Watchable the week of March 15, 2021

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Bloodlands (March 15, Acorn)

I love British detective dramas, but there are so many of them that they can seem to blend together until something like a “Broadchurch” comes along.

“Bloodlands,” from producer Jed Mercurio, known for the enormously popular “Line of Duty” and “Bodyguard,” distinguishes itself both with its strong sense of place and its surprising plot twists.

It’s set and filmed in Northern Ireland (coincidentally, also where some of “Line of Duty” shoots, filling in for the British Midlands), which is where lead actor James Nesbitt (“Murphy’s Law,” “Jekyll,” “The Missing”) is from.

Here he’s Belfast detective and widowed father Tom Brannick and his personal past is intertwined with his investigation.

The drama turns on the apparent kidnapping of a former senior IRA member. That case is already sensitive enough — a firebomb outside the police station makes the point that the Troubles may be over, but they’re not forgotten — but the fact it might be connected to a two-decades-old cold case makes it even more of a hot potato.

The older case involves the kidnapping and possible assassination of four people by a killer nicknamed “Goliath.” The case was never fully investigated since the crimes happened at a particularly volatile time, just before the signing of the Good Friday peace agreement in 1998, but Tom is as determined to dig it back up as his boss (Lorcan Cranitch) is to keep it buried. Tom is backed in this by partner Niamh McGovern (Charlene McKenna, “Ripper Street”).

Part of the enjoyment of “Bloodlands” is that it doesn’t go where you think it’s going to, at least in the two episodes I was given to review. And there’s something to be said for keeping viewers guessing.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League (March 18, Crave)

I can’t believe I watched a four-hour superhero movie. I don’t even particularly like superheroes — unless you’re talking about the gloriously campy 1960s TV “Batman” —  but because of all the talk about the “Snyder cut” I devoted most of my Saturday afternoon to this film. And my verdict? It was . . . a four-hour superhero movie.

If you like CGI smash-’em-up action, superhero mythology and the oeuvre of Zack Snyder (“300,” “Wonder Woman,” “Batman v Superman”) then this is the movie for you.

I never saw the 2017 version of “Justice League,” the one Joss Whedon finished directing after Snyder had to step away due to the tragedy of his daughter’s suicide, so I can’t compare the two. But it’s my understanding the story is basically the same: after the death of Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck) gathers a group of superheroes, including Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and the Flash (Ezra Miller) to defeat an otherworldly villain named Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds). The evil one has come with his band of parademons (which remind me a bit of scarier, high-tech versions of the flying monkeys from “The Wizard of Oz”) to destroy Earth.

This involves finding and reuniting three “mother boxes” containing alien technology that have been hidden for centuries by the Amazons (Wonder Woman’s tribe), the Atlanteans (Aquaman’s people) and humans, specifically scientist Silas Stone (Joe Morton), father of Cyborg, a.k.a. Victor Stone. 

We also glimpse Martian Manhunter (Barry Lennix), Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello), Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), the Joker (Jared Leto) and Darkseid (Ray Porter) among other characters, superpowered and not. The movie is seriously packed with serious actors, including a high ratio of Oscar winners and nominees: Jeremy Irons (Alfred), J.K. Simmons (Commissioner Gordon), Willem Dafoe (Vulko), Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Diane Lane (Superman’s mother Martha).

It’s also packed with back stories, exposition and tangents that have nothing to do with the plot. And did I mention the action scenes? The Amazons fight Steppenwolf, the Atlanteans fight Steppenwolf, the Justice League fights Steppenwolf more than once and at great length. There are also action sequences that have nothing to do with the plot, like Wonder Woman saving a building full of schoolchildren that’s about to be blown up.

And just when you think the movie has reached the end — world saved, job done — there’s another sequence and another sequence and another sequence and a dream sequence and a final sequence that seems to be setting us up for the sequel.

The one useful message we can take from all this is that working together is better than going it alone, an apt lesson in these COVID times, but you don’t need four hours to get that across.

