For the past two weeks, TMINE has been running a competition to win one of two boxsets of seasons one and two of the rather marvellous Babylon Berlin on DVD.
All you had to do to enter was ‘Like’ the TMINE Facebook page and leave a comment on the competition entry post. Since Disqus malfunctioned for at least one person, I allowed commenting on the Facebook post announcing the competition for said person.
Entry closed last night and the following people were all smart and talented enough to want to have Babylon Berlin on DVD and to follow the instructions:
Look at the advanced technology that runs TMINE, hey? Have you ever seen its like before?
Anyway, as usual, together with the mighty power of the Internet Random Number Generator, I’ve picked two people at random from the entries to receive the DVDs. And they are…
In the US: Thursdays, 9pm ET, The CW In the UK: Not yet acquired
There is considerable feminist discourse around the concept of ‘likability’. Female politicians, such as Hillary Clinton, are considered ‘unlikable’ and therefore considered vote-losers, in a way male politicians rarely are. Does anyone think Rand Paul or Chuck Schumer are likeable? No, yet they still get elected and are considered (for some reason) via politicians.
In the Dark feels like an effort to push ‘the Overton Window‘ on female ‘likability’ using the ingenious aegis of disability. It sees Perry Mattfeld (Shameless US) playing Murphy, a woman whose life is a bit of a mess. She became blind at the age of 14 and was fostered by the owners of a guide dog charity (The West Wing‘s Kathleen York and The Whispers‘s Derek Webster), for which she now ‘works’. I say works, because most of the time she’s getting drunk, waking up from a one-night-stand or both. Or is off smoking with a teenage drunk-dealer who once saved her life.
Mattfield is even more self-destructive than that sounds. “You only care about yourself,” York yells at her after Mattfield has just slept with a married donor to the impoverished charity, resulting in the cancellation of his wife’s $10,000 donation.
“It’s pretty obvious I don’t care about myself. At all,” Mattfield replies.
Which isn’t entirely true, though. While most of the first episode revolves around Mattfield’s self-destruction and self-pity, there is another thread to the plot: the disappearance and possible murder of her teenage drug-dealer friend. That prompts Mattfield to try to persuade everyone that he has disappeared, even though his body goes missing soon after she finds it.
When that fails, she tries to solve the crime herself, with a little help from her friend Brooke Markham (Foursome) and the missing drug-dealer’s cousin/boss (Blood and Oil‘s Keston John).
Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK
Acquisitions
The following shows have been acquired this week, but don’t yet have a premiere date:
Paramount UK has picked up Paramount US’s forthcoming Emily in Paris. That’s not gone into production and won’t air in the US until 2020, so let’s not be too harsh on them for not telling us when we can watch it over here.
BBC One has acquired Acorn (US)’s London Kills. That’s BBC One importing a US drama filmed in London from a US network dedicated to importing UK TV shows. My head hurts.
More 4 has bought up Global (Canada)’s Mary Kills People. No idea why they can’t tell us when that’s airing.
Oops, I missed it
Meanwhile, in a new sub-feature of “When’s that show starting?”, I’m going to be highlighting foreign shows that have had airdates announced but which I somehow missed or that didn’t and have just become available in the UK. Oops.
Anna Loos and Matthias Matschke in ZDF (Germany)’s Helen Dorn
Helen Dorn (Anna Loos) is an expert police commissioner, whose years of experience have given her a killer instinct when it comes to crime. Fearless and tenacious, her drive and perseverance have won her a reputation for being the best in her field. Despite a robust and resilient exterior, she hides a vulnerable side which is grounded in her past.
On the department head’s orders, Helen Dorn become involuntary partners with Detective Chief Superintendent Gregor Georgi (Matthias Matschke), with Helen in the role of Georgi’s superior. After initially ruffling some feathers, as Gregor thought he was about to take over a case as head investigator and not confronted with a new superior, the two prove to be a solid pairing: Helen’s famed intuition is matched by Gregor’s rational analysis and precision. But will he be able to unearth her mysterious past?
Based on the sci-fi novels of Vadim Panov about “the other” Moscow where in a parallel reality the last representatives of the disappeared civilizations live. For thousands of years in the territory of Moscow there existed another – the Secret City, inhabited by those who ruled long before humans.
I know literally nothing about this and I’ve been able to find out about the same. Can’t even find a trailer. But it’s here.
