Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK
A big bunch of premiere dates this week, with only one new show getting picked up with just a vague date (“Some time in August“) – ABC (US)’s pretty dreadful Ten Days In The Valley. Otherwise, we know where and when all of the following will be showing up on UK TV and laptop screens:
Premiere dates
Kim’s Convenience (Canada: CBC; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date: Today
Adaptation of the hugely successful Canadian stage play about a Korean family who run a convenience store. Fun but not always the funniest, I enjoyed it enough to stick around for three episodes at least.
The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (US: BritBox; UK: ITV)
Premiere date: Wednesday, July 25, 9pm
US-made spin-off of ITV’s The Bletchley Circle that sees a bunch of former Bletchley Park codebreakers head off to San Francisco, where they link up with some American code-breaking friends to solve crimes.
White Famous (US: Showtime; UK: Sky Atlantic)
Premiere date: Wednesday, July 25, 11:05pm
Series supposedly based on the life of Jamie Foxx, in which comedian Jay Pharoah decides he wants to be famous not just to black people but to white people as well. And that’s going to involve some compromises, some of which might involve dealing with the rather bizarre ‘Jamie Foxx’.
Sometimes funny because of its takes on ‘soft racism’, it felt more like a weak Entourage and Jamie Foxx wanting to get a few things off his chest than anything worthwhile.
Episode reviews: 1
Insatiable (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, August 10
Insatiable tells the story of Patty, who for years has been bullied, ignored, and underestimated by those around her because of her weight. But now that she finds herself suddenly thin, Patty is out for payback against anyone who has ever made her feel bad about herself. Bob Armstrong, a disgraced attorney whose true passion is coaching beauty pageant contestant, is the only one who sees Patty’s potential, and takes her under his wing – first as a legal client, and then as a pageant contestant whom he coaches toward becoming the top pageant queen in the country. But Bob and his wife Coralee have no idea how deep Patty’s rage goes, or how far she will go to exact revenge on anyone who has ever wronged her. Bullies beware: payback’s a bitch, revenge is sweet, and if you cross Patty, you’ll be her next treat.
The comedy series, which was created by Lauren Gussis, stars Debby Ryan, Dallas Roberts, Alyssa Milano, Christopher Gorham, Erinn Westbrook, Michael Provost, Kimmy Shields, Irene Choi and Sarah Colonna. The executive producers are Lauren Gussis, Ryan Seacrest, Nina Wass, Andrea Shay, Todd Hoffman, Dennis Kim and Andy Fleming.
The Outpost (US: The CW; UK: Syfy)
Premiere date: Monday, August 13, 9pm
I’ve just watched the first episode of this, so consider it a review as well, to save me writing a full review.
The Outpost follows Jessica Green, ‘a strong female hero’ and the lone survivor of a race called ‘Blackbloods’. Years after her entire village is destroyed by a gang of brutal mercenaries, Talon travels to a lawless fortress on the edge of the civilised world, as she tracks the killers of her family. On her journey to this outpost, Talon discovers she possesses a mysterious supernatural power that she must learn to control in order to save herself, and defend the world against a fanatical religious dictator.
And it’s dreadful. It’s nearly unwatchable, low-budget, badly written, terribly acted dredge that is a throw-back to the syndicated likes of Relic Hunter in the 90s. If you make it past the first minute of plot-dumping dialogue, I’ll be surprised.
It desperately wants to be Game of Thrones, but it doesn’t come close to even the qualities of the somewhat similar The New Legends of Monkey – somewhat similar in that it not only features our heroine wandering around some nondescript fantasy realm, fighting mildly-threatening fantasy things, it’s stuffed full of Australians. While the present day antics are almost unwatchable, the little momentum they have is broken up by dreadful flashbacks to Green’s childhood in which everyone speaks a ludicrous made-up language (sorry in advance if it turns out to be Gaelic, as there are a lot of Irish actors around, too). Except they only speak it for about five seconds at a time before switching to English for no reason then starting again a minute later. The child who plays the younger Green looks so unlike her, too, it makes me wonder if that’s potentially even a plot point.
The fights are about the best bit of it, although the direction is so poor that you’ll spot every time a stuntwoman subs in for Green. Avoid like the zombie-alien plague. No, really. They have zombies with Alien mouths.
Ghoul (Netflix)
Premiere date: Tuesday, August 28
Three-part Indian horror series about a prisoner who arrives at a remote military interrogation centre and turns the tables on his captors, exposing their most shameful secrets.
