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Tag: what to watch (Page 6 of 10)

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

April 4, 2022 /

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.

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 March 28-April 3, 2022

March 28, 2022 /

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.

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 March 21-27, 2022

March 21, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK NO. 1: Pachinko (March 25, Apple TV Plus)

Minha Kim and Lee Min-Ho in “Pachinko.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

In a TV universe full of distractions, “Pachinko” is a show that demands your full attention.

Based on the 2017 novel by Korean-American author Min Jin Lee, it’s an epic on a sweeping scale but also a deeply human story that finds its power in small, intimate moments.

It shifts between 1915 when a girl named Sunja is born in the fishing village of Yeongdo in South Korea and 1989 when that girl’s grandson, an investment banker named Solomon (Jin Ha), returns from America to Osaka, Japan, where his family has settled.

The family’s personal dramas in the intervening years are played out against the colonization of Korea by the Japanese, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. It’s not a period of history that I expect non-Korean North Americans would know much about, but in the series the cruelty of that subjugation is a continuous thread. The Koreans are treated as second-class citizens in their own country and as less than human when they migrate to Japan for jobs.

For Sunja’s family, everything turns on an illicit romance between the teenage Sunja (Minha Kim) and the older Koh Hansu (Lee Min-Ho), a Korean man who has become rich by collaborating with the Japanese. When Sunja becomes pregnant and Hansu is unable to marry her, Sunja and her widowed mother Yangjin (Inji Jeong) face ruin.

The title “Pachinko,” a pinball-like arcade game that originated in Japan, is obviously a metaphor. Players sometimes win despite the fact the machines are rigged to make that more difficult.

In the case of Sunja, poor and uneducated though intelligent and intuitive, that lucky break comes in the form of Korean minister Isak (Steve Sang-Hyun Noh), a stranger in Yeongdo who nearly dies of tuberculosis but is nursed back to health by Yangjin. He offers to marry Sunja and give her baby a name. But the cost of being saved is Sunja leaving behind everything she knows and beginning a hand-to-mouth existence in Osaka with Isak’s unhappy brother Yoseb (Junwoo Han) and his wife Kyunghee (Jung Eun-chae).

I don’t want to give the impression it’s all doom and gloom, though. Love between the characters — familial love, friendship, romantic love, love of self and one’s culture — is woven throughout and uplifts the story.

Three wonderful actors play Sunja at various ages, including Yu-na Jeon as a child and Youn Yuh-jung, who won an Oscar for “Minari,” as an old woman, but Minha Kim is particularly affecting in her portrayal.

Two other things to note. I initially found the show’s jumps back and forth in time off-putting, particularly since it takes a while to tease out the importance of various characters, but I’m glad I stuck with it.

And do make sure you watch the opening credits, in which the lead actors joyously dance to the title song, the Grass Roots’ “Let’s Live for Today.”

SHOW OF THE WEEK NO. 2: Bridgerton (March 25, Netflix)

From left, Charithra Chandran, Simone Ashley and Jonathan Bailey in Season 2 of “Bridgerton.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Liam Daniel/Netflix

I did not so much binge the eight new episodes of “Bridgerton” as devour them.

After all, we fans of the Chris Van Dusen-created, Shonda Rhimes-produced period romantic drama have been waiting 13 months for the new season, clearly not as long as, say, a “droughtlander” but long enough if you fell in love with the show in December 2020.

All the things that contributed to making the first season so delightful are back — colourful costumes, sumptuous sets, anachronistic music, humour, snappy dialogue, feminist underpinnings — but the most important ingredient is the romance.

Does it live up to the Season 1 wooing between Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) and the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page, who true to his word does not appear in the new season)? Yes, absolutely.

This season is all about Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), the eldest of the seven Bridgerton siblings, who was left with a heavy burden after his father Edmund died when Anthony was still a teenager.

Alas, that crushing sense of duty has stunted Anthony emotionally. When he decides it’s time to do right as heir and find a wife, he’s not looking for a soul mate so much as checking boxes on a list.

Miss Edwina Sharma (Charithra Chandran), charming, accomplished and pretty, fits the bill, having travelled from Bombay to London to find a husband with her widowed mother, Lady Mary (Shelley Conn), and stepsister Kate (Simone Ashley). She has also been anointed the season’s “diamond” by Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel).

But Kate wants a love match for Edwina and is determined to thwart Anthony. And there’s an even bigger obstacle: it’s clear from their first antagonistic meeting, when Anthony encounters Kate taking a very unladylike, early morning horse ride, that they’re meant to be together.

A big part of what makes this season so delicious is how long we have to wait for true love to bloom. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say that Anthony’s pursuit of Edwina gets very far along, almost to the point of no return. Meanwhile, the passion between him and Kate crackles off the screen with every longing glance and fleeting touch.

Anthony even gets his own Mr. Darcy emerging dripping wet from a pond moment (see “Pride and Prejudice,” 1995) when his unacknowledged ardour for Kate — and her corgi Newton — literally knocks him off his feet. (I have to assume that was Van Dusen’s homage to “P&P” since he told me that 1995 scene inspired his creation of “Bridgerton.”)

Whereas Daphne and Simon were enjoying newlywed sex by Episode 5 of the first season, here we have to wait till Episode 6 just to get a kiss and I’m not mad about that. The anticipation adds to the enjoyment.

Meanwhile, the series is generous with its other characters. We get lots more of the Queen, of Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), of Violet (Ruth Gemmell), Benedict (Luke Thompson) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton), of Penelope Featherington, a.k.a. Lady Whistledown (Nicola Coughlan), and her best friend Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie). The marriage-averse Eloise even gets a love interest.

My favourite secondary character development, however, involves Lady Portia Featherington (Polly Walker), something of an avaricious laughing stock in Season 1. This season she gets to demonstrate her intelligence, her survival instincts and her devotion to her daughters.

And that brings me to one more point: love of family is an even bigger theme this season and one that gives the episodes a warmth that undercuts the catty frivolousness of the ton. Kate’s and Anthony’s determination to stifle their longings in the name of duty is motivated by their devotion to their families, no matter how wrongheaded and shortsighted it may be.

Watching “Bridgerton” might feel like a guilty pleasure, but there’s some substance behind the froth.

Short Takes

Sammy Azero and Mo Zeighami in “Tehranto.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Canadian Film Fest

Canadian Film Fest (March 22 to April 2, 9 p.m., Super Channel Fuse)

Ten Canadian-made feature films and 28 shorts make up the third annual edition of this virtual festival. The opener is “Tehranto” by Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Faran Moradi. It’s a love story between Badi (Sammy Azero), who came with his family to Toronto after the Iranian Revolution, and Canadian-born Sharon (Mo Zeighami), whose Iranian parents came to Toronto via Europe. Differences of class — Sharon’s parents are well off while Badi’s father delivers pizza — and culture, between Iranians born there and here, complicate the relationship. See superchannel.ca for the full festival slate. Each movie is preceded by an introduction and a short film.

John Cameron Mitchell as Joe Exotic in “Joe vs. Carole.” PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Taylor/Peacock

Joe vs. Carole (March 23, 9 p.m., Showcase/StackTV)

The first question that comes to mind about this Peacock limited series is “Why?” The answer is likely that in March 2020, when the show went into development, it seemed like a good idea since the Netflix docuseries “Tiger King” about Joe Maldonado-Passage, a.k.a. Joe Exotic, and his nemesis Carole Baskin seemed like all anyone could talk about. But two years later, an eight-part dramedy about the feud between the Oklahoma private zoo keeper and the Florida animal rights activist seems like overkill. It’s not that it’s badly done. John Cameron Mitchell and Kate McKinnon certainly give the roles of the two combatants their all. Mitchell is particularly captivating as Joe Exotic, disappearing into the part. Unfortunately, you never really lose sight of the fact you’re watching Kate McKinnon play Carole. And the supporting characters, including John Finlay (Sam Keeley), John Reinke (Brian Van Holt) and Travis Maldonado (Nat Wolff), pale in comparison to their real-life counterparts. But if you can’t get enough of the “Tiger King” story have at ‘er.

Alex Mallari Jr. and Rong Fu in “Hello (Again).” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of CBC Gem

Hello (Again) and Homeschooled (March 25, CBC Gem)

The beauty of web series is that, for creators, they offer a more accessible way of getting content in front of eyeballs and, for viewers, they don’t involve a massive time commitment. Of course, “Hello (Again)” comes with a built-in guarantee of interest given that it was co-created by a man who is currently one of the most famous Canadians in the world: Simu Liu, a.k.a. Marvel superhero Shang-Chi. “Hello (Again)” comes from an idea he hatched when he was still on “Kim’s Convenience,” developed with Nathalie Younglai, a writer on “Coroner.” Over nine 10-minute episodes, line cook Jayden (Alex Mallari Jr.) begins and ends a romance with medical resident Avery (Rong Fu) but gets to try to set things right — repeatedly — after an encounter with a child no one else can hear or see. The series offers good-natured humour, quintessential Toronto scenes and a charismatic leading man. “Homeschooled,” created by Karen Knox and Gwenlyn Cumyn, offers delightfully quirky characters, led by home-schooled best friends Greta (Veronika Slowikowska) and Farzanah (Eman Ayaz) as they extol their own “rare creativity and scholastic genius” while reviling the “trads,” i.e. kids who go to regular school.

