Just a reminder: tomorrow’s Orange Thursday (I don’t know why I’ve just italicised that) will be taking in both Glass (2019) and Snowpiercer (2014), just in case you haven’t done the background viewing already.
Julianna Margulies in National Geographic (US)’s The Hot Zone
What’s coming this week
I’ve reviewed most of the shows on last week’s list. However, I’ve only just started watching Five Bedrooms (it’s okay – not awful, not great) and since episode two of that was on about half an hour ago in Oz, I might as well watch that before reviewing the show. That should be coming your way either tomorrow or Friday. Or maybe as part of next week’s WHYBW.
Despite my promises, I never watched so much as a frame of What/If… since it turns out that’s not out until this Friday. Whoops. Sorry about that. I’ll try to give that a go when it’s actually available. There’s a plan, hey?
And given Hulu launched the entire series of Catch-22 in one go on Friday, I might as well declare it’ll be next week’s Boxset Tuesday (Monday being yet another UK bank holiday). There’s a project for the bank holiday weekend, if Lovely Wife isn’t too busy with all her studies.
Somewhere mixed up in all of that will be Blood and Treasure. National Geographic’s The Hot Zone is also being served up on Monday, which I’ll definitely be watching at some point – for verily, it’s about killer viruses and I’ve read the book it’s based on and I’ve just spent the past two days editing an article about dengue fever, so clearly it’s got everything I could possibly need in a TV series.
Bob Murphy in Mr Black
The regulars
As usual, I’ll be talking about the latest episodes of Doom Patrol, Harrow, Mr Black and Warrior. I also caught another episode of The Society. And, of course, it was the final ever episode of a certain long-running fantasy show this week, so I should probably talk about that, too. What do you think?
Diversity is an aspiration pretty much every medium in every corner of the world now wants to reflect in its characters, from the might of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the US to tiny wee BBC Three in the UK. However, while some ‘minorities’, such as women and LGBT+, are present all over the world, others aren’t, so what’s diverse in one country is simply the old paradigm in another.
It’s all very well a US show highlighting its Puerto Rican and Native American cast members, but where are the Maori, a New Zealand viewer might ask? How about Asians or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, asks an Australian viewer? And in the UK, we might wonder about the lack of Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, Polish, Pakistani and northern English actors, and that’s before we start thinking about middle class v working class representation.
In Canada, which claims Toronto as the most diverse city in the world, questions about diversity on TV are often similar to those in the US. Here, Canada’s Roger Cross Full Employment Act ensures that black Canadians are always represented – albeit by Roger Cross – in virtually every TV show. Similarly, there’s Blood and Water for Chinese Canadians.
But Canada has its own unique requirements for diversity. So we’ve also had Pure to represent Mennonite Canadians, and Kim’s Convenience for Korean Canadians. And for the First Nations of Canada, there’s Mohawk Girls and an entire Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.
Putting debates about whether that’s sufficient to one side, that’s all very admirable. But as with all attempts at diversity, those initiatives cater to the largest groups, but not all groups. Where, one might ask – particularly if one were from the UK and considering questions of diversity – are the shows about Indian Canadians?
Indeed, one Indian Canadian asked herself that very question and not getting an answer, made her own TV show starring herself.
Supinder Wraich in The 410
The 410
Indian-Canadian Supinder Wraich created The 410 after seeing an episode of High Maintenance in which a young Muslim woman tries to buy cannabis – “That was probably the first time I’d seen a South Asian woman represented without hero qualities or desirable qualities or, ‘Oh, she’s a doctor’ or a lawyer or an accountant and she fits into this stereotype”.
It follows would be Instagram influencer Suri, whose life starts to fall apart when her trucker father is arrested for possessing sizeable quantities of cocaine.
What’s worse is that returning home after nearly a year away, she soon discovers more cocaine and not having the cash to pay for bail, comes up with a scheme to get the money…
Every Tuesday, TMINE flags up what new TV events BAFTA is holding around the UK
TMINE’s regular BAFTA updates are often surprising popular. I imagine this final (?) addition to May’s schedule might be even more popular than usual, though…
TV Preview: Good Omens + Q&A
Thursday, 30 May 2019 6:30pm Odeon Luxe, Glasgow Quay, Glasgow
The end of the world is coming, which means a fussy Angel (Michael Sheen) and a loose-living Demon (David Tennant) who’ve become overly fond of life on Earth are forced to form an unlikely alliance to stop Armageddon.
Good Omens follows the duo who have lost the Antichrist, an 11-year-old boy unaware he’s meant to bring upon the end of days, forcing them to embark on an adventure to find him and save the world before it’s too late…
The Amazon Original, based on the beloved book by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, is directed by Douglas Mackinnon (Sherlock – The Abominable Bride) and also stars Jon Hamm, Nick Offerman, Jack Whitehall, Miranda Richardson, Adria Arjona, Michael McKean, Mireille Enos, among many others.
Good Omens is produced by Amazon Studios, BBC Studios, Blank Corporation and Narrativia.
This screening will preview two episodes of the new series and will be followed by a Q&A with director Douglas Mackinnon.
