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.
Happy Face, Paramount+
Dennis Quaid and Annaleigh Ashford in Happy Face.Victoria Will/Supplied
If there must be more serialized storytelling about real-life serial killers, at least this new streaming drama comes at the distasteful subject from an intriguing new angle: What it’s like to be a child of just such a monster. Tony Award winner Annaleigh Ashford stars as makeup artist Melissa, whose imprisoned father (played by Dennis Quaid) contacts the trash-talk show where she works, saying he’ll confess to a previously undisclosed murder if she comes to visit. Melissa has to decide whether it’s worth risking her normal family life and coming out publicly as the so-called Happy Face killer’s daughter in order to save a falsely convicted man on death row. While this Paramount+ show is American, it is based on a podcast and book by a real daughter of a Canadian-born serial killer – and was shot in British Columbia, where portions of the story takes place. Young Canadian actor Khiyla Aynne seems a star on the rise playing Melissa’s teen daughter Hazel, whose new discoveries about her family tree help her make friends with a group of girls obsessed with true crime. Two episodes premiere March 20; new ones follow Thursdays.
Ludwig, BritBox
Ludwig stars David Mitchell.Colin Hutton/Britbox
For those who prefer their murder cozy and crime untrue, this BBC series having its Canadian premiere this week checks all the boxes for lightly diverting pleasure. Comedian David Mitchell (Peep Show) stars as John, a reclusive newspaper puzzle maker whose nom de plume is Ludwig. After his twin brother, a police detective in Cambridge, disappears, leaving an enigmatic note, John’s sister-in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) asks him to help find out what happened to him. This requires John to calm his nerves and take off his glasses in order to sneak into the local precinct passing for his less tweaky brother. Naturally, he’s soon solving crimes himself, using his abilities to crack logic problems, cryptic crosswords and acrostics to do so. Gore-free, aware of its own ludicrousness, Ludwig is like a Lilian Jackson Braun mystery crossed with your nightly Wordle. Thankfully, there’s a second season on the way.
Canada’s Ultimate Challenge, CBC Gem
Canada’s Ultimate Challenge on CBC Gem.Jag Gundu/CBC
A publicist wrote me that I should check out this Canadian reality competition series, saying it speaks to the moment, so I’ve been tuning in to the third season trying to figure out what she meant. On Canada’s Ultimate Challenge (which didn’t fully think through its acronym), Canadian jocks – muscly amateurs plus a smattering of professionals from hockey players to UFC face slappers – put on coloured pinnies and compete as teams in highly physical challenges in photogenic areas across the country. In this week’s episode, a contestant passes out from dehydration during a relay race in Drumheller, Alta., and is rushed to the hospital – and their whole team gets zero points. While I think throwing footballs at targets from zip-lines is maybe, at best, Canada’s penultimate challenge at the moment, some viewers will find it comforting to know there are plenty of fit young men and women in this country from all sorts of backgrounds ready to lay it all on the line for … a trip to the coming Winter Olympics in Italy. New episodes Thursdays at 8 p.m. (8:30 NT).
The Nature of Things: Plastic People, CBC Gem
Sarika-Cullis Suzuki hosts The Nature of Things: Plastic People, on CBC Gem.CBC
In a new hour-long documentary, cheery in tone, terrifying in content, series host Sarika Cullis-Suzuki sends science journalist Ziya Tong off on an international journey to discover the extent of the infiltration of microplastics into the human body – including in Tong’s own blood and fecal matter. A researcher in Minneapolis, Minn., tells Tong she stopped her children from catching snowflakes on their tongues after finding plastic in a snow sample from her backyard. Another in Rome, who studies the effects on development of babies in utero and is seen slicing into a semi-plasticized placenta, tells her the petrochemical companies and Coca-Cola need to be stopped: “We must revolt.” Back in British Columbia, Cullis-Suzuki finds a shred of hope in a local clean-tech company making biodegradable single-use packaging out of bacteria – and in past generations’ successful banning of pollutants through democratic means.
Anora, Prime Video
Mark Eydelshteyn and Mikey Madison in Anora.The Associated Press
The indie film, which won five Academy Awards including best picture earlier this month, is now available on demand in Canada as part of a subscription to Amazon’s streaming service. Mikey Madison stars as Anora, better known as Ani, a stripper and sex worker who is courted by Ivan, a.k.a. Vanya, the rich son of a Russian oligarch. After Vanya’s folks back home catch wind of their marriage, they dispatch henchmen to split the pair up. The Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz named Sean Baker’s comedy-drama a critic’s pick when it was released in movie theatres last fall. “One false move and the heroine can slip into either cliché: the Pretty Woman hooker rescued from her own self-hatred, or the gold-digging opportunist in need of a reality check/cheque,” he wrote. ”Ani is none of those things, and Madison never loses grip on the character for a second.”