Odds and Ends

One of the most anticipated debuts of the week is the very long awaited third and final season of Donald Glover’s “Atlanta” (March 24, 10 p.m., FX), which sees Earn (Glover), Van (Zazie Beetz) and Darius (LaKeith Stanfield) accompanying Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) on his tour of Europe. But first, the season opens with an episode about a Black boy (Christopher Farrar) and two white foster mothers that very effectively demonstrates the downsides of white saviourism.

I wasn’t able to get an advance look at it, but “Canada’s Got Talent” is coming to Citytv (March 22, 8 p.m.) and appears to be a chip off the “America’s Got Talent” block, which Canadian viewers gobble up, unlike the version that aired in 2012. “AGT” vet Howie Mandel is one of the judges for the homegrown spinoff along with Lilly Singh, Kardinal Offishall and Trish Stratus. Country singer Lindsay Ell is host.

Crave has French-language crime drama “Une Affaire Criminelle” (“A Criminal Affair”) (March 23) as well as the movie “Moonshot” (March 24), about a couple of college students who head to Mars.

Disney Plus has sci-fi series “Parallels” (March 23),  about four teenage friends who are sent into separate timelines by a mysterious event.

Watchable March 14-20, 2022

March 14, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Sanditon (March 20, 9 p.m., PBS)

Rosie Graham as Alison Heywood, Rose Williams as Charlotte Heywood and Crystal Clarke as Georgiana Lambe in “Sanditon” Season 2. PHOTO CREDIT: Joss Barratt/Red Planet

It’s a good time to be a fan of period drama. “The Gilded Age” is still releasing weekly episodes. “Outlander” just came back. “Bridgerton” debuts its second season next week and, this week, we have the second season of “Sanditon.”

(If you’d like to read more on the current period drama renaissance, here’s the feature I wrote about it for the Toronto Star.)

I confess I was slow to appreciate “Sanditon.” As a devoted Jane Austen fan, I was put off by the idea of a show taking liberties with her last, unfinished novel. Turns out I was as wrongheaded as Mr. Darcy underestimating the charms of Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

Set in a beautiful seaside location, “Sanditon” had it all: drama, comedy, tragedy, rich people, villainous people, kind-hearted people, ridiculous people and, of course, romance. Make that thwarted romance since the season ended with smouldering hero Sidney Parker (Theo James) having to give up heroine Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams) to marry a rich former flame and save brother Tom Parker (Kris Marshall) from ruin.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know that James chose not to return to “Sanditon.” That means Sidney isn’t returning either. I don’t want to spoil things by telling you exactly how the show addresses his exit in Season 2. Let’s just say there is absolutely no chance of Sidney ever coming back, that this is made clear in the opening minutes of the new season and that the manner of his exit will be a plot thread thoughout.

The good news is that Charlotte herself is back in Sanditon, along with the other characters you remember and a few new ones to keep the drama humming along.

Tom Parker’s resort has been rebuilt after the Season 1 fire and spendthrift Tom appears to have turned over a new leaf when it comes to financial responsibility.

Heiress Georgiana Lambe (Crystal Clarke) is still rejecting all efforts to get her married off, organizing a sugar boycott to protest slavery, and secretly mourning the paramour whose gambling debts got her kidnapped and sold to a brute in Season 1.

Esther (Charlotte Spencer), now Lady Babington, has returned to spend the summer with her aunt Lady Denham (Anne Reid) and, though happily married to the absent Lord Babington (Mark Stanley was unable to rejoin the cast this season), is deeply unhappy about her inability to have a child.

Another absent actor is Alexandra Roach, who played the hypochondriac Diana Parker. This is good news because it means her brother Arthur (Turlough Convery) gets to play a much bigger and less ridiculous role.

If you’re worried about the romance this season, don’t be. Charlotte, though still mourning Sidney and leaning toward spinsterhood, has two new suitors: Colonel Lennox (Tom Weston-Jones), leader of the regiment of redcoats who have taken up residence in town; and Alexander Colbourne (Ben Lloyd-Hughes), the stand-offish rich man for whom she works, having taken a job as governess to his troubled daughter and niece.

There’s also a potential romantic interest for Georgiana: artist Charles Lockhart (Alexander Vlahos), a bohemian sort with no interest in society’s boundaries. And Charlotte has brought her sister Alison (Rosie Graham) to Sanditon, who’s smitten with redcoat Captain Carter (Maxim Ays), although we can all see that Captain Fraser (Frank Blake) is the better man for her.

It’s a lot and I haven’t even touched on the return of villains Edward Denham (Jack Fox) and Clara Brereton (Lily Sacofsky), or the enmity between Colonel Lennox and Alexander Colbourne, one of whom may turn out to be a villain.

While it’s been said that period dramas provide an escape to a simpler time, I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Certainly there’s nothing simple about the gender restrictions that Charlotte, Alison and Georgiana have to navigate, something of which Austen would have been all too aware, nor the emotional pain of Esther’s infertility, something any modern want-to-be mother could relate to. The series even touches on gender identity through the character of Leonora Colbourne (Flora Mitchell), a young girl who’s more comfortable dressing as a boy and playing pirate.

But, obviously, the characters’ imperfect humanity is what makes “Sanditon” such a treat to watch.

Short Takes

Evan Rachel Wood with a fellow survivor in “Phoenix Rising.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO

Phoenix Rising (March 15, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)

If you pay attention to the news, you’re no doubt already familiar with actor Evan Rachel Wood’s accusations of torture, rape and abuse against musician Marilyn Manson. But this two-part documentary makes those allegations feel visceral in a way that merely reading about them cannot. It follows Wood in 2019 as she and other activists campaign for the Phoenix Act, which changed the statute of limitations on domestic violence crimes in California from three to five years (the activists had asked for 10), and culminates on Feb. 1, 2020, the day Wood named Manson as her abuser. Bolstered by video, photos, Wood’s journal entries and the testimony of other survivors, the doc traces the trajectory of the actor’s terrorization from grooming and love-bombing (Wood was just 18 when she met the 37-year-old Manson) to isolation from family and friends, physical and sexual assault, death threats, starvation, sleep deprivation and complete psychological subjugation. But her abuser is not the only one implicated. The doc, directed by Amy Berg (“Deliver Us From Evil,” “The Case Against Adnan Syed”), touches on Wood’s dysfunctional upbringing, during which she was taught that romantic love was sometimes expressed through violence; her sexualization by the media after the teenage-girls-behaving-badly movie “Thirteen”; and a culture in which the abusive acts of famous men are enabled and excused. Wood would have been within her rights to keep her pain and fear to herself; she seems to genuinely want to help other victims by speaking out. It must be noted that Manson denies all allegations of abuse, has not been charged with any crimes and has sued Wood for defamation of character.

Evil by Design: Surviving Nygard (March 17, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem)

The idea of a rich, powerful man having young women and girls procured for his sexual gratification no doubt sounds very familiar to anyone who followed the Jeffrey Epstein case, but this three-part docuseries is about a case that’s much closer to home, that of former Finnish-Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard. He is currently in jail in Toronto awaiting trial on six counts of sexual assault and three counts of forcible confinement, although he denies all allegations. He also faces nine counts in New York City. The doc gives voice to victims, former employees, whistleblowers and journalists who covered the case, going as far back as 1996 when the Winnipeg Free Press published a front-page story alleging sexual harassment by Nygard. The question that comes up in the first episode, the only one I was given access to, is why this was allowed to go on for so long, considering there were allegations dating back to the 1970s. Power and money are at least two of the answers. “Evil” may seem like a strong word, but it also seems an apt one when you consider the decades of trauma described by the victims.

CBC Gem also has the docuseries “Real Blackity Talk” (March 18), in which Burundian-Canadian sisters Aiza and Kamana Ntibarikure try to empower other Black women and non-binary people with the help of “Blaxperts” and a lot of positive talk.

Jake Johnson as Doug and Ophelia Lovibond as Joyce in “Minx.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Katrina Marcinowski/ HBO Max

Minx (March 17, 10 p.m., Crave)

Sometimes you just want the TV you watch to be fun, perhaps even a little naughty. “Minx” fits that description. It’s the story of a fictional erotic magazine for women founded in the 1970s in the San Fernando Valley. Think a faux Playgirl, except instead of being created by a man, “Minx” is the pet project of Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond, “Feel Good”), a devoted young feminist who dreams of winning a Pulitzer and being feted by her heroine, Gloria Steinem. But when publishers run the other way from her opus, humourlessly titled “The Matriarchy Awakens,” Joyce throws in her lot with porn publisher Doug (Jake Johnson, “New Girl”), who convinces her she needs to “hide the medicine” of her feminist dogma in some peanut butter — and by peanut butter, he means penises. As Joyce tells the holier than thou councilwoman who’s trying to shut Doug’s entire operation down, “It’s just penises. It’s silly and fun” and the same could be said of “Minx.” Sure, the show touches on serious topics like feminism, misogyny and women taking charge of their own sexuality, but the medicine goes down smoothly and entertainingly. Lovibond and Johnson make earnest Joyce and laidback Doug likeable and multi-dimensional, and the supporting cast is terrific too, including Lennon Parham as Joyce’s open-minded housewife sister Shelly, Jessica Lowe as bimbo with a brain Bambi, Oscar Montoya as photographer Richie, Taylor Zakhar Perez as centrefold Shane and Idara Victor as Doug’s right-hand woman Tina.

