Tag: Ted Lasso

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Ted Lasso (March 15, Apple TV+)

“Ted Lasso” has certainly earned its reputation as one of the sunniest shows on television, but Season 3 reminds us that where there is sun, there’s also cloud.

It opens with Ted (Jason Sudeikis) dejectedly dropping son Henry off at Heathrow for his flight back to the U.S. and then, during phone therapy with Dr. Sharon (Sarah Niles), wondering “what the heck I’m still doing here.”

If this does turn out to be the final season of “Ted Lasso,” which has yet to be confirmed, that opening could be the first hint of a series-ending return to the States for Ted.

In the meantime, there’s work to do for AFC Richmond now that the football (soccer) team has climbed back into the Premiere League.

Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) is particularly obsessed with winning and proving wrong all the prognosticators who expect Richmond to bottom out, not to mention getting one over on slimy ex-husband Rupert (Anthony Head) and his top-rated West Ham United.

That team, of course, is coached by “Wonder Kid” Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed), who took a heel turn in Season 2, angrily leaving the Richmond coaching staff and betraying Ted by outing his panic attack to the media. As played by the very capable Mohammed, Nick is not fully at ease with the way he treated Ted but, encouraged by the despicable Rupert, leans into his meanness.

Given Apple’s strictness about not revealing spoilers, I’m guessing I’m not allowed to tell you about the new blood on the Richmond team or what happens when the team starts playing its Premiere rivals.

Nor can I reveal what I know about the most pressing personal issues from last season, including what happens between player-turned-coach Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and girlfriend Keeley (Juno Temple); or between Rebecca and her younger lover, player Sam Obisanya (Toheeb Jimoh).

When he’s not playing this season, Sam is focused on getting his Nigerian restaurant off the ground while Keeley is trying to get the hang of being her own boss now that her PR firm is up and running.

There’s also a focus in the first four episodes on player Colin Hughes (Billy Harris) while journalist Trent Crimm (James Lance), formerly of the Independent, makes a reappearance.

And, of course, old favourites like Higgins (Jeremy Swift), Jamie (Phil Dunster), Dani (Cristo Fernandez) and Sassy (Ellie Taylor) are still in the mix, while new characters are introduced.

Based on the episodes that were made available for review, this third season is making full use of its ensemble and, with relationships well established, there’s added emotional resonance between the characters.

One suspects that Ted’s unresolved feelings about Nate’s betrayal, and vice versa, will make up a key part of the season, but there’s plenty of plot to go around for the other characters as the trend toward longer episodes continue.

Whether that’s a strength or a weakness as the season continues remains to be seen. But given the skill with which the cast portrays these people and the affection with which viewers like me regard them, I’d guess the former.

Apple also has “Extrapolations” (March 17), a near-future drama about the effects of climate change on everyday lives with an all-star cast that includes Meryl Streep, Sienna Miller, Kit Harington, Edward Norton, Matthew Rhys, Marion Cotillard, Murray Bartlett and many more.

Call the Midwife, Sanditon, Marie Antoinette (March 19, 8, 9 and 10 p.m., PBS)

I have grouped these series together because Sunday is a sort of period drama-palooza for those of us who admire this form of television.

First up is “Call the Midwife,” a show I have long enjoyed for the way it handles serious social and medical issues with the sort of gentle touch its midwives lovingly apply to their patients, with dollops of interpersonal drama and humour.

It’s as reliable and enduring as Nonnatus House, home base of the religious and lay nurse-midwives who minister to the economically disadvantaged London district of Poplar. It’s 12 seasons in now and appears to still be going strong.

Case-of-the-week birth stories are the backbone of the series, but this season appears likely to have a particular focus on Jamaican midwife Lucille (Leonie Elliott). Her depression over last season’s miscarriage hasn’t completely lifted as the season begins and is deepened by homesickness and racism as the poisonous anti-immigrant proselytizing of Enoch Powell infiltrates the district and even the delivery room.

There’s also a new nun shaking up the order of things at Nonnatus House, Sister Veronica (Rebecca Gethings), while Trixie (Helen George) plans her wedding to Matthew (Olly Rix).

