SHOW OF THE WEEK: Wakefield (Oct. 18, 9 p.m., Crave)
Things are often not what they seem in this psychological dramedy from Australia.
For instance, when we first meet psychiatric nurse Nik (British actor Rudi Dharmalingam), he’s standing on the edge of a cliff in the stunningly beautiful Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Is he about to jump? That would be a logical assumption in a series whose main concern is mental illness, but as we watch we discover a more prosaic, even comedic reason for Nik’s presence on the cliff, which involves the Dexys Midnight Runners song “Come On Eileen.”
That’s not to say that Nik doesn’t have his issues, as does everyone at Wakefield hospital, patient and staff alike.
Nik is extremely gifted at his job, able to get through to the patients in a way that no one else can, but there’s trauma bubbling beneath the surface involving his absent mother. Flashbacks suggest that mental illness has marred his own family history.
Other complications include the fact that his ex-fiancee, psychiatrist Kareena Wells (Geraldine Hakewill of “Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries”), also works at Wakefield and Nik clearly isn’t over her (nor, it seems, is she over him, despite her marriage to another man). And then there’s Linda (Mandy McElhinney), the acting nurse manager, who’ll do whatever she must to hang on to the job, even if it means blackening Nik’s reputation.
Woven through Nik’s personal story are the stories of individual patients. Some get better and check out after an episode or two; some are so ill there seems little likelihood of them ever leaving Wakefield, such as the catatonically depressed Omar (Richie Miller) or Tessa (Bessie Holland), a compulsive hoarder who doesn’t see the point in living anymore.
What comes through most strongly in all these threads is a sense of shared humanity. Wellness is a continuum that everyone is on rather than a sharply defined state of being as Nik’s and the others’ journeys make clear.
I also recommend “Oscar Peterson: Black + White” by prolific documentary maker Barry Avrich, making its world streaming premiere on Crave on Oct. 22. Unfortunately, I missed my chance to screen it (totally me dropping the ball), but movie critic Peter Howell recommended it in the Toronto Star when it screened at the Toronto International Film Festival as a portrait of a “a career that redefined jazz piano, helped give civil rights a soundtrack (‘Hymn to Freedom’), and made (Peterson) a hero and influence to the likes of Quincy Jones, Jon Batiste and even Billy Joel.” It seems to me we don’t celebrates our heroes enough in Canada. Here’s a chance to appreciate one of them.
Crave also has Season 2 of the uplifting and heartfelt “We’re Here” (Oct. 18, 9 p.m.), in which “RuPaul’s Drag Race” stars Bob the Drag Queen, Eureka O’Hare and Shangela visit small towns in America to help their chosen drag kids put on a show and become more themselves in the process. And the fifth and final season of Issa Rae’s “Insecure” debuts Oct. 24.
Short Takes
Manhunt: The Night Stalker (Oct. 18, Acorn)
If you like detective dramas that focus more on the painstaking work of solving murders than lurid true crime cliches you’ll like “Manhunt: The Night Stalker.” Martin Clunes (“Doc Martin”) returns as the fictional version of real-life DCI Colin Sutton, who was called in to help with the case of the Night Stalker, a burglar and rapist who had been operating with impunity in East London for 17 years. His victims were mostly frail elderly women and sometimes men, and the series conveys the deep trauma of the attacks on the victims and their families, as well as the psychological toll of the hunt on Sutton and other officers.
Queens (Oct. 19, 10 p.m.)
Yes, 2021 has given us two shows about women of a certain age reuniting to reclaim their music careers. Whereas the Tina Fey-produced “Girls5eva” plays its 1990s girl group reunion for laughs, “Queens” leans into the drama — and sometimes the melodrama. The other major difference is that Girls5eva are a pop group; the Nasty Bitches are a hip-hop quartet. And with rapper Eve, and R&B singers Brandy Norwood and Naturi Naughton in the cast, and Swiss Beatz as the executive music producer, these women aren’t just faking it. Eve plays under-appreciated mother of five Brianna; Naughton is pastor’s wife and conflicted Christian Jill; Norwood is struggling folk singer Naomi, mother to an estranged daughter; and Nadine Velazquez (“My Name Is Earl”) rounds out the cast as disgraced TV host Valeria. Throw in Taylor Sele as manager E-Roc, whom Valeria and Naomi both lust after, and Pepi Sonuga as rapper Lil Muffin, whom the older women take under their wing, and let the female empowerment flow.
