Airdates

Every Friday, I let you know the latest announcements about what’s been acquired and when new, imported TV shows will be arriving on UK screens

Memories of the Al Hambra
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including Transferts, Xanadu, Farang, Memories of the Alhambra, The Protector and Selection Day

16 November 2018 Rob Buckley Post a comment

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

Acquisitions

Nothing without a premiere date, you’ll be surprised to hear.

Premiere dates

Although I don’t normally do premiere dates for season numbers greater than 1, I just thought I’d point out that season 3 of Travelers is set to hit Netflix on Friday, December 14.

I should also point out that I missed that Belgian body-swap drama Transferts (Transfers) has now hit Netflix:

Usual thanks to Fans of European and World TV Dramas for a lot of these premiere dates:

Xanadu (The Money Shot)

Xanadu (The Money Shot) (France: Arte; UK: Walter Presents)
Premiere date: Wednesday, November 20, 12.00am

For more than 40 years at Xanadu, X-rated films and family life have peacefully co-existed together under the same roof. The business thrived under the authority of Alex Valadine, the flamboyant patriarch and the high priest of the French erotic film industry. Yet, decades later Alex refuses to acknowledge that the industry is now virtually unrecognisable and now the company is struggling to keep up with the digital world. In order to save the business from bankruptcy his children need to step in and take control, but will they be able to overcome fraught relations and past predicaments?

The trailer’s a tad racy (even the preview pic on the YouTube video is a tad X-rated), so click through to view it…

Farang

Farang (Dead Man Running) (Sweden: CMore; UK: Walter Presents)
Premiere date: Wednesday, November 27, 11.05pm

Former criminal Rickard (Ola Rapace) has vanished. Fleeing Sweden and the old friends he has testified against, he abandons his name, his life, and his family to start over in Thailand. Ten years later and he still has a price on his head and returning home would be a death sentence, so he ekes out his existence as a small-time crook in the back alleys of Phuket. Life’s tough and dirty, but at least it won’t kill him. That’s the idea anyway.

When his fifteen-year-old daughter Thyracomes (Louise Nyvall) looking for him, Rickard’s self-imposed exile in this gritty paradise is soon under threat. His attempts to push her away only drive her deeper into the dark underworld that Rickard knows only too well. After a momentary lapse in judgement, Rickard’s cover is blown and both he and his daughter find themselves in very real danger. Their only chance of survival is to strike back at those who are coming for them.

Yesterday he was alone. Today he has a daughter to look after. But how can he protect her when he can’t even protect himself?

Memories of the Al Hambra

Memories of the Alhambra (South Korea: tvN; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date: Saturday, December 1

Suspense romance drama. After suffering a setback following his friend’s betrayal, Yoo Jin-woo travels to Granada in Spain for a business trip. There, he stays at a hostel owned by a former guitarist named Jung Hee-joo; and both get entangled in a mysterious incident.

The Protector

The Protector (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, December 14

Turkish Netflix original. Given mystical powers by a talismanic keepsake, a young man embarks on a quest to fight shadowy forces and solve a mystery from his past.

Selection Day

Selection Day (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, December 28

Indian Netflix original. In a country that loves cricket, lives a boy who doesn’t. Radha and Manju were conceived to be the greatest batsmen in the world, but Manju doesn’t share his father’s dream. Come selection day, the selectors won’t be the only ones making a choice.

Dogs of Berlin
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including Kidding, Blood, My Brilliant Friend and Acceptable Risk

9 November 2018 Rob Buckley Post a comment

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

Oops. I forgot I’d bookmarked a few shows last week and forgot to include them, so let’s play catch-up this week. There haven’t been any new acquisitions this week, but we do have a lot of premiere dates. One change is that Das Boot is no longer going to air from November 23, but from a later date instead.

