Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK
Four acquisitions this week, but only one with a premiere date. Let me elucidate:
Acquisitions
Universal has picked up Global (Canada)’s six-part event mini-series about a vanished aeroplane, Departure, which stars Archie Panjabi, Christopher Plummer and a host of others. However, there’s no premiere date as of yet, probably because it only started production in November and hasn’t aired in Canada.
Alibi has acquired Nine (Australia)’s “so dumb it hurts” serial killer drama Bite Club, featuring Lost’s Dominic Monaghan. That’s likely to air in February, but there’s no exact date yet.
Walter’s bought DR (Denmark)’s adaptation of Jakob Ejersbo’s book of the same name, Liberty, featuring Connie Nielsen, Carsten Bjørnlund and Sofie Gråbøl. No premiere date either, as ‘this year’ is the best information Walter is offering at the moment.
Premiere dates
NEW AMSTERDAM — “Pilot” Episode 101 — Pictured: Ryan Eggold as Dr. Max Goodwin — (Photo by: Francisco Roman/NBC)
The Black List: Redemption‘s Ryan Eggold playing a newly arrived medical director at New York’s largest, oldest and most famous public hospital, New Amsterdam. He reckons there’s a lot wrong with it, so plans to turn it upside down, ignore all the rules and fire everybody who’s part of ‘the system’, so that doctors can get back to being doctors rather than accountants/golf players. Why, he’s so optimistic and revolutionary, he might even inspire that Freema Agyeman (Doctor Who, Sense8, The Carrie Diaries) to stop touring all the TV talk shows to raise funding and come back to working as a doctor again.
Based on a real-life doctor at the real New York hospital of Bellevue, there is at least a germ of something different in New Amsterdam and it was moderately interesting to see Eggold doing some robust change management, listening to those on the front-line to see what could be changed and then putting it into practice. The show doesn’t make him an all-knowing genius, but one who makes mistakes and is prepared to listen to find out how to fix them. It’s also not entirely populated with pretty people, with nice old doctor Anupam Kher turning out to have almost House-ian diagnostic skills, if a much better bedside manner, thanks to the mystic skill of “taking your time”.
However, the rest of the time, it’s plain old medical procedural melodrama and soap, with Eggold turning out to have cancer, his wife nearly miscarrying their baby, doctors trying to have relationships and dumping their girlfriends for not being black enough and so on. That’s before we get onto the likelihood of random people being injected with Ebola by terrorists in order to destroy New York.
This is clearly not a production team confident in its ability to woo viewers with rigorous MBA framework analyses.
By the end of the first episode, I’d been pleasantly surprised by the show but not interested in it enough to want to watch much more of it. But at the very least, it wasn’t a waste of my time.
A semi-autobiographical piece written by and starring Pamela Adlon and co-written by Louis CK, there are good things in Better Things, although that’s more to do with some creative choices than the subject matter or anything especially interesting or funny that happens.
Ever wanted to know what life is like for a 50-something single mother with three daughters, who’s the daughter of a TV producer and who’s an actress living in LA who goes to a lot of auditions and has to deliver a lot of bad dialogue in a lot of bad TV shows? I can’t say I feel a desperate need to know myself, but maybe you’re different, in which case Better Things will be a big help bridging that empathy gap.
Maybe if you’re facing similar issues, you’ll find this funny in a gallows humour kind of way. Personally, I found it just a little bit too self-involved, a bit too much a female Californication but without much joy.
Les rivières pourpres (The Crimson Rivers) (France: France 2; UK: Channel 4)
Premiere date: Friday, January 11, 10.30pm
Based on the 2000 blockbuster of the same name, The Crimson Rivers follows conflicted cop duo Camille Delauney and Pierre Niémans. Niémans and Camille are called out all over rural France to solve complex cases which all involve a weird brutality far beyond the capacity of local police departments. The protagonists find themselves infiltrating folktale-like crimes with strong moral and mystic themes, dealing with cults, murder based on family tradition and human sacrifice. An unlikely match, Niémans is a reserved, pragmatic and pessimistic old school sleuth, whereas Camille is bold, brave and not afraid of over-stepping the mark, yet together they make a charismatic and driven duo who will stop at nothing to catch a killer.
The River (Elven) (Norway: TV3 ; UK: Channel 4)
Premiere date: Monday, January 14
Based on true events from the region bordering Russia, in northern Scandinavia, The River stars Espen Reboli Bjerke (Mammon), Ingeborg Raustøl and Dennis Storhøi (Mammon).
In the small village of Djupelv, which straddles the Norwegian/Russian border well within the Arctic Circle, the winters are long and dark. Everyone knows everyone and there are no secrets in this close-knit community, or so it seems. During one of NATO’S winter exercises a dismembered hand is discovered in the river by a local Sami girl.
Thomas, the local police officer starts investigating the grisly discovery, despite firm warnings from his superiors. When the girl disappears and is later found murdered by army officer Mia Holt he becomes even more suspicious that something sinister is afoot. Mia and Thomas continue together in their search for the truth and are forced to look at this small community in a new light. Why are the authorities passive? Why are the locals staying so tight-lipped? And what is hidden up there in the mountains?
Created by Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland, Russian Doll follows a young woman named Nadia (Lyonne) on her journey as the guest of honour at a seemingly inescapable party one night in New York City. Greta Lee, Yul Vazquez, Elizabeth Ashley, Rebecca Henderson and Charlie Barnett.