Crave also has the graphic novel adaptation “DMZ” (March 17, Crave), executive-produced by Ava DuVernay, which unfortunately I was not able to get to. It stars Rosario Dawson as a medic searching for her son in a future Manhattan, a dangerous demilitarized zone in an America engulfed in civil war.

Also, if you didn’t catch the Oscar-nominated “Dune” by Canadian director Denis Villeneuve in the theatre, it makes its Crave debut on March 18.

Olly Rix as Matthew Aylward and Helen George as Nurse Trixie Franklin in “Call the Midwife.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Nealstreet Productioons

Call the Midwife (March 20, 8 p.m., PBS)

If you haven’t already been following this sentimental drama about midwives in a poor London neighbourhood in the 1950s and ’60s, then this post isn’t for you. If you have, you’ll be relieved to know that Season 11 follows the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” principle, by which I mean it has the usual mix of gentle humour, beloved characters and medical situations that are sure to cause at least one bout of tears before each episode is through. The season opens at Easter 1967. The dramas range from the inconsequential — in the season premiere, ceiling rot at Nonnatus House drives Nurse Corrigan (Megan Cusack) into Trixie’s room (Helen George) — to the deadly serious: the remains of two newborn babies are found in the building that landlord Matthew (Olly Rix) is having renovated. As always, whether it’s making us laugh or cry, the series’ deep humanity shines through.

PBS also has the thriller “Before We Die” (March 20, 10 p.m.), starring Lesley Sharp (“Scott & Bailey”) as a police detective for whom a murder investigation is particularly personal.

Odds and Ends

It’s often said that people on different sides of an issue don’t know how to talk to each other. Conversation between political opponents is the raison d’être of “Political Blind Date,” which launches its fifth and final season on TVO March 15 at 9 p.m. (also on tvo.org and YouTube). This season, it’s not just politicians batting around issues. For instance, Conservative MPP Monte McNaughton and UNIFOR president Jerry Dias discuss the future of unionism in one episode. Other topics include anti-Black racism, the treatment of military veterans, how Canadian history marginalizes Indigenous people, homelessness and the opioid crisis.

If I’d had a chance to preview anything coming to Netflix this week, “Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives” (March 16) would have been it. It tells the strange but true story of former vegan restaurateur Sarma Melngailis and her downfall after she married a man who claimed he could make her dog immortal. Also on Netflix, the animated “Big Mouth” spinoff “Human Resources” (March 18) and the reality series “Is It Cake?” (March 18), in which cake artists try to fool celebrity judges with baked goods that look like everyday objects.

Apple TV Plus has a show featuring not one, but two Oscar winners, “WeCrashed” (March 18). Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway portray former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann and his wife Rebekah. It’s the latest in a string of TV series about dodgy entrepreneurs, including “The Dropout” and “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.” To be honest, I was underwhelmed by what I saw, but since I only watched three of the nine episodes, I didn’t feel I could give it a full and fair review.

Disney Plus has the new series “Life & Beth” (March 18), which stars Amy Schumer (who also created the show, wrote and directed) as a seemingly successful woman who has to come to terms with her past after she gets earth-shattering news.

Global TV has the new reality show “Beyond the Edge” (March 16, 9 p.m., also on StackTV), in which celebrities like former “Bachelor” Colton Underwood, “American Idol” runner-up Lauren Alaina, Real Housewife of New York Eboni K. Williams and former supermodel Paulina Porizkova spend two weeks in the Panamanian jungle to raise money for charity.

CTV and CTV.ca have the concert special “An Audience With Adele,” filmed at London’s Palladium, on March 20 at 9 p.m.

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 March 7-13, 2022

March 7, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Turning Red (March 11, Disney Plus)

Mei (Rosalie Chiang) reveals her red panda alter ego to friends Abby (Hyein Park), Miriam (Ava Morse) and Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) in “Turning Red.” PHOTO CREDIT: Disney/Pixar

If you have been an adolescent girl or known an adolescent girl, “Turning Red” will ring true in its playful but affectionate portrayal of its heroine, 13-year-old Meilin (Rosalie Chiang), as she teeters on the edge of teenagehood.

Heck, if you’re a human being with feelings, it will ring true.

Much has been made of the fact that Chinese-Canadian director and co-writer Domee Shi is the first woman to direct a feature film for Pixar (she was also the first to direct a short for the company, the Oscar-winning “Bao”), but that would be a moot point if “Turning Red” wasn’t any good.

It is very good: funny, charming, tender, emotionally resonant and beautifully animated.

Mei lives in Toronto in the early 2000s with her Chinese immigrant parents Ming (Sandra Oh) and Jin (Orion Lee), who run a family temple dedicated to their ancestor Sun Yee.

Mei is a proud nerd, a straight A student who loves math, aces the flute and just about anything else she puts her mind to, but is also awkward and goofy. She’s devoted to being a good daughter to her parents while also being a good friend to her girl posse, including Miriam (Ava Morse), who’s white; Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who’s Indo-Canadian, and Abby (Hyein Park), who’s Korean-Canadian.

But that can be complicated, particularly when you have an overprotective tiger mom of a mother who doesn’t approve of your friends — or much of anything else that happens outside home or school.

Things go off the rails when Ming finds Mei’s sketches of a boy — Devon, the 17-year-old clerk at the Daisy Mart — and insists on driving to the store, with a humiliated Mei in tow, to confront the oblivious teenager.

The next day, Mei’s torment has turned her into a giant red panda. As a panicked Mei hides in the bathroom, Ming misinterprets her embarrassment as Mei having got her period. That leads to a scene that will have you laughing and cringing at the same time, as Ming stalks Mei at school and then whips out a box of sanitary pads in full view of her classmates and teacher.

Poof! Mei has turned into a red panda again in a cloud of pink smoke, which happens whenever Mei experiences strong emotions.

It turns out there is a family precedent for the transformation and Ming has a solution, a ritual that will banish the panda for good, but Mei learns that other people like the panda and that she herself enjoys that aspect of her identity. That sets up further confrontation with her mother, not to mention her grandmother (Wai Ching Ho) and aunties.

I won’t spoil things by telling you how it ends, but there is an epic confrontation in the final act that involves a concert by Mei’s favourite boy band, 4*Town, at the SkyDome and might put you in mind of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in “Ghostbusters.”

You might also recognize the name SkyDome, the retractable roofed stadium that opened in Toronto in 1989 and is now called the Rogers Centre.

It’s been a point of pride for Torontonians that “Turning Red” is recognizably set in this city, from background glimpses of the CN Tower to the Toronto Transit Commission streetcars that rumble along its cartoon roads (also extremely recognizable). Beyond that, though, the specificity of the setting adds to the film, in much the same way the New York setting did in Pixar’s “Soul.”

The animation in general is bright and appealing and sometimes wonderfully detailed. When Mei’s dad Jin cooks for the family, it feels like you could reach out and taste the food.

The animation style for the characters is what’s described in the production notes as “chunky cute,” but it’s no less expressive. Mei’s emotions are written all over her animated face.

And emotions, of course, are the whole point: the gloriously messy emotions of transitioning from childhood into young adulthood, but also the complicated emotions of the mother-daughter relationship and being a child of immigrants; the sentimental emotions of adolescent female friendship; the emotions of being part of the sisterhood of women in general.

Most importantly, perhaps, “Turning Red” will elicit emotions in you as you watch it.

Disney Plus also has the comedy “How I Met Your Father” (March 9), a sequel to “How I Met Your Mother.”

Short Takes

Renée Zellweger as Pam Hupp in “The Thing About Pam.” PHOTO CREDIT: Skip Bolen/NBC

The Thing About Pam (March 8, 10 p.m., Global TV)

I haven’t watched enough of this NBC series to give it a full review. Let’s just say, after screening one episode, it’s an odd one, like a “Dateline” episode crossed with “Desperate Housewives.” In fact, the six-episode “The Thing About Pam” is based on a “Dateline NBC” podcast of the same name about the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria of Troy, Missouri. And “Dateline” narrator Keith Morrison does the tongue-in-cheek narration here. In real life, Betsy’s husband Russ was convicted of stabbing her to death but later exonerated. Her best friend Pam Hupp has been charged with the crime, but I wouldn’t say that’s a spoiler for the fictional series. Renée Zellweger plays Pam, buried under a fat suit, and she couldn’t be a more obvious villain if she was twirling a moustache. She radiates loathsomeness from behind her blond housewife bob and her Midwestern accent. The show also stars Katy Mixon as Betsy, Glenn Fleshler as Russ, Judy Greer as prosecutor Leah Askey and Josh Duhamel as Joel Schwartz, the defence lawyer who battled police and prosecution ineptitude to get his client off the hook and point the finger at Pam.

Global TV also has the 42nd season of “Survivor” premiering March 9 at 8 p.m.