What I massively overlooked is that Walter actually unleashed three new French shows on us without notice last Friday: Duel En Ville, Contact and State Conspiracy. That’s on top of Japanese-American chiller Crow’s Blood. It’s also picked up for airing at some point Shades of Guilt:

Premiere dates

My Brilliant Friend

My Brilliant Friend (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic)
Premiere date: Monday, November 19, 9pm

My Brilliant Friend is HBO’s first foreign language mini-series, and is based on Elena Ferrante’s bestselling book of the same name. Set in a dangerous and fascinating Naples, the story follows the lives of two girls over six decades of their friendship. After receiving a phone call, Elena Greco discovers the most important and significant figure in her life, Raffaella ‘Lila’ Cerullo, has gone missing.

Knowing this disappearance has been a long time coming, Elena, now a writer, finally sits down to put the story of their intertwining lives on paper, starting from the 1950s where the two first met at school, in an attempt to describe the mystery of Lila – her brilliant friend, and in a way, worst enemy.

Blood
© 2018 Company Pictures

Blood (Ireland: Virgin Media Television; UK: Channel 5)
Premiere date: Monday, November 19, 9pm

Blood explores family, memory, and the impact the past can have on the present. Cat Hogan is an isolated woman on the run from her past, a past she is forced to confront when the sudden ‘accidental’ death of her mother, Mary, draws her back to the family she has spent the last ten years trying to avoid. Cat has always been the black sheep of the family and now this uncomfortable reunion awakens sinister demons from the past and shines a suspicious light on her mother’s death. However much she wants to believe her death was innocent, her suspicions start to mount against her father when she begins to notice discrepancies in his stories.

Set over the week following Mary’s death, Cat tries to uncover the truth, looking to the past to understand the present. The audience will constantly question whether Cat is paranoid or has in fact discovered a terrible truth about her father. Nothing and no one can be taken at face value. In Blood, the ‘truth’ depends on who you ask. The six episode drama series, penned by Sophie Petzal, stars Adrian Dunbar, and the cast also includes Carolina Main, Ingrid Craigie, Diarmuid Noyes, Gráinne Keenan, Cillian Ó Gairbhí and Mark O’Regan.

Jim Carrey in Kidding

Kidding (US: Showtime; UK: Sky Atlantic)
Premiere date: Thursday, November 29

Jim Carrey plays a beloved children’s TV host whose life falls apart when one of his children is killed in a car accident. Carrey’s character bottles up all his emotions and the question is: when is he going to explode.

I never found out, as I gave up after the second episode. To me, it was just sad things happening to nice people, rather than anything that was actually funny. But not a bad show, and one that’s got a great cast.

Episode reviews: 1, 2

Acceptable Risk

Acceptable Risk (Ireland: RTÉ; UK: Universal)
Premiere date: Thursday, December 6, 9pm

Acceptable Risk tells the story of Sarah Manning, who, following the murder of a husband, comes to realise that she knows nothing about his past. While coping with her grief in her home in Dublin, Sarah questions who Lee actually was and what he did in his work for a powerful global organization. And why did Lee, a salesman, need to carry a gun?

The growing suspicion that Lee’s death may be connected to the death of her first husband leads Sarah to confront a powerful conspiracy of corporate, police and political interests, extending from Dublin to Montreal, in which her own family may be complicit. The drama stars Elaine Cassidy. Angeline Ball, Morten Suurballe, Lisa Dwyer Hogg and Geordie Johnson.

Dogs of Berlin

Dogs of Berlin (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, December 7

After the death of a renowned German-Turkish soccer player, two very different cops each face off against the German underworld, and each is forced to face their own criminal activities. Fahri Yardim (The Physician) plays policeman Erol Birkan, and Felix Kramer (Dark) plays rival cop Kurt Grimmer. Netflix says: “This show is: gritty.” Gosh.

The Hook up Plan

Plan Coeur (The Hook-Up Plan) (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, December 7

In a misguided attempt to build up perpetually single Elsa’s confidence, her friends hire a male escort. A comedy series set in Paris starring Marc Ruchmann, Zita Hanrot and Sabrina Ouazani.

