Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK
Just one acquisition this week, Corporate, and that’s already got a premiere date, which I’ll reveal in a mo. But a couple of other, previously acquired shows also have premiere dates now.
Premiere dates
Tabula Rasa (Belgium: VRT; UK: Channel 4/Walter Presents)
Premiere date: Sunday, May 6, 10pm, Channel 4
I know I said a summer airdate, but apparently it’s summer now, for this Belgian show at least. It sees Veerle Baetens playing an amnesiac who becomes a key suspect in a missing person’s case, so has to reconstruct her memories to clear her name. However, her mind fills in the gaps in her memory caused by the amnesia using dreams, hallucinations and nightmares, making the show a bit trippy.
(l-r) Aparna Nancherla, Adam Lustick, Anne Dudek, Matt Ingebretson, Jake Weisman and Lance Reddick in Corporate
Corporate (US: Comedy Central; UK: Comedy Central UK)
Premiere date: Wednesday, May 9, 10pm
Without a doubt the funniest Comedy Central programme I’ve ever seen, Corporate is a biting, nihilistic look at working for a giant corporation. Starring show creators and writers Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman as two junior executives at a genuinely evil mega-corporation, the shows alternates between pastiching the soul-destroying, abusive nature of corporate culture and the desire for the sweet release of death from said culture. Also in the cast are Lance Reddick (The Wire, Fringe) as the company CEO and Anne Dudek (House, Covert Affairs) as one of our ‘heroes’ mid-level bosses.
Do yourself a favour and watch what is almost certainly going to be one of TMINE top’s shows of 2018.
(l-r) Kristian Bruun, Jerry O’Connell and Sydney Poitier in Carter
Carter (International: AXN; UK: Alibi)
Premiere date: Wednesday, June 13, 9pm
Following on from Absentia, Gone and other “citizens of the world” (ie shows without a real country of origin), we have this new AXN comedy detective drama starring Jerry O’Connell (Sliders, Carpoolers, The Defenders) as a detective on hit US TV show Call Carter who has to return to his hometown after an embarrassing public meltdown in Hollywood. There, he taps into his acting experience to become a real detective, while dealing with all his childhood baggage.
Obviously not a hugely new concept – cf Pulaski, The World of Eddie Weary and The Grinder – Jerry O’Connell is something of a show killer and AXN shows tend to be bland in their desperate attempt to be American, without actually being American, but it might be good.
Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK
Only a couple of new acquisitions this week but they’ve both got premiere dates, so let’s not dawdle. But I will note that streaming services (mostly Netflix but also Walter Presents) have started two new trends of late:
Acquisitions that no one knows about but are suddenly just available to watch
Acquisitions that are announced and the programmes in questions are available to watch instantly.
You’ll see what I mean in a mo.
Premiere dates
Le Chalet (The Chalet) (France: France 2; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date: Available since Tuesday
“Friends gathered at a remote chalet in the French Alps for a summer getaway are caught in a deadly trap as a dark secret from the past comes to light.”
What Netflix doesn’t tell you is that it’s typically French in that it’s based on an Agatha Christie novel – And Then There WereNone. It’s also typically French in that it’s got Gilou from Engrenages (Spiral) in it.
Alicia von Rittberg as Ida in Charité
Charité (Germany: ARD/Das Erste; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date: Available now
Six-part medical series, set in Berlin in 1888, in which Ida (Alicia von Rittberg) is operated on as a patient of the Charité and is forced to pay back her treatment costs by working as a nursing assistant under the bigoted regiment of deaconess Martha. Through this, she discovers her passion for medicine and is able to follow her free and rebellious spirit in its desire to live a self-determined future, in an age when women hardly had a right to higher education. Along the way, she meets extraordinary physicians such as Rudolf Virchow, as well as researchers and later Nobel Laureates Robert Koch, Emil von Behring, and Paul Ehrlich.
Acquired yesterday. Made available… yesterday. Amazing, hey?
Vlucht HS13 (Flight HS13) (The Netherlands: NPO3; UK: Walter Presents)
Premiere date: Tuesday, April 24, 11pm
This was acquired nearly a year and a half ago, but Walter only just got round to telling us it’ll air next week. Nice work, Walt.
Liv (Katja Schuurman) has the perfect life: happily married to surgeon Simon, they have a son, she co-owns a successful design business and shares a beautiful home. However, her life is suddenly turned upside down when her husband goes on a business trip and his plane crashes. Her grieving is dramatically halted when she discovers from the passenger list that her husband never actually boarded the plane.
It transpires that upon arriving at the airport to supposedly take his flight, he went straight to arrivals where, CCTV reveals, he greeted another woman and young child. Her husband appears to have a secret life and is now missing.
Confused, betrayed and angry, Flight HS13 follows Liv’s mission to find her husband, a journey which will uncover a tangled web of corruption, blackmail and violence.
Let’s Get Physical (US: Pop; UK: E4)
Premiere date: Thursday, May 3, 9:30pm
Dodgeball but with aerobics and Jane Seymour and without many jokes.
Created by Harlan Coben and written by Danny Brocklehurst (The Five, Come Home), Safe sees widowed surgeon Tom Delaney (Dexter‘s Michael C Hall) begin unearthing dark secrets about the people closest to him after his teenage daughter goes missing. The cast also includes Amanda Abbington, Marc Warren, Audrey Fleurot and Hannah Arterton.
Pretty interesting mix of Brits and international cast members, in a UK setting (at least in the trailer), but I’m not sure about Hall’s accent. It’s a bit Orphan Black, if you know what I mean. Despite the presence of Engrenages (Spiral)‘s Audrey Fleurot, it’s not typically French though.
