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

Better Things
News

Better Things renewed; Serbian-Croatian Bridge; CinéFrance’s Proust search; + more

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

Film

Internet TV

French TV

European TV

UK TV

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV show casting

Origin
News

Origin cancelled; Frankie Drake, Murdoch Mysteries, 911, The Resident, et al renewed; + more

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

Internet TV

  • YouTube cancels: Origin and Overthinking with Kat & June
  • Apple to launch Apple TV+ streaming service on Apple devices, Roku, Amazon Fire et al starting in May
  • Trailer for Apple’s The Morning Show, See, Dickinson, For All Mankind, et al
  • Netflix green lights: Norwegian 24-hour partner hunt comedy-drama Home For Christmas, with Elise Broch, Felix Sandman, Kingsford Siayor et al…
  • …and Turkish supernatural drama The Gift, with Beren Saat

Canadian TV

  • CBC renews: Frankie Drake Mysteries, Murdoch Mysteries, Heartland, Kim’s Convenience, Burden of Truth et al

European TV

International TV

UK TV

US TV

  • Fox renews: 911 and The Resident
  • Trailer for season 4B of The CW’s DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

  • Trailers for CBS All Access’ The Twilight Zone
  • HBO developing: drama set in Sebastian A Jones’s Asunda universe

New US TV show casting

The OA
Streaming TV

Boxset Monday: The OA – Part II (Netflix)

Available on Netflix

When The OA first came to Netflix, it was to minimal fanfare. Just as Stranger Things came to us with almost no publicity, so The OA came with a not especially informative trailer and a title and that was about it.

Then, of course, we got to watch them and marvel in projects that at times bordered on genius. The first season of The OA wasn’t exactly plain sailing or without its ups and downs, however. Indeed, it took me a little while to get through all the episodes, rather than just boxsetting them (episode reviews: 1, 2-4, 5-8).

But Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij’s story about a blind girl (Marling) who disappeared and then reappeared seven years later, her sight restored, and now claiming to be ‘The OA’ (the original angel), was nevertheless a stunningly original piece of work, unlike pretty much anything you’ll see on TV, outside David Lynch’s most auteured piece. In parts supernatural, in parts fairy tale, it was a musing on a musing on the power of storytelling – and of the need to tell stories – as well as of art, music, dance, nature, life, love, masculinity, femininity and more.

The ending, however, wasn’t so much ambiguous as diminishing, suggesting that the whole thing was just made up by The OA based on things she’d seen and read, in the style of The Usual Suspects.

Marling also suggested that she hadn’t even considered a second season and that was that for the story – until the show’s success inevitably resulted in its renewal.

Britt Marling in Netflix’s The OA

A fairytale sequel

What then for season two – or Part II as it now is? How do you create a sequel to a fairy tale? And how do you do it when you no longer have the element of surprise, as you did with your first season?

As you might expect, Marling’s answer is not whatever answer you just came up with but is something staggeringly different. Indeed, there’s one key line in Part II that sums it up: “I think logic is over-rated.”

And I mean that in a good way, because in terms of ideas, I’d say Britt Marling is the closest we now have to a young, female David Lynch. Or maybe David Lynch is just the older male version of Marling.

Continue reading “Boxset Monday: The OA – Part II (Netflix)”