Champaign ILL

Champaign ILL (YouTube Premium)
Premiere date: Friday, December 12

After the death of their best friend, a wildly famous rap icon, Alf and Ronnie lose their lavish lifestyle and are forced to return home to Champaign, Illinois. In order to get back what they’ve lost, they must figure out how to leave their destructive behavior behind and get back on top. Stars Adam Pally and Sam Richardson and guest stars Jay Pharoah.

Kingdom

Kingdom (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, January 25 2019

Korean drama in which as deceased king rises and a mysterious plague begins to spread. The prince must face a new breed of enemies to unveil the evil and save his people.

Deutsch-Les-Landes
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including Mirzapur and Deutsch-Les-Landes

2 November 2018 Rob Buckley 15 Comments

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

Acquisitions

The big acquisition news of the week – if not the entire year – was the BBC’s decision to mirror the Sky Atlantic-HBO-Showtime agreement and become FX (US)’s content home in the UK. FX shows that have already been acquired by other UK networks, such as American Horror Story, are going to stay in their current homes, but new shows, including Danny Boyle’s Devs, the TV spin-off with Matt Berry of What We Do In The Shadows, Phyllis Schlafly biopic Mrs America and a Bob Fosse-Gwen Verdon biopic, are all going to end up on the BBC.

The situation for shows that haven’t already been acquired by UK networks but have already aired on FX is a little more complicated. The Beeb, for example, has also acquired Ryan Murphy’s 80s transgender show Pose, Sons of Anarchy spin-off Mayans MC and Better Things. But Mr InBetween, which was made by Foxtel in Australia with FX’s backing, doesn’t seem yet to be included in the deal (although it might be).

Premiere dates

Mirzapur

Mirzapur (Amazon Prime)
Premiere date: Friday, November 16

Amazon’s fifth Indian original:

The journey of two brothers lured by the idea of power only to get consumed by it, Mirzapur is an amped-up portrayal of India’s heartland and youth. It’s a world replete with drugs, guns, and lawlessness, where caste, power, egos and tempers intersect and violence is the only way of life.

Iron-fisted Akhandanand Tripathi is a millionaire carpet exporter and the mafia don of Mirzapur. His son, Munna – an unworthy, power-hungry heir – will stop at nothing to inherit his father’s legacy.

An incident at a wedding procession forces him to cross paths with Ramakant Pandit, an upstanding lawyer, and his sons, Guddu and Bablu.

This snowballs into a game of ambition, power and greed that threatens the fabric of the lawless city. With heart-pounding action, violence at an operatic scale, gangsters with sharp minds and dry humor, Mirzapur is a hinterland story that is as raw as it gets.

Deutsch-Les-Landes

Deutsch-Les-Landes (Germanized) (Amazon)
Premiere date: Friday, November 30

Deutsch-Les-Landes is the story of Jiscalosse, an idyllic French village in the département of Landes. The village is on the edge of bankruptcy and Martine (Marie-Anne Chazel), the matriarch of the community, needs money to save it. Martine therefore decides to sell part of the village to Gerhard Jäger, the eccentric CEO of a car company, who has fallen in love with Landes. However, he decides to relocate all the company and its workers to the south of France, which leads to a dramatic and comedic culture clash.

The trailer looks interesting, but I’m not sure how well it’ll wash in the UK. Lots of the jokes concern language differences and pronunciation, which obviously don’t translate (even the title is a French-German linguistic hybrid). It’s also worth knowing that whereas the UK stereotype of Germans is of being humourless and efficient, more accurately, the French (who do, of course, live right next door and work with Germans a lot, rather than relying on old Second World War movies) believe them to be a light-hearted bunch, always making jokes and not taking things too seriously. Again, that might not work as well for a UK audience.

Hell, I don’t even know if they’ll give it English subtitles. But it might be worth a punt.

