Watchable the week of Oct. 12, 2020

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Star Trek: Discovery (Oct. 15, 9 p.m., CTV Sci-Fi Channel)

Season 3 of “Discovery” is going where no other show in the “Star Trek” franchise has gone before, boldly or otherwise, 930 years into the future, which means we’re now in the 32nd century instead of the 23rd.

You may recall that at the end of the second season — in a convoluted plot that I have to confess I had a hard time wrapping my brain around — Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), in a special “red angel” suit, had to jump into the future through a wormhole with the Discovery following behind, because otherwise the evil AI entity known as Control would use information accessible on the Discovery to wipe out the galaxy. Phew.

In the new season, the jump has been made. I won’t tell you where they land or in what order or about the new alien species and technology they encounter, because that would be spoilers.

I also won’t tell you what I think of the three episodes I’ve seen so far, because reviews are embargoed until the day the new season debuts. I’ll just tell you what Sonequa and Mary Wiseman, who plays Tilly, had to say when I interviewed them in January.

“Having to acclimate to this future is going to be a challenge for everyone,” Sonequa said. “And a big part of our journey in Season 3 is figuring out where we are. What is the state of affairs in this future now? What does science look like? How has technology advanced even further?”

She also said the season doesn’t “leave any stone unturned” in dealing with the emotional changes members of the crew experience.

Mary said relationships among the crew have become heightened “when you jump 930 years in the future and everyone you’ve ever known is long, long passed away. Those relationships are imbued with a greater power and it raises the stakes on a storytelling perspective.”

You can read my full interview with Sonequa and Mary here.

If you’ve been following “Discovery” news online, you already know about the new cast additions this season, including Book, played by David Ajala; Adira, a nonbinary character played by nonbinary actor Blu del Barrio; and Gray, a transgender character played by trans actor Ian Alexander.

Howie Mandel: But, Enough About Me (Oct. 12, 9 p.m., CTV)

Contrary to what you might expect from a showbiz documentary, there’s a fair amount of humility to be found in this film about Toronto-born comedian, actor and TV host Howie Mandel. 

Mandel delights in revisiting his old haunts in Toronto, including Northview Heights Secondary School, the former location of Yuk Yuk’s comedy club and the North York synagogue where he got married, and he unironically describes getting a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame as the pinnacle of his career.

He also candidly discusses the highs of that career (playing the Comedy Store, doing “The Tonight Show” 21 times, “St. Elsewhere,” “Deal or No Deal”) and the lows (getting kicked off “The Tonight Show” and all his offers drying up after the cancellation of his shortlived daytime talk show). 

Mandel, now an “America’s Got Talent” judge, also talks candidly about his struggles with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, anxiety and ADHD.

Throughout the doc, directed by Barry Avrich, you get the sense of someone who’s simply delighted to still be working. Mandel, who calls his family his legacy, says what’s important is that “me and the people I’ve had the responsibility of raising are nice,” which sounds very Canadian indeed.

And since we’re talking about Canadians and comedy, the CTV Comedy Channel has the third season of “Corner Gas Animated” (Oct. 12, 9 p.m.) bringing you more of the style of humour that Brent Butt and crew perfected in six seasons of “Corner Gas.” In the first episode, Davis (Lorne Cardinal) has to plan a last-minute epic birthday party for Karen (Tara Spencer-Nairn) and you can guess how well that goes.

Des (Oct. 15, Sundance Now)

If you’re a David Tennant fan (and how could you not be? “Broadchurch,” “Good Omens,” “Jessica Jones,” “Doctor Who,” “Blackpool,” etc.) check him out playing real-life Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen, a.k.a Des, in this true-crime drama.

Nilsen — whom Tennant looks creepily alike in costume — was convicted of six counts of murder in 1983, although he confessed to killing 15 young men whom he had brought back to his London apartment.

The series is based on the book “Killing for Company” by Brian Masters, who’s played by Jason Watkins in the show. The fascination for Masters — and likely for viewers too — is how ordinary Nilsen seemed. The series portrays him as so beloved by his office mates that they refused to let police search his office without a warrant since they couldn’t fathom him being a killer.