An undated image of Andy Warhol from “The Andy Warhol Diaries.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Warhol Foundation/Netflix

The Andy Warhol Diaries (March 9, Netflix)

Thirty-five years after he died, our curiosity about celebrated pop artist Andy Warhol still seems boundless, as evidenced by the popularity of exhibits of his work (the AGO’s last year sold out) and documentaries like this one. This Ryan Murphy-produced, Andrew Rossi-directed series touches on the parts of Warhol that are generally known — his rise from commercial illustrator to one of the most famous artists in America, the bohemian milieu of the Factory, his shooting by Valerie Solanas — and the parts that aren’t, including his romantic relationships with Jed Johnson and Jon Gould. Though we tend to think of glamour and celebrity when we think of Warhol, the series paints a more down-to-earth portrait, both through recollections from confidantes and admirers, and words from Warhol’s own diaries, read in an AI-generated approximation of Warhol’s voice. Though that sounds gimmicky, it doesn’t detract from the flow of the series, at least in the episode I watched.

Netflix also has “Life After Death With Tyler Henry” (March 11), in which the celebrity medium purports to bring messages from the other side to people less famous than the Kardashians and RuPaul; and “Byron Baes” (March 9), which gives good-looking young influencers living in Byron Bay, Australia, a somewhat classier version of the “Jersey Shore” treatment.

Dominique Fishback and Samuel L. Jackson in “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (March 11, Apple TV Plus)

Would you accept a treatment that would give you access to every memory you ever had, in hyper detail, but would worsen your dementia when the effects wore off? Nonagenarian Ptolemy Grey (Samuel L. Jackson) does in this miniseries based on the Walter Mosley novel. Grey is a hermit and a hoarder when we meet him, living in a filthy, cockroach-infested apartment without a working toilet and stove, and only the visits of his great nephew Reggie (Omar Benson Miller) to sustain him. When Reggie is killed, orphaned family friend Robyn (Dominique Fishback) steps up, as much because she has no place else to go as out of altruism. But a deep bond grows between the two of them. She’s unhappy about the treatments that Ptolemy accepts from unctuous Dr. Rubin (Walton Goggins), who’s hoping to cure dementia with the help of guinea pigs like Ptolemy, but the old man needs his memory back for three things: to find the treasure that family friend Coydog (Damon Gupton) left him and that Coydog was lynched for; to solve the murder of Reggie; and to do something good for Black people. Other characters come in and out, in flashbacks and present day — Ptolemy’s beloved late wife Sensia (Cynthia Kaye McWilliams), his indifferent niece Niecie (Marsha Stephanie Blake) and her thuggish son Hilly, and love interests for Robyn and Ptolemy — but the relationship between the old man and the teenager, who essentially save each other, is the most affecting. The six episodes can plod at times and I didn’t love the ending, but Jackson’s and Fishback’s sympathetic performances kept me watching.

Apple TV Plus also has a second season of “The Snoopy Show” (March 11), from Canada’s WildBrain and inspired by the Charles Schulz comics, focusing on Charlie Brown’s beagle and his bird friend Woodstock.

Odds and Ends

The women of “Letterkenny” take part in an anti-beauty pageant. PHOTO CREDIT: Bell Media

Well, OK, it’s not like “Letterkenny” is going to change its brand of comedy to pay tribute to International Women’s Day. Nonetheless, this special episode (March 8, Crave) name-checks Canadian women both real and fictional, in between jokes about periods, vaginas, sex and more. The women of “Letterkenny” participate in an anti-beauty pageant while the men get a lesson in female appreciation from Professor Tricia (guest star Nazneen Contractor).

If you’d like to see Kristen Stewart’s Oscar-nominated turn as Princess Diana in the movie “Spencer,” it drops on Prime Video on March 10. Prime also has Season 2 of the afterlife comedy “Upload” (March 11), starring Canadian Robbie Amell.

Acorn has the new series “The Chelsea Detective” (March 7), starring Adrian Scarborough, who’s been in everything from “Gosford Park” to “Killing Eve,” as Detective Inspector Max Arnold and Sonita Henry (“Krypton”) as his partner Priya Shamsie.

There’s definite overlap between the nominees for the Oscars and the British Academy Film Awards — right down to the snubs for Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (“Dune”). If you’d like to know how the Brit awards play out, you can watch them on BritBox on March 13 at 3 p.m., streaming live from the U.K.

Finally, CBC’s offerings include a third season of the tween series “Detention Adventure” (March 11 on CBC Gem) and, on “The Nature of Things” (March 11, 9 p.m., CBC and Gem), a look at how various critters get shut-eye in “How the Wild Things Sleep.”

This post was edited to add a start time for the British Academy Film Awards.

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 Feb. 28-March 6, 2022

February 28, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Dropout (March 3, Disney Plus)

Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes and Naveen Andrews as Sunny Balwani in “The Dropout.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Beth Dubber/Hulu

There has already been much information about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos in the public eye — including newspaper and magazine articles, a book and a podcast — but there’s something about a well-done dramatization that can really bring a story to life.

“The Dropout” is a well-done dramatization.

Amanda Seyfried gives a can’t-take-your-eyes-off-her performance as Holmes, as we watch her transform from a misguided but seemingly well-meaning college dropout with a dream into a monster in a Steve Jobs turtleneck and too bright lipstick.

Monster might seem overly dramatic, but how else do you describe someone whose reaction on hearing that a Day 1 employee and supporter has committed suicide is joy that a lawsuit in which he can no longer testify against the company has been won?

Her chief enabler is Sunny Balwani (Naveen Andrews), her 19-years-older boyfriend and eventual COO of Theranos, portrayed as a bullying, fearsomely loyal protector of Holmes and her company.

“The Dropout” makes it easy to believe that Holmes had good intentions when she created Theranos — a startup that claimed to have invented a technology by which blood tests could be performed with just a single drop of blood — but by the time it all came crashing down the goal of helping people had been irretrievably subsumed by the singleminded imperative to succeed at any cost.

What is truly astonishing is how many high profile people allowed themselves to be bamboozled by Holmes despite the lack of evidence that the technology worked — spoiler alert: it didn’t.

In the series, this wilful blindness is best personified by two actors: Sam Waterston, who co-stars as George Shultz, a former U.S. Secretary of State who became a bullish member of Theranos’ board; and Alan Ruck (“Succession”) as Jay Rosan, the Walgreens VP so desperate to put Theranos’ machines in the drug chain’s stores and beat its rivals that Holmes’ refusal to demonstrate the tech was no deterrent.

Believing in fraudsters is not a uniquely American trait, of course, but one wonders how much the vaunted idea of the American dream played into the elevation of Holmes to celebrity billionaire status.

Seyfried, speaking to a Television Critics Association panel, said she believed Holmes “was incredible at creating the story of Theranos and her invention . . . people must have questioned things, especially engineers and people in health care and science and medicine, but . . . she’d double down.”

Among the doubters were Holmes’s childhood neighbour, doctor and inventor Richard Fuisz (played by William H. Macy), and Stanford professor of medicine Phyllis Gardner (Laurie Metcalf). In the series, they join with the widow of the Theranos chemist who committed suicide, Ian Gibbons (Stephen Fry), to try to stop Holmes and Theranos, lending their voices to those of the company whistleblowers who fuelled the Wall Street Journal article that was the beginning of the end.

The real Holmes was found guilty in January of defrauding investors but not of defrauding patients, but the series doesn’t lose sight of the fact that ordinary people were harmed by Theranos’ deficient technology. (Holmes is waiting to be sentenced; Balwani has yet to be tried.)

In “The Dropout” we get a fascinating character study and an alarming cautionary tale that is just as compelling as any thriller.

Disney Plus will also stream Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated “West Side Story” remake beginning March 2.

Short Takes

Sandra Oh as Eve Polastri and Jodie Comer as Villanelle in Season 4 of “Killing Eve.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Anika Molnar/BBCA

Killing Eve (Feb. 28, 9 p.m., AMC and AMC Plus)

Revenge and redemption are the themes as this darkly funny drama kicks off its fourth and final season. Ex-MI6 agent Eve (Sandra Oh) and ex-MI6 boss Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) are out to take down the murderous global organization known as the Twelve and avenge the death of Carolyn’s son, Kenny. Meanwhile, ex-professional assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) is looking to prove she’s not a monster by taking up with a church group. But can people, particularly remorseless killers, change? Eve certainly has, now working for a private security firm in London and going full bad-ass. Carolyn, meanwhile, has been put out to pasture as a cultural attache but has lost none of her wiles or wit. And Villanelle’s obsession with Eve appears to continue unabated. Camille Cottin is back as Twelve associate Helene while Anjana Vasan (“We Are Lady Parts”) joins the cast as potential assassin Pam. Having seen the first two episodes, in which Oh, Comer and Shaw are all at the top of their games, I anticipate a bloody but extremely entertaining ride to the finish.