You
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including Tidelands and You

26 October 2018 Rob Buckley Post a comment

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

It’s been a quiet week for acquisitions and it’s been almost as quiet for premiere dates, but thanks to everyone’s favourite overly indebted Internet streaming service, we do know when a couple of shows are set to start.

Premiere dates

Tidelands

Tidelands (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, December 14

Apparently, this is the year for evil murderous mermaids, since hot on the heels of Freeform’s Siren, we have Australian alternative Tidelands. It stars Charlotte Best (Puberty Blues) as a young woman who returns home to her tiny fishing village having spent the past 10 years in juvenile detention and jail, and Elsa Pataky (Fast And The Furious) as the leader of the mysterious half-human/half-Siren tribe known as the Tidelanders.

It also stars Aaron Jakubenko (Spartacus: War Of The Damned) Peter O’Brien (Neighbours, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Madeleine Madden (Mystery Road), Caroline Brazier (Rake), Dalip Sondhi (Secret City) and Marco Pigossi (Caras E Bocas).

Penn Badgley and Elizabeth Lail
Penn Badgley and Elizabeth Lail in You

You (Netflix)
Premiere date: Wednesday, December 26

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl because she’s the one and they’re made for each other. It’s the plot of every good romcom and Gossip Girl‘s Penn Badgley certainly thinks he’s Harry in When Harry Met Sally. Except he’s actually a murderous stalker in a surprisingly smart series about male entitlement and patriarchy and he’ll do anything to protect her, even from herself. The show has you wanting the two to get together, so conditioned are we by rom-coms, as Badgley goes through the normal motions of chasing the girl of his dreams; it’s just we also don’t want them to get together because we can guess what might happen when reality and fantasy collide. Probably going to be in the TMINE Top x Shows of 2018, so watch when it arrives.

Episode reviews: 1-2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

The Kominsky Method
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including The First, The Detail and The Kominsky Method

19 October 2018 Rob Buckley Post a comment

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

Fewer acquisitions this week, but no shortage of premiere dates. Premiere-less newbies are The Name of the Rose (Italy: Rai), which has been picked up the Beeb; When Heroes Fly (Israel: Keshet 12), which Netflix has got its mitts on; and My Brilliant Best Friend (US: HBO), which Sky Atlantic has naturally acquired, it having an exclusivity agreement with HBO.

The rest are as follows:

Premiere dates

The First

The First (US: Hulu; UK: Channel 4)
Premiere date: Thursday, November 1, 9pm

Staggeringly dull drama in which Sean Penn plays the first person to lead a mission to Mars. At least, I assume he gets there, since the entire first season is about the training and engineering decisions involved in getting him there, once the first attempted mission blows up in the first episode.

As well as reading more like Andy Weir’s research notes for The Martian, The First is mainly an advert for producer Penn, since the show is also about his great topless physique and how he’s better than literally everyone else at literally everything else, particularly Brit CEO Natascha McElhone. Some slight sci-fi ‘futurology’ moderately lifts the show, but it’s a snooze for the most part.

Episode reviews: season 1

The Detail
Shenae Grimes-Beech as Jack Cooper and Angela Griffin as Stevie Hall in The Detail

The Detail (Canada: CTV; UK: 5USA)
Premiere date: Friday, November 2, 9pm

Limp Canadian adaptation of ITV’s Scott & Bailey that’s about as generic as any male police procedural.

Episode reviews: 1

The Kominsky Method

The Kominsky Method (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, November 16

CBS’s king of misanthropic comedy, Chuck Lorre, arrives on Netflix with The Kominsky Method, which follows Sandy Kominsky, an actor who years ago had a brief fling with success and is now a revered Hollywood acting coach. Michael Douglas plays Kominsky, while Alan Arkin plays his agent and best friend. There’s also a decent supporting cast, with Nancy Travis playing a recent divorcee who decides to take acting lessons from Douglas, Sarah Baker playing his daughter and Lisa Edelstein playing Arkin’s estranged daughter. Whether it’s funny is a different matter, though…