Do you feel like you’re drowning … but you haven’t even left your couch? Welcome to the Great Content Overload Era. To help you navigate the choppy digital waves, here are The Globe’s best bets for weekend streaming.
Deli Boys, Disney+
Deli Boys stars Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh.Disney+/Supplied
What would you get if you crossed Kim’s Convenience with Schitt’s Creek – and then crossed it again with Breaking Bad? The answer is this brash, bloody half-hour comedy created by former Vice journalist Abdullah Saeed. After their rich businessman father is killed in a gory golfing accident, brothers Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh) – keener and stoner, respectively – discover that their Pakistani-American pater familias’ deli chain was a massive fraud. Once their wealth is confiscated by the FBI, a second revelation is delivered by their beloved Lucky Auntie (Poorna Jagannathan, The Night Of) amid a burst of violence: The delis were also part of an illicit drug distribution operation that involved drugs hidden in giant jars of lemon pickle. Ali and Shaikh are a delicious comic double act – and the jokes are admirably edgy in depictions of both American Muslims and our Trumpist times.
Douglas Is Cancelled, BritBox
Hugh Bonneville and Karen Gillan in Douglas Is Cancelled.Sally Mais/BritBox/Supplied
When I started watching this comedy-drama about a white male TV presenter named Douglas Bellowes (Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville) scrambling to secure his reputation after being accused of making a sexist joke on a social-media platform, my first thought was: Oh boy, this satirical 2024 ITV1 series has landed in North America on BritBox about six months past its best-before date. After all, there’s a major purge of TV anchors, hosts and journalists under way in the United States right now that makes this show’s concerns seem superficial. But “cancel culture” turns out to be a MacGuffin in this four-parter created by Steven Moffat – with a major shift in focus in a harrowing third episode that turns everything on its head. As Douglas’s younger co-presenter Madeline Crow, Karen Gillan (Doctor Who) does astonishing work keeping her cards close to her chest as an imperfect, ambitious woman navigating a still male-dominated media environment where her colleagues keep telling her they’re feminists. Ben Miles, Alex Kingston, Simon Russell Beale and Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed round out the Brit star-studded cast.
Lakay Nou, CBC Gem
Lakay Nou is currently available on CBC Gem with English subtitles.CBC Gem/Supplied
The first season of this highly charming half-hour Radio-Canada comedy about a Haitian-Canadian sandwich-generation couple living in Montreal – the title means “chez nouz” or “our house” in Creole – is currently available on CBC Gem with English subtitles. While Henri Honoré (Frédéric Pierre, the show’s creator) pivots low-paying careers to open a new restaurant serving authentic Haitian cuisine, his wife Myrlande Prospère (Catherine Souffront Darbouze) shifts to a high-paying job at a law firm that defends organized criminals to help fund the venture. The two are happy to finally begin making decisions for themselves, rather than their immigrant parents or Quebec-integrated children – but it’s not so easy to escape the judgments of either the older or younger generations. If you understand French, the second season of Lakay Nou – which is even stronger – is already ready to binge next on ICI, tou.tv.
Popular Mechanics for Kids, Prime Video
All four seasons of this Canadian kids show that kick-started the careers of Jay Baruchel and Elisha Cuthbert as teens land on Amazon’s streamer on March 6. The 1997 pilot episode sees young Elisha chase a ping pong ball that has been flushed down the toilet through the sewers of Montreal to a waste-water treatment plant; Jay, meanwhile, heads to Boston to report on the Big Dig, the multidecade megaproject that buried an elevated expressway underground and was then still under way. I’m sure the technology depicted in many episodes is now dated – the show wrapped its run in 2000 – but my son and I have nevertheless dug in. Bezos company boycotters can also find PMK – as the show’s known for short – on the free ad-supported CTV app under the CTV Throwback channel.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire, CBC Gem
Portrait of a Lady on Fire will be added to CBC Gem’s library of films on March 7.CBC Gem/Supplied
This passionate 2019 film set in 18th-century Brittany by French director Céline Sciamma is about an artist named Marianne (Noémie Merlant) who is secretly hired to paint a portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), whose mother, a countess, wants to send the painting, as a Bumble pic of its time, to a potential husband abroad. Naming the movie a Critic’s Pick, Globe and Mail film critic Barry Hertz wrote: “Sharply subverting the male gaze at every turn, Sciamma has created an unforgettable treatise on thwarted desire. It is so very easy to label a film incendiary, but Portrait of a Lady on Fire deserves the scalding honour. It will ignite every flame you might have.” It is added to Gem’s library of films on March 7 along with recent Canadian films Matt and Mara, Finality of Dusk and The Beehive.
