TV with kick, secrets, rebellion and green rings

Denise Duguay Watch it
By: Denise Duguay Posted:

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Deep into a summer with endless-seeming heat waves, squadrons of both mosquitoes and dragonflies, and a dearth of insect repellent, here is a richly varied smorgasbord of TV, new and returning, to illuminate your shade-darkened viewing spaces. Also, remember to hydrate.

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Deep into a summer with endless-seeming heat waves, squadrons of both mosquitoes and dragonflies, and a dearth of insect repellent, here is a richly varied smorgasbord of TV, new and returning, to illuminate your shade-darkened viewing spaces. Also, remember to hydrate.

Ted Lasso

Season 4 premières Wednesday, Aug. 5, on Apple TV

It’s the return of the nice guy, the can-do guy, the BELIEVE guy! But enough of that feel-good stuff. There are questions to be answered when the soccer-is-life series returns!

How and why does Ted (Jason Sudeikis) leave the U.S. to go back to the U.K. to coach the AFC Richmond women’s team after having quit the Richmond men’s team at the end of Season 3?

What fresh stories will the show come up with to avoid a female rewind of the first three seasons, good as those stories were?

And finally how will Hannah Waddington gear down from the fun assassin role in Prime Video’s excellent new series Ride or Die back to the buttoned-down AFC team owner Rebecca Welton? Shall we all find out together?

The Shards

Series premières Wednesday, Aug. 5, on FX, and the next day on Disney+/Hulu

The clique-building efforts at an elite Los Angeles high school at least occasionally take second place to the teen-focused serial killer in this new thriller. Also, let’s welcome the gigantic theme statement about killing forces in modern society.

Well, it is set in the 1980s, based on the novel of Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho) and helmed by Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story). If that’s not scary enough, the hair and fashions guarantee shivers.

Bret (Igby Rigney, Midnight Mass) is an aspiring student writer. He has a bad feeling about newcomer Robert (Homer Gere, Euphoria). Wes Bentley plays at being a mentor to Bret.

Sterling Point

Series premières Wednesday, Aug. 5, on Prime Video

While The Shards is all about glamour and steely social commentary, this Canadian-shot teen drama relocates a grieving New York City family to an island in Ontario’s Muskoka region left to them by their estranged late grandfather.

Of course romance and impossibly great hair follow, but, according to this press release, additional family and family secrets are unearthed.

Jay Duplass (Dying for Sex) plays the apparently clueless parental figure, Ella Rubin (Anora) plays Annie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Walking Dead) is a local with answers.

Of note: this series is created and directed by Megan Park, whose 2024 film My Old Ass (also Prime Video) should be required viewing for all humans.

My Brilliant Career

Series premières Aug. 13 on Netflix

When teenage Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin was writing in Australia’s New South Wales in the late 1800s, she used a selection of cheeky pseudonyms to circumvent male bias in publishing, including Miles and Brent of Bin Bin.

It was under the former that she published her best known novel, which is the basis for a fantastic 1979 movie starring Judy Davis as a young woman who dared in 1900 to consider a future beyond marriage, and Sam Neill as the puzzled suitor who persisted.

Now, the story gets a steamy update, starring Philippa Northeast (Paper Dolls) as Sybylla and Slow Horses’ Christopher Chung as Harry.

Let the reclaimed feminist paradigm shifting — and sexy time — begin!

Lanterns

Series premières Aug. 16 on Crave

Reddit users have, as fans are wont to do, taken issue with the plot of this DC Studios series from HBO Max and creator/writers Chris Mundy (Ozark, True Detective), Damon Lindelhof (Lost) and Tom King (Love Everlasting).

The argument, generally, is that the Earth-based murder being investigated by the “space cops” (The Rip’s Kyle Chandler, The Morning Show’s Aaron Pierre) is not worthy of their ring-wearing Green Lantern status. There is also the issue of another character’s wig.

None of that should dampen enthusiasm for this new superhero story, also starring Garret Dillahunt (Deadwood), Laura Linney (Ozark), Kelly Macdonald (Dept. Q), Jason Ritter (Matlock) and Poorna Jagannathan (Never Have I Ever). And that wig. Oof, but onward.

As is increasingly the case in this world of media mergers and cross-border rights squabbles, broadcast details are subject to change. All questions, comments and suggestions gratefully accepted.

denise.duguay@winnipegfreepress.com

Denise Duguay

Denise Duguay
Copy editor, TV columnist

Denise Duguay writes about TV for the Free Press. Read more about Denise.

Every piece of reporting Denise produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Watch it

A look at five notable new productions on your TV screen or streaming apps.

Denise Duguay

Denise Duguay
Copy editor, TV columnist

Denise Duguay writes about TV for the Free Press. Read more about Denise.

Every piece of reporting Denise produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

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My very first lesson does not start when I walk into that lecture hall, oh no — it starts long before. It begins when I walk to my car, check the estimated arrival time to the University of Manitoba and hope that Winnipeg traffic agrees with it.

A drive that appears completely manageable changes almost immediately when I’m greeted by a tsunami of orange pylons and a line of cars that appears to go on forever. Traffic moves by the inch, lanes magically disappear and the detour I took yesterday now has a detour of its own. These factors make me do a calculation that I have become all too familiar with. How late can I arrive and still find parking, run to my class across campus and get to class with enough time left to make it worth it?

I have grown used to people saying, “Why not just leave earlier?” I do. But when I’m already leaving for my 8:30 a.m. class at 7 a.m., there’s only so much I can do. This drive that some would think is relaxing is one that feels like an assignment that I didn’t know I had to complete and is due at 8:30 a.m.

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In the weeks leading up to the civic election, Scott Gillingham has been performing a juggling act: he’s running to be Winnipeg’s 45th mayor, while still serving as its 44th.

“If someone asks me about the campaign, I’m going to answer them. But I think for most people, I’m the mayor of Winnipeg, even if I’m showing up as a candidate,” Gillingham, 58, says. “I try to do all I can to maintain that distinction.”

The Free Press joined Gillingham on a recent rainy September Saturday on the campaign trail, where he served in both roles during an event-laden day. City council’s final meeting before the Oct. 28 election was days earlier.

In Winnipeg, it’s rare for an incumbent to be defeated. But Gillingham knows his win in 2022 wasn’t exactly a landslide — he won with 27.5 per cent of the vote — and he’s been thinking about his second term ever since.

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Provincial justice officials are trying to seize a Dominion Street drug den that has been the source of trouble in the West End for years.

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MORGAN MODJESKI / FREE PRESS Sandra Shibata, vice-president with the Japanese Cultural Association of Manitoba, on Saturday stands next to a table displaying the names of people who were expelled to Manitoba after they were forcefully removed from the west coast in 1941. In the other room, the association was hosting a watch party for the unveiling of the Japanese Canadian Monument in Victoria B.C. one of 15 taking place across the country.

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As Miki Stewart gathered with her family at the Japanese Cultural Association of Manitoba on Saturday afternoon, she was thinking of her parents, Yoshimaru and Yoshi Abe.

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DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I ran into an old boyfriend I used to curl on a team with, and we went for drinks. We’ve been almost eight years apart, and I couldn’t remember why we broke up, as we always had such a great time together.

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He created King of Kensington, directed the troops in the Royal Canadian Air Farce, and his creative eye was behind the lens for television shows starring Johnny Cash, Tom Jones, Mr. Dress-Up and the Friendly Giant.

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