In the first episode, a young man reports encountering Dennis three years before he was caught and escaping when Dennis tried to strangle him. His story at the time was dismissed by police as “a lovers’ tiff.” It put me in mind of Toronto serial killer Bruce McArthur, who was arrested but not charged in 2016 after a man said McArthur tried to strangle him. Almost three years later, McArthur pleaded guilty to eight murders.

Enslaved (Oct. 17, 9 p.m., documentary; Oct. 18, 9 p.m., CBC and CBC Gem)

This Canadian-U.K. co-production presents a new take on the shameful history of the slave trade by focusing not on the ships that successfully carried captured Africans to countries like Brazil, England, the United States and Cuba, but the ones that were lost on the journey.

The first episode focuses on a Spanish slave ship called the Guerrero that sank off the Florida Reef in a battle with a British ship charged with stopping illegal slave vessels. Forty-one enslaved Africans went down with the Guerrero. The groups Diving With a Purpose and the National Association of Black Scuba Divers collaborate with marine archeologist Corey Malcom to find what’s left of the Guerrero underwater by tracking the iron objects that the crew of its adversary, the Nimble, threw overboard to avoid grounding on the reef.

“This is a grave site. I’m humbled,” says diver Alannah Vellacott after finding an artifact that appears to have come from the Guerrero.

Meanwhile, American actor Samuel L. Jackson, an executive producer of “Enslaved,” goes on a very personal journey, to connect with his enslaved ancestors by visiting a Benga village in Gabon, West Africa. In a ceremony that is usually closed to outsiders, Jackson is reunited with his tribe.

The six-part series, directed by long-time documentary-maker Simcha Jacobovici, makes it clear that slavery is part of the present as well as the past. Each episode focuses on a search for a sunken slave vessel, a personal journey by Jackson, and a historical investigation by Jacobovici and journalist Afua Hirsch.

Odds and ends

There’s so much more stuff coming up this week. We’ll start with Netflix, which has “Grand Army” debuting Oct. 16. It’s a social, sexual, political coming-of-age story set in a racially diverse Brooklyn high school and focusing on five students in particular. It was shot in Toronto, which I sometimes found distracting because some of the landmarks were so obviously not Brooklyn, but that’s just me. There’s also “Social Distance” on Oct. 15. The title pretty much sums it up since it was created, cast and produced in quarantine and is about people dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in ways that will be very familiar to viewers. One of the episodes I screened, for instance, was about a woman teaching her college students remotely, whose mother is about to be locked down in her nursing home and whose support worker has to supervise her daughter via webcam since she can’t get child care.

The critically acclaimed reboot of “One Day at a Time,” which stars Justina Machado and Rita Moreno, and has updated the white single mother and family of the original to a Cuban American clan, comes to network TV, with its fourth season beginning Oct. 12 at 9 p.m. on Global.

Disney Plus has the movie tearjerker “Clouds” (Oct. 16), which is based on the true story of Zach Sobiech, an American teen who died of cancer in 2013. A song he recorded and posted on YouTube, called “Clouds,” went viral before his death and is still racking up views, while a fund in his name continues to raise money for osteosarcoma research. Fin Argus stars as Zach. Disney Plus also has the wildlife series “Meet the Chimps” (Oct. 16), shot in the Chimp Haven sanctuary in Louisiana.

If you’re in the mood for documentaries, CBC has “The Killing of Phillip Boudreau” (Oct. 17, 8 p.m. on “CBC Docs POV”), about the 2013 slaying in a small Nova Scotia community of Boudreau, who was known for poaching lobster from the local fishermen. He was shot and drowned by another boat crew, a crime that still divides the town. TVO has “Margin of Error” (Oct. 17, 9 p.m.), which looks at political polling and, in particular, an Ottawa startup whose artificial intelligence, nicknamed Polly, seems to do a better job than traditional pollsters of predicting elections.

I enjoyed it so much when I saw it during the Toronto International Film Festival that I have to recommend the Spike Lee film “David Byrne’s American Utopia,” which airs on HBO Oct. 17 at 8 p.m.

Finally — deep breath — Season 2 of the middle school cringe comedy “PEN15” begins on CBC Gem on Oct. 16. And PBS has “The Trouble With Maggie Cole” (Oct. 18, 8 p.m.), starring beloved British comedian Dawn French.