Becoming Helen Keller (Oct. 19, 9 p.m., PBS)
I sometimes wish Canada’s public broadcaster had a biography series like “American Masters,” with its exploration of luminaries, both immigrant and native-born, from all facets of American life. I never come away from an episode without learning something new. In this case, the pitifully little I knew about Helen Keller came from the 1962 movie “The Miracle Worker,” which dramatized teacher Annie Sullivan’s early instruction of Helen, who lost her hearing and sight at age one and a half. “Becoming Helen Keller” details her relationship with Annie, who taught her to read, write and communicate, and lived with her for more than 50 years, but it also fills in the blanks of Helen’s very full life as an adult. Among the many things I didn’t know: she graduated with honours from Radcliffe College, then the female equivalent of Harvard; she was a friend of Mark Twain; her books were burned by the Nazis; she was once declared one of the 10 most dangerous women in America for her social and political views; she and Annie once had a vaudeville act. Until her death in 1968, Keller advocated not only for the deaf, blind and others with disabilities, but for workers’ rights, women’s rights and the rights of Black citizens, and was America’s first goodwill ambassador. The doc also highlights her imperfections, including her brief flirtation with eugenics, none of which cancels out the good she did.
Also note that PBS has the Halloween cartoon classic “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” on Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m.
Portrayal (Oct. 24, 9 p.m., documentary Channel)
This doc by Billie Mintz is like a family history crossed with a crime drama and a thriller. Toronto’s Roman Lapshin sets out to uncover a family secret and get justice for his late grandfather, an unknown Russian Jewish painter named Vladimir Dvorkin. In 1990, as a newly arrived immigrant in Tel Aviv, Vladimir met a man at a market who offered to pay him to produce paintings, mostly portraits. That man, Oz Almog, then passed off the paintings as his own, even displaying them in an international exhibition called “Him Too??” There seems little doubt that the paintings are Vladimir’s, since he took video in his home of the portraits that later turned up in Almog’s exhibition. But when a terrified Roman finally works up the courage to confront Oz in Serbia, where he keeps the paintings, Oz says Vladimir was merely his assistant. So is Oz a thief or just an employer who enabled Vladimir’s family to pay their bills? Even Roman can’t decide.
Speaking of family secrets, CBC Gem has the Irish drama “Smother” (Oct. 22), about the uncomfortable revelations that are stirred up after a man is found dead at the foot of a cliff the day after his wife’s birthday party.
Odds and Ends
I’d love to tell you about the big budget sci-fi show “Invasion” (Oct. 22, Apple TV Plus), but reviews are embargoed until Thursday. However, I’ll have an interview with star Shamier Anderson in Saturday’s Toronto Star and online at thestar.com.
Netflix has got a few new things this week, including the Gwyneth Paltrow-branded “Sex, Love & goop” (Oct. 21), which is ostensibly about helping couples have better sex lives; the animated “Adventure Beast” (Oct. 22), about a zoologist, his niece and his assistant exploring the world and saving animals; and Season 2 of supernatural comic book series “Locke & Key” (Oct. 22).
Yep, another season of “The Bachelorette” is about to begin (Oct. 19, 8 p.m., Citytv) starring the lovely Michelle Young. I’ll be recapping it here so check for posts on Wednesdays.
If you liked all those movies about a killer doll, the series “Chucky” begins (Oct. 19, 10 p.m., Showcase), with Brad Dourif (who will forever be Doc Cochran from “Deadwood” to me) as the voice of the terrifying toy.
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