Rhys Darby and Fred Armisen in “Our Flag Means Death.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy HBO Max

Our Flag Means Death (March 3, 9 p.m., Crave)

I suspect the real Stede Bonnet — a British sugar plantation owner who abandoned his wife and children to become “the Gentleman Pirate” in 1717 — was a lot less benign than his comedy counterpart. This series created by newbie TV writer David Jenkins portrays Bonnet (played by Rhys Darby of “Flight of the Conchords”) as a fop and esthete with no stomach for violence whose crew is planning to mutiny until he gets lucky and snags a couple of British army captives. Things seem to really be looking up when he crosses paths with the famous Blackbeard (Taika Waititi), who’s grown bored with all the pillaging and is looking for an exit plan. Besides Darby and Waititi, who’s also an executive producer of the show, the cast is packed with well known actors and comedians, including Nat Faxon, Leslie Jones, Fred Armisen, Ewen Bremner of “Trainspotting” and Kristian Nairn of “Game of Thrones.” I’d characterize it as more of a mildly amusing time-waster than a comedy must-see, but it has its moments.

Crave also has Season 3 of the Elena Ferrante adaptation “My Brilliant Friend” (Feb. 28, 10 p.m., HBO) and Season 2 of “Star Trek: Picard” (March 3, 8 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel). Plus, there’s the the debut of “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers” (March 6, 9 p.m., HBO), with a stacked cast — John C. Reilly, Adrien Brody, Jason Segel, Sally Field, Gaby Hoffman, Quincy Isaiah and more —portraying the 1980s, Magic Johnson-era Los Angeles Lakers; and the premiere of “Shining Vale” (March 6, 10 p.m., Starz), in which Courteney Cox stars as an unfulfilled wife, mother and author who moves with her family to a small town, into a house with a terrible past.

Jamie Dornan as “the Man” in “The Tourist” PHOTO CREDIT: Prime Video

The Tourist (March 4, Prime Video)

Irish actor Jamie Dornan (“The Fall,” “Belfast”) stars in this six-episode thriller as a man who, after being run off the road in the Australian outback, wakes up in hospital with no memory of who he is. Bad things happen as he travels from place to place following clues to his identity — with the help of cafe waitress Luci (Shalom Brune-Franklin) and probationary constable Helen (Danielle Macdonald) — with bad men after him. But why do people want to kill him and does that mean he himself is a bad person? Our perspective on that changes from episode to episode. In the end, the question becomes whether the man, granted a seemingly clean slate, deserves that second chance. Helen, meanwhile, gets a second chance of her own, blossoming from self-doubt, self-sabotage and subjugation by her needy, controlling fiancé Ethan (Greg Larsen) into an appreciation of her own worth. Macdonald and Dornan ground the mystery and the action in “The Tourist” with emotionally resonant performances that make it easy to invest in their characters. From brothers Harry and Jack Williams (“The Missing,” “Fleabag,” “Liar”), the series is a dynamic, sometimes violent ride that can also be funny as hell.

Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe as Jamie and Claire Fraser in “Outlander.” PHOTO CREDIT: Starz

Outlander (March 6, 9 p.m., W Network/StackTV)

It’s a marvel sometimes to think that Claire and Jamie Fraser are still standing after enduring wars, kidnappings, torture, rape and multiple near-death experiences, both his and hers, but the sixth season of the time-travel drama is finally here. It’s been the longest droughtlander yet, a 22-month wait. Has it been worth it? Based on the four episodes I’ve seen, there’s a lot here to engage the hearts and minds of fans. Life on Fraser’s Ridge in North Carolina in 1773 seems nominally peaceful, but Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) know that the American Revolutionary War is coming and that Jamie will have to choose a side. Claire is still dealing with the trauma of her abduction and sexual assault by Lionel Brown and his men last season, and not in the healthiest of ways. Meanwhile, Fergus (Cesar Domboy) is consumed by guilt that he wasn’t there to protect a pregnant Marsali (Lauren Lyle) from Brown’s men. And there are some tensions with new settlers on the Ridge, including Tom Christie (Mark Lewis Jones), an old rival of Jamie’s from Ardsmuir prison, his daughter Malva (Jessica Reynolds) and son Allan (Alexander Vlahos). Ian Murray (John Bell) has some reckoning of his own to do with events from his time with the Mohawks, while Roger (Richard Rankin) and Brianna (Sophie Skelton) are settling back into life in the 1700s after last season’s failed attempt to go back to their own time. Season 6 has just eight episodes instead of the usual 12 to 16, but I expect they’re going to be jam-packed. And if you’ve read the books, you know there’s more hardship ahead for Jamie and Claire.

Odds and Ends

“Carbon: The Unauthorized Biography” highlights the element’s presence in every living thing.
PHOTO CREDIT: CBC

“The Nature of Things” continues its quest to bring scientific facts to the masses with “Carbon: The Unauthorized Biography” (March 4, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem). The doc anthropomorphizes the element, using the voice of Sarah Snook of “Succession,” highlighting its importance as a building block of all life, as well as inanimate matter, but also its destructiveness as carbon dioxide overwhelms the planet.

This week’s Netflix offerings include the thriller series “Pieces of Her” (March 3), an adaptation of the 2018 novel in which a daughter (Bella Heathcote) tries to suss out her mother’s (Toni Collette) violent past; the docuseries “Worst Roommate Ever” (March 1), true stories about actual roommates from hell; and the reality series “Making Fun” (March 4), in which Jimmy DiResta and pals make children’s weird ideas for inventions into actual things.

If you’re a “Big Brother Canada” fan, the competition is back for a 10th season — where the heck did the time go? — March 2 at 8 p.m. on Global and StackTV.

Speaking of long-lived series, Season 9 of the romantic period drama “When Calls the Heart” is on Super Channel Heart & Home on March 6 at 8 p.m.

FX debuts the fifth and final season of the critically acclaimed family comedy “Better Things” on Feb. 28 at 10 p.m.

Here’s one I would have loved to screen but just could not get to: the BritBox original “Murder in Provence” (March 1), starring Roger Allan of “Endeavour” and Nancy Carroll of “Father Brown.”

And finally, if you’d like to see a young(ish) Canadian lad make good, Toronto tenor Conor Murphy (who has sung the national anthem for the Toronto Maple Leafs, including the night Zamboni driver David Ayres was in goal) is one of three singers featured in the special “Trinity: Classically Irish” on PBS March 6 at 3:30 p.m. (it repeats March 8 at 8 p.m.).

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 Feb. 21 to 27, 2022

February 21, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Porter (Feb. 21, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem)

Arnold Pinnock, co-creator and executive producer of “The Porter,” as Glenford. PHOTO CREDIT: CBC

Marsha Greene, one of the co-creators of “The Porter,” says the historical drama is about aspiration and ambition. She was talking about the dreams of its characters when she told me that in an interview, but she could as well have been describing the people who made this show happen.

“The Porter” is indeed aspirational and ambitious and, more importantly, has seen those ambitions realized, based on the two episodes I’ve watched and rewatched. It’s something of a unicorn in homegrown television, a series that tells a Black Canadian story with a majority Black cast and creative team.

This is a richly drawn portrait of not only a time and place in Canadian history, but a substantial world whose Black characters live nuanced, complicated lives. We see not only the trains where the porters attend obsequiously to the white passengers — “the most invisible (men) on the Earth,” Junior (Aml Ameen) calls them — but the Black community of St. Antoine, Montreal (also known as Little Burgundy), where the porters are respected and admired.

You can tell that every detail of the series has been thoughtfully conceived and honed, from the writing and performances, directing and cinematography, to the set, costume design and soundtrack. It all comes together in an absorbing story rooted in the 1920s but relatable to the here and now.

Ameen, a British actor, and Ronnie Rowe Jr., a Toronto actor most recently seen on the bridge of “Star Trek: Discovery,” are porters Junior Massey and Zeke Garrett, friends and World War I veterans. A tragedy involving a fellow porter sets them on opposing paths: Zeke to try to win improvements in working conditions through unionization; Junior to try to improve his financial condition by smuggling whisky to Prohibition-era Chicago, where their train makes regular runs.

Their stories intersect those of the other lead characters: Marlene (Mouna Traore), Junior’s wife and a Black Cross nurse; Miss Queenie (Olunike Adeliyi), a Chicago gangster of whom Junior runs afoul; and Lucy (Loren Lott), a performer and bartender at the Stardust nightclub who aspires to fame in New York City.

Arnold Pinnock and Bruce Ramsay, who originated “The Porter,” also play parts as porter Glenford and conductor Dinger, while celebrated American actor Alfre Woodard portrays brothel owner Fay.

Those brief character sketches barely scratch the surface of everything that happens in Season 1. While I’ve only seen two episodes, I’ve read ahead about the other six and it’s clear there’s much more story to come should “The Porter”be granted subsequent seasons.

Canada doesn’t mine its history — let alone its Black history — for TV drama the way some other countries do. The last Canadian historical drama I recall that told a specifically Black story was the miniseries “The Book of Negroes” (2015), which is set in America and Africa as much as Canada.

By breathing vibrant life into an overlooked portion of the country’s past, “The Porter” has set a standard that hopefully other Canadian creators will emulate.

BLK: An Origin Story (Feb. 26, 9 p.m., History and StackTV)

Screen grab from the trailer for “BLK: An Original Story.” PHOTO CREDIT: History/YouTube

Chances are you’ve heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre, when over two days a white mob burned down the Black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and killed as many as 300 people. Ever heard of the Shelburne Race Riot in Nova Scotia?

