In the US: Wednesdays, 10/9c, NBC
In the UK: Not yet acquired
Entering people’s minds is something that TV and film likes to do. I don’t mean the minds of the audience and I don’t mean it metaphorically – I mean it’s a medium that likes to visually recreate the thoughts and dreams of characters and make them a world that other characters can enter. In this genre, film has given us the likes of Brainstorm, Dreamscape, A Nightmare on Elm Street and, possibly best of all, Inception.
Reverie – Pictured: (l-r) Sarah Shahi as Mara Knit, Dennis Haysbert as Charlie Ventana — (Photo by: Sergei Bachlakov/NBC)
Reverie
Reverie is an even more nonsensical, formulaic affair than the average piece of NBC sci-fi, giving us Sarah Shahi (Life, Fairly Legal, Person of Interest) as a former hostage negotiator who’s dropped out of the force. Why? BECAUSE THE ONE PERSON SHE COULDN’T SAVE WITH HER SKILLS WAS HERSELF. And her sister. And her niece. Basically, it didn’t go well.
Anyway, old pal Dennis Haysbert (The Unit, 24, Incorporated, Backstrom) comes a knocking at her door one day. He’s gone private sector and now works at the stupidly titled ‘Onira-Tech’ (it’s Greek, darling), which has developed a new dream manipulation-virtual reality technology that allows people with a bit of cash to tailor-make their own dreams. Trouble is, loads of people are now in comas because they apparently don’t want to leave their dream dreams and any attempts to wake them will probably kill them.
Fortunately, version 2.0 of the tech is in the offing and that allows people to share their dreams with someone else. Will Shahi be willing to use the experimental tech as well as her hostage negotiation skills to talk the dreamers down and out of their self-made utopias? And will it mean she’ll have to face her own mental demons to do so?
You betcha. Unfortunately, it’ll make you fall asleep when she does.
Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK
Only one acquisition of note this week – Netflix has picked up Cinco (Spain)’s Costa del Sol Brigade, which doesn’t even start filming until next week – although the Beeb has at least confirmed it’ll be airing Picnic at Hanging Rock (Australia: Foxtel) on BBC Two later this year. But we do have lots of new premiere dates. Many are for last week’s acquisitions, but then we have Walter Presents. As we all know, when it comes to acquisitions, Walter has two basic philosophies:
Buy it then stick it in a box for 18 months
Buy it then make it available to watch the same day
And this week, option number 2 seems to have become his preferred option, with three shows being slotted into Walter Presents this very day. More on them in a moment.
Harry (New Zealand: TV3; UK: Walter Presents)
Premiere date: Today
A six-part series about a widowed cop with a teenage daughter and who’s doing his best to hunt down some violent robbers in a poor community. He has to work against the higher-ups, who are more concerned by headlines that the communities they police and against the demands of his job in raising his daughter. So far, so ordinary, you might think, and largely it is, despite the presence of Sam Neill (Jurassic Park) as Harry’s boss, complete with his normal NZ/Australian accent. What’s more interesting is that Harry is co-written by the star, Oscar Kightley, a MaoriSamoan actor, and the show is bilingual and set largely in the MaoriSamoan community. It’s got more in common with UK police shows than with US shows, although there are interesting differences, but beyond the cultural issues and twists, there’s not much here that you won’t have seen before.
Tannbach (Line of Separation) (Germany: ZDF; UK: Walter Presents)
Premiere date: Today
Fictional story inspired by a village that was divided by the Iron Curtain along a brook known as the Tannbach. The series explores the traumatic period of German history between the end of World War II and 1952. For the people of the village, the end of the war does not mean the end of hardship – soon the Cold War takes over and the village as well as the people become divided.
Pocivali u miru (Rest in Peace) (Croatia: HRT; UK: Walter Presents)
Premiere date: Today
When investigative journalist Lucia stumbles across a cemetery of unclaimed bodies at a prison, a wealth of secrets that have been suppressed for decades are unearthed…
Paula Patton in ABC’s Somewhere Between
Somewhere Between (US: ABC; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date: Today
Adaptation of a Korean show in which TV journo Paula Patton unwisely promises to catch a notorious serial killer, said killer than deciding to kill her daughter in return for all that hubris. Patton kills herself, but wakes up to find it’s 10 days earlier, all the bad things haven’t happened yet and she has a chance to stop everything before it starts.
I watched the first episode and couldn’t be bothered to watch any more.
Champions (US: NBC; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date: Tuesday, June 12
Aimless sitcom in which Cleveland-based Mindy Kaling takes her flamboyant son (JJ Totah) to audition at an exclusive New York performing arts school. However, due to various administrative issues, the audition is postponed so while she’s in town, she takes him to visit the father he’s never met – Anders Holm (Workaholics, The Intern), a disillusioned quitter who runs a gym with his much beefy, much stupider, much nicer younger brother Andy Favreau. Everyone gets to know each other and Holm takes him to his audition as Mindy has to go to work. Totah gets into the school, so I think he’s now staying with Holm and Favreau, while Mindy’s gone back to Cleveland.
And that’s the set-up. I’m not sure that really counts as a ‘situation’ for a sitcom, does it? It’s amiable enough, but I watched an episode then gave up, as it seemed to have used up its entire idea.
Marlon (US: NBC; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date: Thursday, June 14
Despite their inability to coexist, divorced couple Marlon Wayne and his ex-wife Ashley try to stay friends for the sake of their two children, Marley and Zack.
It started in the US while I was on holiday last year, so I haven’t watched it. It’s been renewed for a second season.
Knightfall (US: History; UK: History UK)
Premiere date: Tuesday, July 17, 9pm
Bargain basement Vikings, but about the Knights Templar. Not totally awful and the throwing in of a quest for the lost Holy Grail gives the knights lots to do, but as soon as the action slows down, it all goes to pot.
It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend anything you’ve been watching this week
As suspected, the weather gods have been having some yucks this week, haven’t they? On top of that, the bank holiday and my slightly unpredictable workload means that I didn’t quite get round to reviewing everything I’d intended to. Sigh.
But I have at least now watched all of Safe, so I’ll be reviewing that soon, maybe even tomorrow, and I should have time to play proper catch-up with a few other series this weekend, too, including Foxtel (Australia)’s Picnic at Hanging Rock and ABC (Australia)’s Mystery Road, which starts on Sunday. Tabula Rasa might even get that promised viewing and since I’ve seen a couple of movies at the cinema, as well, Movie Monday might be making at appearance, too. Plus I might even finish watching the first season of Cobra Kai.
Let’s not over-promise, though, even if the regular viewing list is about to plummet to virtually nothing, thanks to the end of the spring season in the US. Indeed, after the jump, as well as the latest episodes of The Americans, Bron/Broen (The Bridge), Legion and Westworld, I’ll be talking about the season finales of The Good Fight, Killing Eve and Krypton. 0See you in a mo as we watch that viewing list get cut in half…
