and hate, and that we stand up to the moment in time.”

Obviously, the current vaccination push against COVID is part of the discussion, with nods to vaccine hesitancy and the need to vaccinate in every country in the world, especially the poorest ones, to avoid prolonging the pandemic.

All this is part of a look at how science and medical innovations have lengthened life expectancy. It’s shocking to think that a person born in 1900 could expect to live an average of just 32 years whereas, today, the average Canadian can expect to live to at least 80.

The series, presented by TV production company Nutopia, also includes episodes about the use of data, medical inventions and public behaviour. If that sounds dry, I expect them to be highly watchable if they’re anything like the first.

For a look at the very start of the human life span, PBS also has “Fighting for Fertility” (“Nova,” May 12, 9 p.m.), about how science and technology are helping people who are struggling to have children.

Short Takes

From left, Kim Fields, Mike Epps and Gabrielle Dennis in “The Upshaws.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Lara Solanki/Netflix

The Upshaws (May 12, Netflix)

This sitcom, co-created by Regina Y. Hicks (“Insecure”) and comedian Wanda Sykes, is about a Black working class family in Indiana. The family dynamics are complex: Bennie (Mike Epp, “Uncle Buck”) has four kids, three with his wife and former high school sweetheart, Regina (Kim Fields, a.k.a. Tootie from “The Facts of Life”), one with his high school “baby mama” Tasha (Gabrielle Dennis, “Rosewood”). From what I can tell from the episode I watched it’s got the pacing and the non-stop punchlines of your standard sitcom. The best lines come from the animosity between Bennie and his sister-in-law Lucretia, played by Sykes.

Netflix also has the movie “The Woman in the Window,” about an agoraphobic in New York City who may or may not have witnessed a crime. It’s from director Joe Wright (“Darkest Hour”) and has a crazy stacked cast, led by Amy Adams alongside Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie and Wyatt Russell. Also debuting on May 14 are “Halston,” the latest from Ryan Murphy, with Ewan McGregor starring as the famous fashion designer, and Season 2 of animated series “Love, Death & Robots.”

Odds and Ends

I didn’t get a chance to check out “Blinded — Those Who Kill” on Acorn (May 10), but it’s headlined by Natalie Madueno as criminal profiler Louise Bergstein, who also starred in the absorbing Danish crime drama “Darkness — Those Who Kill.” Acorn also has “Amber” (May 10), a Dublin-set drama about a teenage girl who goes missing.

If you haven’t had enough of Britney Spears docs yet, BBC Select has “The Battle for Britney: Fans, Cash and a Conservatorship” (May 11), in which journalist Mobeen Azhar looks into the pop star’s legal issues by talking to everyone but Britney. I understand Britney herself is not a fan of the show.

NOTE: The dates and times listed here reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible against broadcast and streaming schedules, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of series reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.

Watchable the week of January 25, 2021

We Are: The Brooklyn Saints (Jan. 29, Netflix)

Quarterback Dalontai, a.k.a. “D-Lo,” with his dad, Coach Vick, and his MVP trophy
in “We Are: The Brooklyn Saints.” PHOTO CREDIT: Netflix

Sometimes the pursuit of the American Dream comes in modest increments, a few yards at a time on a makeshift football field.

In this docuseries, directed by Rudy Valdez (an Emmy winner in 2019 for “The Sentence”), football is not the be-all and end-all but a means to an end; for the mainly Black families whose sons play on the Brooklyn Saints youth teams, football scholarships are their only hope of sending their kids to college.

This is primarily a story of fathers and sons, although the mothers are around, cheering from the sidelines or helping ferry the boys to practice. These dads are frank about the less than ideal circumstances of their own upbringings — absent fathers, poverty, other unspecified troubles — and the fact they want their sons to avoid their own mistakes, to stay in school and away from the streets.

None are more enthusiastic than surrogate dad Gawuala, who doesn’t have a kid of his own on the team but is singularly devoted to the 9 and unders he coaches. One of the most affecting scenes involves Gawuala explaining how a tragedy in his past has invested his coaching with extra meaning, and it’s heartbreaking when he realizes that taking a badly needed job means he can no longer work with “his” kids.

Despite a relative lack of economic privilege — these families are not from the parts of Brooklyn that are gentrified hipster hangouts — the children seem to be rich in love. 

They include 9-year-old quarterback D-Lo, whose quiet intensity belies his age; 8-year-old Aiden, who idolizes his older brother, who’s about to leave for college; and 13-year-old Kenan, who loves football but wants to be an engineer.

The players are taught that football comes third after school and family responsibilities, and that the main purpose of playing is to have fun. There are tears and frustrations after losses, but the boys are told to hold their heads up and learn from the experience.

It’s a heartfelt series and it leaves you rooting for these kids to get everything they want out of life.

“People are gonna look at you and they’re waiting for you to mess up,” Coach Vick tells his son, D-Lo. “As long as you do right there ain’t nothing you can’t have.”

The Long Song (Jan. 31, 10 p.m., PBS)

Tamara Lawrance as July and Hayley Atwell as Caroline in “The Long Song.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Carlos Rodriguez/Heyday Television

“The Long Song” opens much as you might expect a “Masterpiece” period drama to open: on a scene of gentility and grace; a grand house, its vast porch shaded by palm trees, the camera lingering on the dressing table of its mistress as harp music plays. A Jamaican-accented narrator speaks of how the life of that “white missus” is “surely full of tribulation” then, as the white woman comes into view screeching for her maid, says tartly, “If that is the story you wish to hear, be on your way.”