No lives were lost, but the white rabble there inflicted 10 days of terror, beating Black people and destroying their homes. Why? Because a Black preacher named David George baptized a white woman. And the intent in Shelburne was the same as that in Tulsa: to put Black people in their place.

This is one of the bits of history — Canadian history, not just Black history — elucidated in “BLK: An Origin Story,” a four-part docuseries that traces the presence of Black people in this country as far back as the 1700s.

The first episode, the one I watched, covers the migration of three groups of Black settlers to Nova Scotia beginning in 1783; the second, Black and Indigenous War of 1812 vet John “Daddy” Hall of Owen Sound; the third, the Hogan’s Alley community that began in Vancouver in the 1850s; the fourth, Little Burgundy, the Montreal neighbourhood that is the setting of “The Porter.”

Listen, we all know that history documentaries sometimes seem like things we should watch rather than things we want to watch, but my attention didn’t flag once while I watched this one. Not only is the subject matter interesting, it’s delivered by a lively assortment of mainly Black Canadian experts, not just academics but poets like George Elliot Clarke and El Jones, and authors like Lawrence Hill.

There’s so much I didn’t know: that besides being populated by Black Loyalists escaping the American Revolution (the people whose names were entered in “The Book of Negroes,” source of the CBC miniseries mentioned above and the Hill novel it was based on), Nova Scotia also became home to “maroons,” self-liberated Jamaicans who were forcibly deported after they battled the British colonizers there, as well as Black veterans who supported the British in the War of 1812. Or that the maroons helped build or rebuild some key edifices in Halifax, including Citadel Hill and Government House. Or that Nova Scotia schools weren’t officially desegregated until the 1950s although the last Blacks-only school didn’t close until 1983.

It’s all covered in more detail than I can do justice to in this post.

What wasn’t in the least surprising was the discrimination so-called “free” Blacks faced when they arrived, often denied the land they had been promised for their service to the British, left at the mercy of white settlers to earn livings and feed their families, to the point that many of the Black settlers fled Nova Scotia for Sierra Leone.

The popular narrative of Canada as it relates to its Black population tends to be fixated on the Underground Railroad: Canada as a shining beacon to those escaping enslavement in the southern U.S. But as art historian and researcher Charmaine Nelson says, “We’ve enshrined in our curriculum a 31-year history when we were abolitionists, and obliterated, ignored and erased our two-century history of slaving.”

Sure, that’s an indictment of our smug sense of superiority to our American neighbours — already shot to hell by the convoy protests in Ottawa — but it’s also an opportunity for honest reflection.

Personally, I’m all for Canadians learning more about the history of this country and not just the parts that play into our overblown reputation for being nice.

History also has the three-part miniseries “Abraham Lincoln” starting Feb. 21 at 9 p.m., an examination of the life of the U.S. president as well as his attitudes toward slavery. It’s part documentary and part dramatization, with Graham Sibley playing Lincoln.

Short Takes

Frida Gustavsson as Freydis and Sam Corlett as Leif in “Vikings: Valhalla.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Bernard Walsh/Netflix

Vikings: Valhalla (Feb. 25, Netflix)

If the end of the TV series “Vikings” in 2020 left you hankering for heroic quests, Norse accents and people dressed in leather and furs, this show inspired by Michael Hirst’s original should scratch that itch. Hirst is an executive producer on this one, created by movie writer Jeb Stuart (“Die Hard,” “The Fugitive”). It shifts the action 100 years past the previous series and focuses on relative youngsters Leif Eriksson (Sam Corlett), son of Erik the Red; his sister Freydis (Frida Gustavsson) and Prince Harald Sigurdsson (Leo Suter). “Valhalla” returns to Kattegat, now ruled by Jarl Haakon (Caroline Henderson), and to Uppsala, where Haakon sends Freydis on a pilgrimage. Leif and Harald, meanwhile, head to England to avenge the St. Brice’s Day Massacre, which in the show — if not in actual history — is the destruction of all Viking settlements in England by King Aethelred II. But the campaign is complicated by tension between Vikings like Leif who believe in the old gods and those who have converted to Christianity, including Harald’s half-brother Olaf (Johannes Haukur Johannesson).

Netflix also has “RACE: Bubba Wallace” (Feb. 22), a docuseries about the only full-time Black NASCAR driver.

The Moonrunners urban dance crew in “Why We Dance.” PHOTO CREDIT: CBC

Why We Dance (Feb. 25, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem)

For a few glorious months in Grade 4 (or was it 5?), I was an aspiring ballet dancer, complete with my first pair of toe shoes. And then the free lessons at school ended and the toe shoes got put away in a chest, but that enduring love of dance is why I give things like this documentary a second look. As part of “The Nature of Things,” filmmaker Nathalie Bibeau (“The Walrus and the Whistleblower”) examines the human impulse to dance, what purposes it serves and which other species can move to a beat, which might ring a bell if you’ve watched videos of Snowball the cockatoo. Human dancers strut their stuff here too, including members of Toronto Indigenous troupe Red Sky Performance.

Odds and Ends

Zoey (Soleil Moon Frye), Penny (Kyla Pratt), Michael (EJ Johnson) and Dijonay (Karen Malina White)
in “The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder.” PHOTO CREDIT: Disney

Disney’s big debut this week is the revival of its early aughts animated series “The Proud Family.” “The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder” (Feb. 23, Disney Plus) focuses on an older version of Penny Proud (Kyla Pratt), as well as her friends and family, while expanding to include LGBTQ characters. The movie thriller “No Exit” also premieres under the Disney Plus Star banner, on Feb. 25.

HBO and Crave have the documentary “Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches” (Feb. 23, 9 p.m.), in which five of the anti-slavery activist’s speeches are highlighted by five Black actors: Nicole Beharie, Colman Domingo, Jonathan Majors, Denzel Whitaker and Jeffrey Wright. Also premiering on Crave are “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber” (Feb. 27, 10 p.m.), the first instalment of a Showtime anthology series starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Uma Thurman and Kyle Chandler; and the Clint Eastwood film “Cry Macho” (Feb. 26, 9 p.m.).

Lifetime has the docuseries “Janet Jackson” (Feb. 26, 8 p.m.), which claims to be an unfiltered look at her “untold story.”

Prime Video, meanwhile, has another music documentary with “Charli XCX: Alone Together” (Feb. 24), showing the pop star making an album with the help of fans while quarantined at home during the pandemic.

PBS’s “Nova” is highlighting people with disabilities with “Augmented” (Feb. 23, 9 p.m.), about biophysicist Hugh Herr, who lost his legs in an accident at 17 and became an inventor of better prosthetic limbs; and “Predicting My MS” (Feb. 23, 10 p.m.), which follows filmmaker Jason DaSilva and how he handles his diagnosis of primary progressive multiple sclerosis.

Finally, BritBox has a second season of the Scottish crime drama “Traces” (Feb. 22), which stars Molly Windsor as a forensic lab assistant hoping to solve her mother’s long-ago murder, and co-stars Laura Fraser (“The Loch,” “Breaking Bad”) as her boss; Martin Compston (“Line of Duty”) as her boyfriend and Canadian Jennifer Spence as a prickly professor of forensic anthropology.

Watchable Feb. 14 to 20, 2022

February 14, 2022 /

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Severance (Feb. 18, Apple TV Plus)

From left, Tramell Tillman, Zach Cherry, John Turturro, Britt Lower and Adam Scott in “Severance.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

The term “workplace thriller” seems like an oxymoron, but there are indeed thrills to be had in this series about a mysterious company whose employees undergo brain surgery to divide their work and personal lives.

The first question that comes to mind is why anyone would want to undergo such a radical procedure. In the case of main character Mark (Adam Scott), it’s to minimize the pain of his wife’s death, a loss that left him unable to do his previous job as a history professor.

When we first meet Mark (Adam Scott), he’s crying in the parking lot of Lumon Corporation. By the time he has taken the elevator down to the macro-data refinement or MDR department, he’s wondering why he has a crumpled tissue in his pocket and whether the fact he’s sniffling means he’s getting a cold.

The controversial “severance” procedure, which involves implanting a chip into its subjects’ brains, means that employees have no memories of their personal lives when they’re at work and none of their work lives when they’re at home. The split selves are designated “innies” and “outies” by the company.

It isn’t explicitly stated why this would be considered desirable by the corporation — a corporation that doesn’t appear to make anything of tangible use to the outside world — but clearly the idea is to produce compliant workers, unfettered by the emotional entanglements of their home lives.

But humans have a way of pushing against boundaries.

The trouble starts with new employee Helly (Britt Lower), who refuses to go passively to her assignment in MDR when she awakens after her severance procedure. When her request to resign is denied she comes up with ever more drastic ploys to escape what she calls hell, to the point that Mark — the new department chief since his friend Petey (Yul Vazquez) suddenly disappeared — begins to question Lumon’s methods.

The rebellion spreads, even to by-the-book veteran Irv (John Turturro) and ultra-competitive Dylan (Zach Cherry), whose main interest is in racking up company perks.

Irv begins to stray after a chance meeting with Burt (Christopher Walken), the chief of the optics and design department. Their shared appreciation for the company art — paintings featuring founder Kier Eagan — grows into something deeper.