“Sandition,” meanwhile, debuts its third and final season. I know this series based on the last, unfinished novel of Jane Austen isn’t universally adored, particularly by viewers disgruntled over the departure of actor Theo James and, thus, love interest Sidney Parker. Sure, Austen probably intended Charlotte (Rose Williams) and Sidney to end up together, but she didn’t have to contend with an actor who no longer wanted to be on a show.

Personally, I have found the series consistently enjoyable and this season promises more of the same.

It opens with Charlotte returning to Sanditon for the grand birthday party of friend Georgiana Lambe (Crystal Clarke), who’s about to come into full possession of her vast fortune. Charlotte is accompanied by farmer fiancé Ralph Starling (Cai Brigden), a man for whom she’s clearly settling after the death of Sidney and her brushoff by Colbourne (Ben Lloyd-Hughes).

Colbourne, meanwhile, returns to his estate along with daughter Leo (Flora Mitchell) and niece Augusta (Eloise Webb), only to have his dreams of reuniting with Charlotte dashed at Georgiana’s ball — although I’d stay tuned on that point.

Villain Sir Edward Denham (Jack Fox) is still enduring a punishing course of rehabilitation ordered by his aunt, Lady Denham (Anne Reid), but ever the rake, has spotted another heiress to exploit.

And speaking of villains and heiresses, Georgiana’s duplicitous Season 2 wooer Lockhart (Alexander Vlahos) is back in the picture while Georgiana concocts a “Bridgerton”-like scheme with the help of newcomer Lord Montrose (Edward Davis) to fend off fortune hunters.

It remains to be seen whether Charlotte and Georgiana get their happy endings, which in an Austen novel usually means marrying for love.

Talk of marriage brings us to the final series in the trifecta, “Marie Antoinette.”

It’s a French-British co-production that deals, at least initially, with the early days of the famous French queen (played by Emilia Schüle), who was just a teenager when she was sent from her native Vienna to France to marry the future Louis XVI (Louis Cunningham), himself still an adolescent.

This series leans into the tribulations of the new dauphine, separated from everything she loves in Austria (including her beloved pug), thrust into the petty viciousness of the French court, married to a boy who, as the show tells it, won’t even speak to her let alone have sex with her. (In real life, it took seven years for the young couple to consummate their marriage; not sure how long it takes in the series, not having got that far yet.) That latter point put Marie Antoinette in political danger since the whole point of the marriage was for her to produce a French heir.

The series does, as other critics have pointed out, move slowly and might not suit viewers uninterested in the nitty gritty of French court life. Personally, in the couple of episodes I watched, I appreciated Schüle’s portrayal of a naive teenager at the mercy of people more interested in their own pursuits of power than in a young girl adrift.

Short Takes

Bono & the Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, With Dave Letterman (March 17, Disney+)

You could argue that U2 is not the musical juggernaut it used to be; that Bono has long been identified more with activism than music; that a show of this nature is inherently self-serving — U2 does have a Las Vegas residency coming up, after all. None of that takes away from the charm of this hybrid interview documentary/travelogue/concert special. Former talk show host Dave Letterman makes the trip to Dublin, his first (what took him so long?), to hang with Bono and the Edge of U2 (Larry Mullen Jr. was off recuperating from surgery, Adam Clayton was making an art film, apparently). Yes, there’s a little bit of mythologizing going on, from Bono and the Edge themselves as well as commentators like photographer Anton Corbijn, journalist Fintan O’Toole, musician Glen Hansard (“Once”), record exec Jimmy Iovine and drag queen Panti Bliss. But the special reminds us that these Dublin lads have been friends and band mates for an astonishing 47 years, since meeting at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, and that their music is inextricably linked to their roots in the Irish capital: from its overwhelming Catholicism to the violent spillover of Northern Ireland’s “Troubles” to its transformation into a more peaceful, tolerant, secular place. And speaking of that place, Letterman gets to do some travelling around the city — a locale I personally find delightful and spend time in every year, having extended family there. He even takes a chilly dip at the famous Forty Foot swimming spot, inspiring a new song. The highlight is the music and if you have been or still are a fan of U2 it will bring back potent memories. Bono and the Edge play stripped down versions of hits like “Vertigo,” “Bad,” “Beautiful Day” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in an intimate concert at the Ambassador Theatre. There’s also past concert footage — including legendary gigs like Red Rocks and the post-Sept. 11 Super Bowl halftime show — and a jam session with local musicians at McDaids pub. It’s all good craic, so it is.

