SHOW OF THE WEEK: Fanny: The Right to Rock (Jan. 17, Crave)

Members of Fanny in a screen grab from “Fanny: The Right to Rock.”

If you missed this documentary when it played the Hot Docs and Inside Out festivals last year — winning a $10,000 Rogers Audience Award at the former — now’s your chance to get in on one of rock and roll’s best kept secrets.

Fanny is the name of an all-female band that emerged in California in the late 1960s, put out five critically acclaimed albums, toured with some of the biggest acts of the day, gained fans in fellow musicians like the late David Bowie then fell off the radar, mainly unremembered and uncelebrated until this film started playing the festival circuit last year.

This doc by Montreal’s Bobbi Jo Hart — scored by Fanny’s own hard driving music — will likely leave you shaking your head at the oversight.

The group — sister guitarists June and Jean Millington and drummer Brie Darling, later drummer Alice de Buhr, keyboardist Nickey Barclay and guitarist Patti Quatro — had a lot of barriers to bust through: June, Jean and Brie were Filipina-American; June and Alice were lesbians; and they were all women trying to get ahead in a man’s world and on their own terms.

Footage of the band’s various concerts and TV show appearances — and photos of Fanny Hill, the house where they hung out with the likes of Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker, Mick Jagger, Bonnie Raitt and other musicians — is interspersed with interviews with critics and fellow rockers praising their contributions to the genre.

Fanny was the first all-female rock band signed to a major label, but while other all-female groups like the Go Go’s and the Runaways are getting recognition — the former having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November — Fanny has remained obscure. “Always, the ones that start it, they get fucked,” says Earl Slick, Bowie’s guitarist and Jean’s former husband.

Racism, sexism, personnel changes, lack of income and the physical demands of constant touring and promotion wore them down. By the time the band got its sole chart hit — “Butter Boy” in 1975, inspired by Jean’s romance with Bowie — Fanny had already broken up.

But in 2018, the 60-something Millingtons reunited with Darling as Fanny Walked the Earth — yes, there’s a dinosaur joke in there — to make a new album of the same name.

June quips that now they’re bucking ageism as well as the other isms, but the doc captures their excitement as they record the album and prepare to tour.

And then disaster strikes just a week before the first live show — I won’t tell you what happens, you’ll have to watch for yourself.

Nonetheless, the film ends on an optimistic note.

In Rolling Stone, Bowie called them “one of the most important female bands in American rock (that) has been buried without trace.”

This film is that trace. Regardless of whether Fanny hits the road again — a quest no doubt made much more difficult by the COVID-19 pandemic — millions of new fans have discovered their music.

Now, it’s time for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to step up and give them their due.

Short Takes

The Skymaster 2469 in its hangar. It disappeared with 44 passengers in January 1950.
PHOTO CREDIT: Red Trillium Films Inc.

Skymaster Down (documentary Channel)

How could a large, four-engine airplane carrying 44 people disappear without a trace? That’s the mystery explored in this documentary by Andrew Gregg, who learned about the tragedy of the Skymaster while in the Yukon in 2018 working on another film. The American C-54 left Anchorage, Alaska, on Jan. 26, 1950, bound for Great Falls, Montana, with eight crew and 36 passengers, mostly U.S. servicemen but including a pregnant woman and her 19-month-old son. The crew checked in with the radio operator in Snag, Yukon, shortly after takeoff and that was the last anyone heard of them. Did the plane sink into Lake Wellesley? Did it crash into a mountain or a glacier? Was it buried beneath ice and snow? The massive, official search lasted a few weeks but never found anything, nor have members of the volunteer Civil Air Search and Rescue Association in the Yukon, who have never stopped looking. By including interviews with family members of people who disappeared, Gregg makes it clear this is more than just a tantalizing puzzle but is still rawly emotional for those whose fathers, uncles and aunt went down with the plane. The doc debuted on the documentary Channel Sunday but will rebroadcast Jan. 18 at 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.; Jan. 23 at 8 a.m., 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.; and Jan. 28 at 9 p.m. 

Also, on the subject of documentaries, “The Nature of Things” has “In Your Face” (Jan. 21, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem), by Josh Freed, about the science of the so-called human “superpower” of face recognition.

Jason Bateman and Laura Linney in Season 4 of “Ozark.” PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Of Netflix

Ozark (Jan. 19, Netflix)

I would love to tell you what I think of the first half of Season 4 of “Ozark” since I have watched all seven episodes but, for reasons that remain obscure to me, Netflix has decided to embargo reviews until Tuesday. I think it’s safe to say that if you’ve followed this show about a family that gets sucked into a menacing criminal underworld as money launderers for a drug cartel after they flee Chicago for the Ozarks, you will definitely want to see how the story ends (the final seven episodes will drop at a yet to be announced future date). I also think it’s safe to say that if you’ve watched the trailer for Season 4 you can guess that the Byrdes — Marty (Jason Bateman), Wendy (Laura Linney), Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and Jonah (Skyler Gaertner) — have a dangerous path to tread to the freedom they seek. New characters this season include Javi (Alfonso Herrera), nephew of cartel boss Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), and private detective Mel Sattem (Adam Rothenberg).

Rick Glassman, Sue Ann Pien, Albert Rutecki and Sosie Bacon in “As We See It.”

As We See It (Jan. 21, Prime Video)

Here’s another show I’m not allowed to review because of an embargo. “As We See It” is about three roommates on the autism spectrum, played by actors who are also reportedly on the spectrum. Harrison (Albert Rutecki) has issues with just leaving the apartment building; Violet (Sue Ann Pien) has a job at an Arby’s and a preoccupation with finding a boyfriend; and Jack (Rick Glassman) is a computer programmer who can be blunt to the point of insulting. If you’ve watched the trailer or any of the other series associated with creator Jason Katims (“Friday Night Lights,” “Parenthood,” “About a Boy,” “Away”), you already have an inkling that the show is going for heartwarming. Sosie Bacon (“Mare of Easttown”) plays the roomies’ aide, Mandy.

Odds and Ends

1980s series “Fraggle Rock” gets a reboot in “Back to the Rock.” PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV Plus

I’ve never watched a minute of “Fraggle Rock,” but if you’re a fan of the cave-dwelling Jim Henson puppets, Apple TV Plus has “Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock” debuting on Jan. 21. The same day, its supernatural thriller “Servant” returns for its third season.

PBS has a couple of shows concerned with animals this week. “Animals With Cameras” (Jan. 19, 8 p.m.) features creatures from bats to koalas going about their business while fitted with cameras, while “Alaskan Dinosaurs” on “Nova” (Jan. 19, 9 p.m.) looks at evidence that dinosaurs lived in the Arctic Circle.

Sticking with the animal theme, Animal Planet has Season 4 of “Dr. Keri: Prairie Vet” (Jan. 21, 10 p.m.), in which  Keri Hudson-Reykdal and her team care for critters in rural Manitoba.

Finally, Crave has Season 6 of “Billions” (Jan. 23, 9 p.m.). The Damian Lewis-less high finance show returns with Paul Giamatti’s Chuck Rhoades battling yet another billionaire, Corey Stoll as Mike Prince.