Deterrents like the psychological punishment of the “break room” and a new security door — installed on the orders of coldly forbidding boss Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and her henchmen — can’t keep Mark and his co-workers from wandering the long, white halls in search of information and companionship.

Directors Ben Stiller, who also executive produces, and Aoife McArdle do an excellent job of rendering the sleek, sterile and vaguely threatening environment inside Lumon, contrasting it with the outside world, which is bleak in its own ways.

Eventually, outer life begins to contaminate inner life and vice versa, whether it’s a forbidden book left in the conference room or Petey turning up in the non-Lumon world.

Then Dylan makes an inadvertent discovery, a way that his co-workers’ “innies” might be able to glimpse their “outie” selves. The MDR team comes up with a risky plan whose execution produces the thrills I mentioned previously. It yields some answers but also raises even more questions — ones that will presumably be answered in Season 2.

Despite its sci-fi trappings, “Severance” is a very human story.

Lumon’s attempt to play god can’t squelch human curiosity or the need for connection; the drive to know yourself and others. Likewise, our desire to know more about these characters propels us through the series.

Apple also has the docuseries “Lincoln’s Dilemma” (Feb. 18), which aims to give a more nuanced portrait of the American president and his position on ending slavery.

Short Takes

Olly Sholotan as Carlton Banks and Jabari Banks as Will in “Bel-Air.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock)

Bel-Air (Feb. 14, 9 p.m., Showcase and StackTV)

This reboot of beloved 1990s sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” puts dramatic meat on the bones of a street-wise West Philly kid moving in with his wealthy relatives in the posh Los Angeles neighbourhood. The “one little fight” that got Will (played by Jabari Banks here) packed off to Bel-Air is now a beef with a gang member that sees Will point a gun and get arrested. When his mother sends him to live with his Aunt Viv (Cassandra Freeman) and Uncle Phillip (Adrian Holmes), it’s because his life is being threatened, a threat that continues to hang over him and his best friend back home. Cousin Carlton (Olly Sholotan) is Will’s enemy in this show, at least in the three episodes available for review. A popular lacrosse player who snorts Xanax to control his anxiety, Carlton’s dominance of his snobby, majority white high school is threatened not only by Will’s prowess on the basketball court but his pursuit of Carlton’s ex Lisa (Simone Joy Jones), which brings the cousins to physical blows. There’s a lot more: Phillip is still a lawyer but is now running to be elected district attorney; Viv is an art school teacher who gave up her promising art career for her family; Hilary (Coco Jones) is an influencer and aspiring chef whose disinterest in a traditional job rankles her mother. There’s also younger sister Ashley (Akira Akbar); house manager Geoffrey (Jimmy Akingbola) and jack-of-all-trades Jazz (Jordan L. Jones), who meets Will driving him from the airport. The show’s mix of soap opera-worthy plot lines with serious themes relating to Black identity works if you’re not looking for anything too deep or nuanced.

Natalie Martinez and Matt Lauria in “Down.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Hollywood Suite

Into the Dark (Feb. 14, 9 p.m., Hollywood Suite)

This anthology film series carries the imprimatur of Blumhouse Television, whose movie arm is known for hits like “Paranormal Activity” and “The Purge.” The conceit here is that the horror films are all linked to holidays. Fittingly, the Valentine’s Day kickoff features two instalments ostensibly tied to romance, “Down” and “My Valentine.” In “Down,” which I screened, two office workers (Natalie Martinez and Matt Lauria) are trapped in an elevator in an empty building on Valentine’s weekend. But the ordeal turns deadly beyond the deprivation of being stuck without food and water in a small space.

From left, Tom Green, Jay Baruchel, Mae Martin, Debra DiGiovanni, Jon Lajoie, Brandon Ash-Mohammed, Caroline Rhea, Colin Mochrie and Dave Foley on “LOL: Last One Laughing Canada.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Amazon Studios

LOL: Last One Laughing Canada (Feb. 18, Prime Video)

For its first Canadian reality series, Amazon’s Prime Video has chosen a spinoff of its own international hit. The “Last One Laughing” franchise is a bit like a comedic version of “Big Brother,” with 10 comedians put in a room for six hours with cameras catching their every utterance. The goal is to crack up their fellow comics while remaining straight-faced themselves. Whoever wins gets bragging rights and $100,000 for the charity of their choice. This first Canadian season boasts an embarrassment of riches. Jay Baruchel hosts while the competitors include standups Deborah DiGiovanni and Brandon Ash-Mohammed, TV stars Andrew Phung of “Kim’s Convenience,” K. Trevor Wilson of “Letterkenny,” Caroline Rhea of “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” and Mae Martin of “Feel Good”; Quebec YouTube celeb Jon Lajoie: and revered veterans Colin Mochrie, Tom Green and “Kid in the Hall” Dave Foley. The fun, besides having that much Canadian comedy talent in one room, is in seeing who cracks first. If a comedian laughs or even smiles, Baruchel hits them with a yellow card; a second infraction gets them bounced from the contest. I’m not gonna lie, the first episode got off to a slow start, but then the cast started to hit their stride. I have never laughed so hard at the sight of someone making grilled cheese sandwiches. One note: if you’re offended by profanity, just know this is loaded with f-bombs.

Prime Video also has Season 4 of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Feb. 18), a show I love and would have loved to review if not for an embargo.

Odds and Ends

Kanye West as seen in “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy.” PHOTO CREDIT: Netflix

The docuseries “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy” (Feb. 16, Netflix) spans 20 years in the life and career of Kanye West, now known as Ye. Directed by Chike Ozah and Clarence “Coodie” Simmons, it got mostly favourable reviews when it premiered at Sundance in January. Screeners weren’t provided by Netflix. Netflix also has Season 2 of reality series “Swap Shop” (Feb. 16) and Season 2 of Steve Carell comedy “Space Force” (Feb. 18).

If you’d like to see the work of Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallee, who died Christmas Day, before he got famous for titles like “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Big Little Lies” and “Sharp Objects,” CBC Gem has his 2011 romance “Cafe de Flore” screening on Feb. 14.

Sundance Now has a new season of Nick Hornby’s anthology series “State of the Union” (Feb. 14). This time, veteran actors Brendan Gleeson and Patricia Clarkson star as a couple trying to save their 30-year marriage. Stephen Frears returns to direct.

New to Disney Plus this week are the animated special “The Wonderful Winter of Mickey Mouse” (Feb. 18) and “Marvel Studios: Assembled — The Making of ‘Eternals'” (Feb. 16).

Crave has Season 2 of possibly the chillest unscripted series in the world, “Painting With John” (Feb. 18, 11 p.m., HBO/Crave), in which artist, musician, actor and director John Lurie paints and talks, sharing lessons from his estimable life.

This post was edited to tweak my review of “Bel-Air.”

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 Feb. 7 to 13, 2022

February 7, 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 Jan. 31 to Feb. 6

January 31, 2022 /

Pam & Tommy (Feb. 2, Disney Plus)

Lily James as Pamela Anderson and Sebastian Stan as Tommy Lee in “Pam & Tommy.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Erin Simkin/Hulu

It seems to me that “Pam & Tommy” wants to have it both ways.

On one hand, it makes the point that the theft and subsequent distribution of a sex tape featuring actor Pamela Anderson and her husband, Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, was a devastating invasion of privacy. On the other, it puts that humiliation on display by detailing how that sex tape spread around the world, with a large and often sympathetic focus on the man who stole it in the first place, contractor Rand Gauthier.

In fact, if you watched only the first of the eight episodes, you’d think the series should be named “Pam & Tommy & Rand.”

In the opener, Pam (Lily James) is barely glimpsed — and heard, having loud sex with Lee (Sebastian Stan) above the heads of Rand (Seth Rogen) and other workers who are building a “love pad” for the couple.

Luckily for us, Pam’s presence increases, because James’ performance is the best reason to watch this series. The physical transformation of the “Downton Abbey” and “Cinderella” star is uncanny, but her ability goes beyond mere mimicry. She gives an affecting portrayal of a character who, as the series progresses, grows from sex object and party girl to a woman fighting a lopsided and losing battle against misogyny.

Stan (“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”) also acquits himself well as the volatile Lee, although he comes off initially as a caricature, a thong-wearing, sports car-driving rock star who won’t pay Rand and his colleague for work they’re already done despite his aggressive boasts about his fortune. When schlubby, mulleted and broke Rand presses Tommy for the money, Lee fires them both.

To add insult to injury, Tommy puts a shotgun in Rand’s face when he comes back to retrieve his forgotten tool chest. All of this is clearly meant to give Rand proper motivation for later breaking in and stealing a safe from the couple’s garage.

I would presume the guns, watches, jewelry and cash inside that safe would have covered what Rand was owed, but he got greedy. The series portrays how Rand partners with porn producer Uncle Miltie (Nick Offerman) to shop the tape around to video companies. When none of them will touch it because Pam and Tommy haven’t signed releases, Rand and Miltie opt to sell it direct to consumers themselves using a website and mob money.