Q: Into the Storm (March 21, 11 p.m., HBO, Crave)

You’re going to need time and focus for this docuseries, accurately described in the press materials as “labyrinthine.”

It documents the three-year quest of filmmaker Cullen Hoback to unmask the person or persons behind QAnon, the internet movement connected to extremist conspiracy theories and the riot at the U.S. Capitol building. Is it a high ranking former Trump aide? A member of the military? A troll who’s just messing with people?

I’m not sure what Hoback concluded because I had time to screen only two of the six episodes, in which Hoback interviewed Q true believers, some of the Qtubers who interpret Q’s cryptic “drops,” members of the mainstream media (considered the enemies of Q); and the people behind internet boards like 4chan and 8chan where Q spread his message, including Paul Furber, Fredrick Brennan, Jim Watkins and Ron Watkins, a.k.a. Codemonkey.

If the foregoing paragraph leaves you saying “What? Who?” — yeah, it’s a lot to take in and, like I said, that’s just two episodes.

What I saw left me alternately depressed, alarmed, fascinated, perplexed and wondering what the hell to make of a world in which people seriously believe that U.S. political institutions were run by a cabal of child-eating pedophiles until Trump came along.

Short Takes

The rich are different from you and me, F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously wrote. That’s abundantly clear in “Operation Varsity Blues” (March 17, Netflix) about the American college admissions scandal, in which 33 well-to-do parents were charged with using bribery to get their children into elite colleges. The focus here is mainly on Rick Singer, the mastermind of the scheme. His “side door” into the institutions involved giving the offspring false athletic credentials in exchange for donations to his “foundation,” which then found their way to the school officials who put the “athletes” up for admission. The film is a combination of documentary and drama, with actors, including Matthew Modine as Singer, portraying the people who were part of the scheme. Singer’s “side door” was a bargain for the parents, who would pay much more to get their kids in through the “back door,” i.e. steep donations to the schools of their choice. Singer’s plot may have been shut down, but the film makes clear that the back door remains wide open.

Also coming to Netflix this week is “Waffles + Mochi” (March 16), in which a pair of puppets teach kids about food and culture with the help of former first lady Michelle Obama. “Country Comfort” (March 19) has Katharine McPhee of “American Idol” fame starring as an aspiring country singer who becomes nanny to a hunky widower (Eddie Cibrian) with five kids. So “The Sound of Music” with a twang?

These days my appreciation of nature is mostly limited to looking out the window at the handful of trees in my backyard, so the beautiful landscapes featured in “Stories From the Land” (March 19, CBC Gem) are a welcome sight. The series is a continuation of the “Stories From the Land” podcast by Anishinaabe comedian Ryan McMahon. Its four episodes take us to various parts of Ontario and explore the connection between its subjects and nature, and how it nurtures their sense of identity as Indigenous people. It may also spark curiosity about things you’ve never considered, like the burial mounds at Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre in northwestern Ontario or the traditional importance of the birch tree to the people of Fort William First Nation as a source of shelter, transportation, medicine and art.

Take the classic high school preoccupations of romance and popularity, add the pressure of trying to stay true to your proletarian roots while fitting in with your capitalist school mates, and you’ve got “The Communist’s Daughter” (March 19, CBC Gem). Sofia Banzhaf (“Bitten”) is Dunyasha, the daughter of devoted, Lada-driving communists Ian (Aaron Poole) and Carol (Jessica Holmes). Ryan Taerk is brother Boris and Oleg (Vieslav Krystyan), who might be a former Soviet hitman, lives in the basement. It’s 1989, TV and any other forms of “American imperialism” are banned in the McDougald home and Dunyasha can’t even get support from the family council for a haircut so she can compete with her rival, Moscow transplant Tatiana (Zoe Cleland). The web series was created by Leah Cameron (“Coroner”) and is produced by LoCo Motion Pictures, the company behind “How to Buy a Baby” and “My 90-Year-Old Roommate.”