The Politician
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including Light As A Feather, Stella Blómkvist, Special, Chambers and The Politician

Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK

A couple of acquisitions this week, but only one without a premiere date. I should also point out that I’ve already mentioned that The Murders (Canada: CityTV; UK: Universal) now has a premiere date in my review of it this week.

The Bad Seed

Acquisitions

Premiere dates

Light as a Feather
Light as a Feather (© Rachael Thompson/Hulu)

Light as a Feather (US: Hulu; UK: All 4)
Premiere date: Monday, April 1

Four best friends invite the shy new girl out on Halloween, but they soon regret their decision when she suggests they play a twisted version of Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.

That’s basically the story, with the slight fillip of one of them possibly already being possessed before they play the game. Not scary, not exciting. Didn’t get further than episode one.

Stars: Brianne Tju, Ajiona Alexus, Peyton List, Brent Rivera, Liana Liberato and Haley Ramm.

Episode reviews: 1

Stella Blomkvist

Stella Blómkvist (Iceland: Sjónvarp Símans; UK: Sundance Now)
Premiere date: Thursday, April 4

Stella Blómkvist is a young, cute, libertine, tough, confident, intelligent, Icelandic lawyer with a flexible moral compass, who investigates mysterious murder cases. A friend at the police calls her when there’s a criminal in need of a lawyer.

Netflix's Special
Punam Patel and Ryan O’Connell in Netflix’s Special

Special (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, April 12

US Netflix Original based on Ryan O’Connell’s memoir I’m Special: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves. It follows Ryan, a gay man with mild cerebral palsy, who decides to rewrite his identity and finally go after the life he wants. After years of dead-end internships, working in his pyjamas as a blogger and communicating mostly via text, Ryan eventually figured out how to take his life from bleak to chic and began limping towards adulthood.

Stars Ryan O’Connell, Jessica Hecht, Punam Patel, Marla Mindelle, Augustus Prew, and Patrick Fabian.

Uma Thurman and Tony Goldwyn in Netflix's Chambers
Uma Thurman and Tony Goldwyn in Netflix’s Chambers

Chambers (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, April 26

US Netflix Original. A young heart attack survivor becomes consumed by the mystery surrounding the heart that saved her life. But the closer she gets to learning the truth about her donor’s sudden death, the more she takes on the characteristics of the deceased, some of which are troublingly sinister.

Stars: Uma Thurman and Tony Goldwyn

The Politician

The Politician (Netflix UK)
Premiere date: Friday, September 27

US Netflix Original. The Politician follows Payton Hobart, a wealthy student from Santa Barbara, California, who has known since the age of seven that he’s going to be President of the United States. But first he’ll have to navigate the most treacherous political landscape of all: Saint Sebastian High School.

To get elected Student Body President, secure a spot at Harvard, and stay on his singular path to success, Payton will have to outsmart his ruthless classmates without sacrificing his own morality and carefully crafted image.

Stars: Ben Platt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Lange, Zoey Deutch, Lucy Boynton, Bob Balaban, David Corenswet, Julia Schlaepfer, Laura Dreyfuss, Theo Germaine, Rahne Jones and Benjamin Barrett.

Light as a Feather
News

The Bad Seed, Light As A Feather acquired; The Order renewed; + more

Every weekday, TMINE brings you the latest TV news from around the world

Internet TV

French TV

UK TV

US TV

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

What We Do In The Shadows
US TV

Review: What We Do In The Shadows 1×1 (US: FX; UK: BBC Two)

In the US: Wednesdays, 10pm, FX
In the UK: Sundays, BBC Two. Starts May 19

As a rule, TV versions of films aren’t usually that much cop. Sure, there are exceptions (eg Hannibal, La Femme Nikita), but largely you watch a movie, tune in to see the TV series and are disappointed that either it doesn’t capture the strengths of the original or it’s just the movie again and doesn’t do anything new. FX (US)’s adaptation of What We Do In The Shadows is therefore a rarity, as it both embodies many of the movie’s best qualities and transcends them to become its own, even better beast.

I wasn’t hugely impressed when I recently watched 2014’s What We Do In The Shadows in preparation for this FX adaptation. Three vampires flat-sharing in New Zealand? You could predict most of the jokes just from that description. Lots of jokes about whose turn it is to clean up after the latest round of blood-sucking, house meetings, that sort of thing.

Perhaps what you might not have predicted is just how many darker vampiric horror tropes the movie would incorporate, but given it was by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok), I was expecting something a whole lot funnier.

Directed by Waititi and written by Clement, the first episode at least of What We Do In The Shadows seems to be an attempt to get the formula right this time.

Continue reading “Review: What We Do In The Shadows 1×1 (US: FX; UK: BBC Two)”
Crime dans l'Hérault
News

Sex and the City follow-up; Crime dans le Lubéron sequel; John Simm joins Game of Thrones prequel; + more

Every weekday, TMINE brings you the latest TV news from around the world

European TV

UK TV

US TV

  • Trailer for season 2 of BBC America’s Killing Eve
  • Trailer for season 4 of TNT’s Animal Kingdom

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

Babylon Berlin
Competitions

Competition time: win a copy of Babylon Berlin on DVD

It’s been a little while, I know, since the previous TMINE competition. But look at this! Here’s a chance to win series one and two of Babylon Berlin on DVD and there’ll be a chance to win Deutschland ’86 in a few weeks, too.

Babylon Berlin, of course, was one of TMINE’s Top 14 Shows of 2017. But in case you don’t know about it, here’s the Spiel (did you see what I did there?)

THE CRITICALLY acclaimed, multi award winning hit German period drama Babylon Berlin follows a young police inspector uncovering a tangled web of corruption amongst the political, social and sexual extremes of the Weimar Republic. Making waves at home and internationally after its run on Sky Atlantic, and with its third series due later this year, Babylon Berlin Series One & Two Box Set is set to arrive on DVD courtesy of Acorn Media International.

The lavish, $40m series is Germany’s most expensive drama to date, and explores a metropolis in turmoil: growing poverty stands in stark contrast to the excesses and indulgence of the night life in 1929 Berlin.

Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch), an ex-soldier from Cologne, is transferred to Berlin to investigate one of Berlin’s biggest pornography rings, together with stenotypist Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries) and his partner Bruno Wolter (Peter Kurth). Rath is forced into an existential conflict, torn between loyalty and uncovering the truth as an even greater conspiracy unfolds: Soviet rebels confronting the rise of National Socialism. Berlin’s police headquarters increasingly become the melting pot of a democracy whose days are numbered.

The social climate and political factors that coalesce into a growth in power of the populist far-right has striking political relevance even now, 90 years after the show is set. With a rare 100% critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, Babylon Berlin is perfect for your next box set binge.

Babylon Berlin Series One & Two will be available digitally to download and keep from iTunes, Amazon Prime Video and Google Play on 1 March 2019 and arrives on DVD as a four-disc box set on 1 April 2019.

Continue reading “Competition time: win a copy of Babylon Berlin on DVD”