Tommy tries unsuccessfully to retrieve the tape, using fixer Anthony Pellicano (Don Harvey) and biker friends; then the couple tries and fails to keep Penthouse from printing images from it, compete with a humiliating and sexist deposition of Pam as part of the court case. A web porn entrepreneur named Seth Warshavsky (Fred Hechinger of “The White Lotus”) eventually makes the tape available free online to boost his web-cam business.

The show is an overstuffed combination of biopic, crime caper, and a treatise on the early days of the internet, the online porn industry and celebrity exploitation.

The biographic part mostly focuses on Pam’s and Tommy’s relationship, portraying it as a grand if unconventional love story after they meet at a club on New Year’s Eve 1994 and quickly marry in Mexico (I’ve read the courtship lasted six weeks; the series compresses that timeline to days). In real life, the marriage ended in 1998 after a physical fight (Lee pleaded no contest to felony spousal battery), but the show makes it easy to believe there was genuine love between the couple.

It also touches on how Pam got her start as a Playboy model; her unhappiness with her T&A role on “Baywatch”; her bid to be taken seriously as an actress; and Tommy’s frustration as Motley Crue is eclipsed by grunge and other new music.

(Don’t ask me what category the talking penis fits into — that’s right, Tommy has an argument with his dick about whether to commit to Pam. Giving his member its own cameo is an interesting choice considering the double standard of Pam being denigrated after the video came out while Tommy was congratulated for the size of his penis.)

It’s a no-brainer that Pam was the most negatively affected by the release of the tape, which was less a sex tape than a record of the couple’s honeymoon that included sex. The series shows her having a miscarriage amid the stress of learning that copies of the tape are being sold, and there’s no doubt the scandal had a negative impact on her career as well as her marriage.

In one scene, Pam tells Tommy and their lawyer that the court ruling in favour of Penthouse isn’t really about First Amendment rights to free speech but the fact that she, as someone who has spent her public life in a bathing suit and posing for Playboy, doesn’t have any rights.

“They can’t actually say that sluts — and that’s what this ruling is saying I am in case you’re unclear — they can’t actually say that sluts don’t get to decide what happens to pictures of their bodies,” she says.

It’s one of the more cogent scenes, the other being porn actor Erica (Taylor Schilling) upbraiding her ex Rand for treating Pam’s and Tommy’s private video as porn.

The slut-shaming of women like Pamela Anderson hasn’t gone away in the 25-plus years since the scandal erupted, but do we really need this miniseries to get that point across?

I’ve read that the real Pam Anderson doesn’t plan to watch the show. I hope she achieved some peace of mind in the years since her privacy was crassly violated, but bringing it up again in an eight-part series is unlikely to help with that.

Disney Plus, with National Geographic, also has the documentary “Torn” (Feb. 4), which explores not only the life and death of legendary mountain climber Alex Lowe, but what happens when his body is found 17 years later. The discovery unearths difficult emotions for Alex’s three sons, including filmmaker Max Lowe, his widow Jennifer and his surviving climbing partner Conrad Anker, who married Jennifer and raised Alex’s boys as his own.

Short Takes

Amara Karan as detective Leila Hussain in “Hope Street.” PHOTO CREDIT: BritBox

Hope Street (Jan. 31, BritBox)

This new crime drama is about Leila Hussain, a detective constable parachuted in from Nottingham, England, to the small Northern Irish town of Port Devine. Despite the cosy, picturesque setting, it’s not twee and twinkly-eyed locals. Leila (Amara Karan, “The Night Of”) clashes with some of the townspeople and her colleague Sgt. Marlene Pettigrew (Kerri Quinn), not because she’s the town’s first Muslim officer, but because her aggressive style of investigation rubs people the wrong way, but she grows on them and they on her. Leila also has a secret — and dangerous — reason for being in Port Devine, known to her new boss (and potential love interest) Inspector Finn O’Hare (Ciaran McMenamin). With its focus on crimes other than homicides (at least in the three episodes I screened) and its assortment of characters, it’s an entertaining way to pass some time.

Tom Rhys Harries, Kunal Nayyar, Georgina Campbell and Elizabeth Henstridge in “Suspicion.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

Suspicion (Feb. 4, Apple TV Plus)

Who kidnapped Leo Newman? To be honest, three episodes into this purported thriller, I wasn’t sure I cared given how long it was taking to tease out the threads of the plot. The son of a high-powered communications executive about to be named U.S. ambassador to the U.K. (Uma Thurman in a blink and you’ll miss her role), Leo is abducted in a high-end New York hotel by suspects wearing masks of the British royal family. In England, four seemingly unrelated people — an Oxford lecturer (Elizabeth Henstridge) and student (Tom Rhys Harries), a wannabe security expert (Kunal Nayyar) and a tax accountant (Georgina Campbell) — are arrested because they all happened to be at the hotel the night Leo was taken. So was violent Irish criminal Sean Tilson (Elyes Gabel). The other protagonists are a British detective (Angel Coulby) and an FBI specialist (Noah Emmerich) grudgingly forced to work together to find Leo, whose abduction appears to be linked to something his mother’s company is doing. Some of the plot devices are silly — including the ease with which Sean eludes an airport full of police in Belfast and the ridiculously intrusive level of surveillance used on the suspects — and the dialogue laughable. Sample: Aadesh Chopra’s (Nayyar) brother-in-law after Aadesh grudgingly agrees to join the family business, “It’s not carpets we are selling here, it’s dreams.”

Guy Torry, the comedian behind Phat Tuesdays at the Comedy Store. PHOTO CREDIT: Amazon Studios

Phat Tuesdays: The Era of Hip Hop Comedy (Feb. 4, Prime Video)

This docuseries by Reginald Hudlin (“House Party,” “The Bernie Mac Show”) uses a who’s who of comedy talent to revisit a seminal time not just in the history of Black entertainment, but entertainment in general. As the series tells it, Black comedians — unable to get coveted slots at the Comedy Store — established their own thriving scene at the Comedy Act Theatre in South L.A. in the ’80s, launching the careers of many well known Black comics, including the late Robin Harris. After the so-called “Hollyhood” became a less desirable destination for white showbiz executives following the Rodney King riots, comedian Guy Torry decided to take the ‘hood to Hollywood. Given “crumbs,” in one comedian’s words — a Tuesday night slot in the Store’s smallest room — Torry, his fellow comedians and the celebrities who flocked to the club turned it into one of the hottest destinations on the Sunset Strip. When Phat Tuesday moved to the larger Main Room, it sold that out too and became a conduit to TV and movie deals for the comedians on its stage, essentially making Black comedy part of the Hollywood mainstream. If you’re a comedy fan, you’ll want to check this out.

Prime Video (formerly Amazon Prime Video) also has the new action series “Reacher” (Feb. 4), based on the “Jack Reacher” novels; and the rom-com “Book of Love” (Feb. 4), an opposites attract tale about an uptight English author (Sam Claflin) and the Mexican translator (Verónica Echegui) who turns his book into an erotic novel.

If You Missed It . . .

We Need to Talk About Cosby (Crave)

Do check out this docuseries by W. Kamau Bell, which I got too late to include in last week’s list. Based on what I’ve seen of it, it does a thorough, thoughtful job of comparing the Bill Cosby we thought we knew — revered comedian and TV star — with the one we know now, the man accused of serial sexual assault. It gives voice to some of Cosby’s victims as well as Black people for whom the change in perspective is a particularly painful one.

Odds and Ends

Will Arnett and “Schitt’s Creek” and “Kevin Can F**k Himself” star Annie Murphy in “Murderville.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Of Netflix

Would that I could tell you what I think of new Netflix comedy “Murderville” (Feb. 3) but — all together now! — reviews are embargoed until Tuesday. Toronto-born Will Arnett stars as detective Terry Seattle and the shtick is that in every episode a new celebrity guest becomes his partner and, without a script, has to figure out the identity of the murderer. Guests include Annie Murphy, Conan O’Brien, Ken Jeong, Kumail Nanjiani, Marshawn Lynch and Sharon Stone. Netflix also has Season 2 of “Sweet Magnolias” (Feb. 4) and Season 2 of “Raising Dion” (Feb. 1).

If you remember Lemon and Jimbo from Season 1 of “Canada’s Drag Race” — and how could you not? — you’ll want to watch them compete against “RuPaul’s Drag Race” stars from other countries in “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs the World” (Crave, Feb. 1, 9 p.m.). Crave also has Season 2 of “Raised by Wolves” (Feb. 3).

I would have loved to get a look at “Canfield Roots” on PBS (Feb. 1, 7:30 p.m.). It’s about the community of Canfield in Ontario and its connection to the Underground Railroad, which helped enslaved Black Americans escape to relative freedom, and its most famous conductor, Harriet Tubman. PBS also has “Arctic Sinkholes” on “Nova” (Feb. 2, 9 p.m.), which explores the phenomenon of methane gas explosions in the far North and, alas, yet another threat to the planet from climate change.

And if climate change docs make you want to put your fingers in your ears and go la, la, la, la, you can watch Season 3 of “Celebrity Big Brother” on Global TV (Feb. 2, 8 p.m.), although celebrity might be stretching it a bit.

Finally, Hollywood Suite has Season 5 of the acclaimed Italian crime drama “Gomorrah” on demand staring Feb. 1.

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 some shows that I have not watched.

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