SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Gilded Age (Jan. 24, 9 p.m., HBO/Crave)
In a year that already promises period drama treasures, including second seasons of “Sanditon” and “Bridgerton,” “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes gives us this treat: a show that drops us in the midst of the 1880s version of America’s 1 per cent with all the visual splendour that implies.
“The Gilded Age,” which Fellowes conceived while “Downton” was still airing, is centred in the New York of the Astors and Vanderbilts, when the so-called “Four Hundred” ruled society, but the nouveau riche were nipping at their heels.
There’s some irony in the fact these Old New York families would be parvenus compared to England’s oldest, aristocratic dynasties, but their snobbery is no less virulent.
Our main guide to the old money rules of engagement is Agnes van Rhijn, played by a wonderfully formidable Christine Baranski. She was forced to marry money, unhappily so, when her brother squandered her parents’ fortune, leaving her and sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon) penniless, and she fiercely guards her status as part of the upper crust.
On the new money side is the equally formidable Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), who is as ferocious in her ambition to take her place at the pinnacle of society as her husband George (Morgan Spector) is in his rapacious business dealings.
The Russells have built a palace of a house — in which the gilding of the title is on full, decadent display — right across 5th Avenue from Agnes and Ada, so it seems likely Agnes can’t avoid interacting with Bertha forever, despite her best efforts.
The viewer’s proxy in all this is Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson, one of Meryl Streep’s daughters), Agnes’s and Ada’s niece, forced to move from Pennsylvania to Manhattan when she is left destitute by her spendthrift father’s death.
Despite her initial reluctance to take Marian in, Agnes is determined to mould her into a model of old money respectability, a goal that is at odds with Marian’s curiosity about the Russells and the scandalous Mrs. Chamberlain (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and her romantic interest in lawyer Tom Raikes (Thomas Cocquerel), whom Agnes deems an unsuitable suitor.
Marian is intelligent, kind-hearted and open-minded, but she’s not the most interesting character in the show. Apart from Agnes and Bertha, that would be Peggy Scott (Denee Benton), a young Black woman who rescues Marian when her purse is stolen at the train station and who subsequently becomes Agnes’s secretary.
Peggy is no cipher, inserted just to break up the whiteness of the cast. She’s an aspiring writer from a middle class Black family in Brooklyn — Audra McDonald plays her mother Dorothy and John Thomas Douglas her pharmacist father Arthur — and she is aware of the racism around her but not acquiescent to it. And she’s certainly not going to let it get in the way of her goals.
She turns down, for instance, a respected newspaper that wants to publish one of her stories, but only if she changes the race of the lead character and conceals her own. And when Marian blunders badly, showing up at the Scotts’ well-appointed home with charity in the form of an old pair of boots, Peggy won’t let Marian off the hook for her racist assumption.
Benton, McDonald and Douglas are among a wealth of accomplished stage actors playing roles in “The Gilded Age,” including Kelli O’Hara as society wife Aurora Fane; Nathan Lane as Ward McAllister, the Southern lawyer who was Mrs. Astor’s henchman in enforcing the social order; and Michael Cerveris as George Russell’s valet, Watson.
Of course, this being a Julian Fellowes show, there is a “downstairs” to balance the “upstairs.” In this case, we get two sets of servants to follow, in the van Rhijn and Russell households.
Although everybody in “Downton Abbey” seemed benevolent by the sixth season, you’ll recall that a couple of the servants, Mrs. O’Brien and Thomas Barrow, were rather nasty pieces of work in the early going. That role here is occupied by Miss Turner (Kelley Curran), lady’s maid to Mrs. Russell, who’s keen to do some social climbing of her own.
And while “The Gilded Age” is certainly not an American “Downton,” if you miss the quips of the latter’s Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) you can take comfort in the witticisms delivered by Baranski.
It’s always hard to know how these things will land — who would have guessed at the mammoth popularity of “Downton” in its first season? — but “The Gilded Age” is a worthy addition to the period drama canon.
I happily consumed the five episodes made available for review and look forward to watching the rest.