Indeed, the white characters in this three-part series are only important insofar as their behaviour affects our real heroine, July (Tamara Lawrance), and her fellow slaves in 1830s Jamaica. And those white characters often behave monstrously, as you would expect in a series that focuses on the Black workers whose stolen labour enriches the English owners of the island’s sugar plantations.

July is born of the rape of her mother, field worker Kitty (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), by a Scottish overseer and comes into the possession of Caroline Mortimer (Hayley Atwell) after Caroline, charmed by July’s childish prettiness after spotting her on the road, takes her from her mother as casually as if she was scooping up a cute kitten. 

But the story, based on the novel by Andrea Levy, who was of mixed-race Jamaican and British heritage, doesn’t treat July as merely a passive victim. Smart, resourceful and spirited, she finds subtle ways to get around her mistress and even claims Caroline’s new husband Robert (Jack Lowden) as her own, finding real happiness with him — although it doesn’t last. 

“The Long Song” spares the viewer graphic depictions of physical violence, but July experiences plenty of emotional trauma. The worst of it is inflicted by Caroline, despite her long, symbiotic relationship with July, and Robert, a hypocrite whose vocal support of the abolition of slavery doesn’t extend to marrying the Black woman he claims to love.

Nonetheless, July endures and gets to tell her story in her own words. She is a compelling heroine, bringing a welcome, fresh perspective to the standard lily white fare of “Masterpiece.”

The Lady and the Dale (Jan. 31, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

Elizabeth Carmichael with her children in a still from “The Lady and the Dale.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

For awhile in the mid-1970s, Elizabeth Carmichael was one of the most famous women in America. She was the upstart car company owner who planned to beat GM and the other big automakers at their own game with a three-wheeled car known as the Dale.

If you’ve never heard of Liz or the car, you’re not alone. Neither had I, even though she was on the front pages of magazines and newspapers all over the U.S., and the Dale appeared on “The Price Is Right” in 1974.

But it’s also possible you’ve heard of Liz in another context, as the subject of a 1989 episode of “Unsolved Mysteries,” in which she was described as a fugitive by the name of Jerry Dean Michael, an Indiana man who allegedly ran guns for Fidel Castro, was indicted for counterfeiting in the 1960s and might have had mob ties.

Alas, the dream of the Dale, which was envisioned as a high-mileage solution to the 1970s oil crisis, fell apart. Liz and other officers of the 20th Century Motor Car Corporation were convicted of conspiracy and theft charges when they were unable to reimburse angry customers who’d paid up front for cars that never got built.

But the doc — directed by Nick Cammilleri and trans woman Zackary Drucker, and produced by the Duplass brothers — makes a convincing argument that the case against Liz was motivated, at least in part, by transphobia. The media of the day, in their prejudice and ignorance, claimed Liz was merely posing as a man to mitigate the criminal consequences. In fact, Dick Carlson (father of Fox News talking head Tucker), the reporter who outed Liz’s previous identity, continues to this day to misgender her. And when she was caught in 1989 and finally served her sentence for her conviction in the Dale case, she was put in a men’s prison.

Liz had been living as a woman for years, had begun gender reassignment surgery and was accepted as a loving mother by her five children with wife Vivian. And she continued to live as a woman until her death in 2004.

As transgender historian and author Susan Stryker says in the series, it’s hard to think about Liz as a role model. She was a convicted criminal who spent much of her life on the run from the law. But “there’s something really compelling about Liz’s story as a survivor,” Stryker adds, a statement with which I wholeheartedly agree.

I’ll leave the last word to Liz’s daughter Candi: “The woman was a woman. The car was a car.”

Odds and Ends

Logger Craig LeBeau in”Mud Mountain Haulers.” PHOTO CREDIT: Great Pacific Television

Discovery Canada specializes in a subgenre of television that’s all about men and machines battling the elements. Think shows like “Heavy Rescue: 401” and “Highway Thru Hell.” The latest is “Mud Mountain Haulers” (Jan. 25, 10 p.m.), which chronicles the toils of brothers Craig and Brent LeBeau and their employees as they log the Shuswap region of British Columbia. If you like shows about messy and sometimes dangerous jobs and the people who do them, have at ‘er.

CBC and CBC Gem have Season 4 of “Burden of Truth” (Jan. 28, 8 p.m.), with lawyers Joanna (Kristin Kreuk) and Billy (Peter Mooney) fighting for a woman whose home is threatened by a resource company that wants to reopen a dormant mine.

CTV and Crave have “In This Together: A Bell Let’s Talk Day Special” (Jan. 28, 7 p.m.). The annual special highlighting mental health awareness has a particular focus on how people are coping during the pandemic. Hosted by Melissa Grelo and Tyrone Edwards, the show features appearances by actors and singers like Alanis Morissette, Aisha Alfa, Alan Doyle, Malin Akerman, Mayim Bialik and more. CTV Sci-Fi Channel has the Syfy series “Resident Alien” (Jan. 27, 10 p.m.), starring Alan Tudyk (“Firefly”) as an extraterrestrial who crash-lands on Earth with a mission to kill all humans.

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