Disney+ also has the film “Boston Strangler” (March 17), starring Keira Knightley as the reporter who connected the 1960s murders and broke the story about the serial killer.

Lucky Hank (March 19, AMC/AMC+)

First things first, Hank Devereaux is not Saul Goodman, not that he was ever going to be. Bob Odenkirk’s new series is about a college English professor in a working-class Pennsylvania town rather than an Albuquerque con artist turned lawyer whose clients are drug kingpins. It concerns itself with topics like the pettiness and thin skins of academia, on the part of both faculty and students, and the disquietude of a middle-aged man with daddy issues and a sense of unfulfilled potential. Nonetheless, Odenkirk shows that his masterful blending of comedy and drama in “Better Call Saul” was no fluke. As Hank, he brings a lived in authenticity to this flawed man who can’t seem to get out of his own way. In the first of two episodes, the only ones made available for review, Hank is goaded by a student into a rant about the mediocrity of the student’s work and the college that employs him, which leads to a short-lived revolt in his department. In the second, he can barely contain his envy of a former friend whose writing career has gone stratospheric while Hank’s own stalled after one novel. Also excellent is Mireille Enos as Hank’s extremely sensible and patient wife, Lily. She and Odenkirk give a credible portrayal of a comfortable middle-aged marriage. “Office” alum Paul Lieberstein and Aaron Zelman (“Criminal Minds”) developed the series. Look for Canadian Nancy Robertson of “Corner Gas” in a guest role as Hank’s fellow professor Billie.

Odds and Ends

To my mind, one of the most anticipated shows this week is “Swarm” (March 17, Prime Video), the horror series from Donald Glover and Janine Nabers starring Dominique Fishback as a darkly obsessed fan of a Beyonce-like singer. Since reviews were embargoed, though, I didn’t screen it. Prime also has “Class of ’07” (March 16) which, like “‘Swarm,” sounds intriguing but is also embargoed. It’s about a group of women trapped at their 10-year high school reunion by a tidal wave and is described as “‘Lord of the Flies’ in cocktail dresses.” Also on Prime “Last Light” (March 17), which marks the return to series TV of “Lost” star Matthew Fox, playing a father separated from his family by a crisis with the world’s oil supply.

CTV takes a page out of the “Virgin River” book with “Sullivan’s Crossing” (March 19, 7 p.m., CTV/CTV.ca), about a woman pulling up stakes for a bucolic location in which she meets an annoying but alluring stranger. B.C.’s Morgan Kohan stars as neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan, who leaves Boston after a professional crisis to take refuge in Sullivan’s Crossing, the Nova Scotia campground run by her estranged father, Sully (Scott Patterson), where she meets Cal (Chad Michael Murray of “One Tree Hill”). The show is based on the book series by “Virgin River” author Robyn Carr and shares an executive producer with “Virgin River” in Roma Roth.

Now the Netflix slate: the doc “Money Shot: The Pornhub Story” (March 15); cutthroat competition series “The Law of the Jungle” (March 15); Season 2 of fantasy series “Shadow and Bone” (March 16); and choreography competition series “Dance 100” (March 17) are among the releases.

Paramount+ has the “The Journey With Andrea Bocelli” (March 14), a docuseries about the popular singer; docuseries “Monster in the Shadows” (March 17), about the 2012 disappearance of Alabama teen Brittney Wood; the Elegance Bratton film “The Inspector” (March 17); and the comedy special “Jinkx Monsoon: Red Head Redemption” (March 17).

Finally, W Network and STACKTV have “The Best Man: The Final Chapters” (March 16, 9 p.m.), which reunites the cast of the 1999 film.

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.