Short Takes
Come Clean (Jan. 25, 9 p.m., TVO and TVO.org)
This documentary by Derreck Roemer and Neil Graham puts an achingly human face on addiction. It follows four patients through their 19 days at the Westover Treatment Centre in Thamesville, Ont., and checks in on them intermittently in the year after the program. Annie is a 40-something alcoholic whose relationship with her husband revolves around drinking; autoworker and mother of two Julie is hooked on cocaine; 20something alcoholic Bryanna was suicidal before she got to Westover; teenage coke addict Ryan is there as part of his probation after he was busted for selling drugs. They all show up on New Year’s Eve 2018 professing their eagerness to change, but the doc makes clear that addiction is a powerful foe. Annie, Bryanna and Julie share stories of the childhood violence, emotional and sexual abuse that fuelled their substance abuse. For Ryan, the sense of importance he gained selling drugs in his small town seems as addictive as the high he got from the cocaine. All four face obstacles when they leave Westover, whether it’s Annie’s husband’s continued drinking, or Ryan’s loneliness and aimlessness as he tries to stay straight. You might be surprised by who takes to sobriety the best and who crumbles, but you’ll also find poignancy in the setbacks and the victories.
Astrid & Lilly Save the World (Jan. 26, 10 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel and Crave)
Part of the appeal of this dramedy about a pair of high school friends who are forced to become monster hunters is watching Astrid (Jana Morrison) and Lilly (Samantha Aucoin) gain confidence in themselves with each gooey kill (besides dispatching the monsters, they have to harvest a specific body part from each). As plus-size best friends who are outcasts in their high school (which seems to be chock-a-block with skinny people), Astrid and Lilly are the main attraction of the series, which sees them accidentally open a portal to another dimension while trying to exorcise the “monsters” who mock them for their size. They’re the only ones who can close it again — and save humanity — with the help of their handsome but annoying guide Brutus (Olivier Renaud). This isn’t a show that’s going to change the world, a la “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” its most obvious influence, but it has its amusing moments. Having filmed in Newfoundland and Labrador, the series is full of Canadian actors, including Morrison, Aucoin, Renaud, Julia Doyle, who plays Lilly’s nemesis Candace; Spencer Macpherson as Astrid’s love interest Sparrow; and Geri Hall as Candace’s creepily religious mom Christine.
Odds and Ends
with guest Paul Sun-Hyung Lee. PHOTO CREDIT: CBC
Comedy troupe “TallBoyz” returns for its third season (Jan. 25, 9:30 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem). Some of the sketches use humour to highlight serious issues like Toronto’s rental housing crisis, ongoing boil-water advisories in Indigenous communities and gentrification pushing out mom-and-pop businesses; others are just silly fun. The highlight in the season opener is guest star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee of “Kim’s Convenience.”
Prime Video debuts “The Legend of Vox Machina” (Jan. 28, Prime Video), the offshoot of a popular web series called “Critical Role,” which featured a group of voice actors streaming their “Dungeons and Dragons” campaigns. They reprise their roles in this animated show as a hard-drinking group of mercenaries for hire — a mix of humans, elves and one horny gnome — who call themselves Vox Machina and get conscripted to defeat a monster that’s terrorizing the kingdom of Tal’Dorei.
Netflix offerings this week include cliched action drama “In From the Cold” (Jan. 28), with Margarita Levieva (“The Deuce”) as a former Russian spy who has to work for the CIA when her ordinary single mom cover is blown; the mystery-spoofing miniseries “The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window” (Jan. 28), starring Kristen Bell; and “Getting Curious With Jonathan Van Ness” (Jan. 28), in which the “Queer Eye” grooming expert spins off his podcast of the same name.
Apple TV Plus has comedy murder mystery “The Afterparty” (Jan. 28, Apple TV Plus), which sounds like a hoot on paper given its cast of comedy vets but which, in all honesty, I found a slog after just one episode.
If you’re interested in watching people who sound like suckers for punishment in the romance department, Discovery Plus has “Love Off the Grid” (Jan. 30), in which urbanites try to give it a go with partners who live without conveniences like indoor plumbing, which would be a hard no for me.
Roku unveils its first original adult animated series, “Doomlands” (Jan. 28), a comedy from Josh O’Keefe about an outlaw, a bartender and other misfits whose habitat is a mobile pub in a wasteland.
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