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.
Running Point, Netflix
Scott MacArthur, Kate Hudson and Drew Carver in Running Point.Katrina Marcinowski/Netflix © 2024/Netflix
What’s not to like about this easy, breezy comedy led by Kate Hudson as Isla Gordon, a former party girl who gets unexpectedly appointed head of a fictional NBA team called the Los Angeles Waves?
This new Mindy Kaling-co-created show – the first season of which is now available to binge in full – has elements that recall early Ted Lasso in the locker-room scenes where Isla tries to tame a conceited player (Chet Hanks) and bring a superstar (Toby Sandeman) back down to earth. There are hints of a smaller-stakes Succession in the power scramble between a sister and multiple rich brothers (Scott MacArthur is the funniest as the densest of the bunch) to run the family business. And there’s plenty to ease the wait for a second season of Nobody Wants This, too, in the subplot about Isla considering converting to Judaism for a boyfriend (played by Max Greenfield) with stereotypical parents, in L.A. Indeed, Hudson’s light, likeable lead performance should make this nearly as big a hit for Netflix as that romantic comedy was: Hoops, they did it again.
Beans, CBC Gem
CBC’s streaming service is adding director Tracey Deer’s acclaimed coming-of-age tale set during that 78-day standoff between Mohawk communities and the Quebec provincial police and Canadian military.Courtesy of TIFF
As the 35th anniversary of the Oka Crisis approaches, CBC’s streaming service is adding director Tracey Deer’s acclaimed coming-of-age tale set during that 78-day standoff between Mohawk communities and the Quebec provincial police and Canadian military. This 2020 film follows Tekehentahkhwa (Kiawentiio), a 12-year-old Mohawk girl better known as Beans, as she grows up on the Kanehsatà:ke reserve near Montreal during tense times. Crossing the Mercier bridge by day with her mother and sister, their car gets pelted with stones; at night, she befriends a reckless older girl and toys with tweenage rebellion. The Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz called Beans “the real deal” after it won best picture at the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards (where it also won best first feature film). Lands on Gem March 1.
Berlin ER, Apple TV+
Haley Louise Jones and Şafak Şengül in Berlin ER.Stephan Rabold/Apple TV+
All at once, the streamers have decided to get in on what was once a network TV game and started commissioning their own original hospital shows. The Pitt, a riveting reboot of sorts of ER with a real-time twist, was first out on Max (Crave in Canada) this year, but before Netflix gets in on the action in April with Pulse, Apple TV+ subscribers get a fresh German taste of the popular genre. Created by emergency department physician-turned-screenwriter Samuel Jefferson, Berlin ER – the original-language title is the much more evocative Krank Berlin – is set in Europe’s capital of chaotic cool and upends all our North American stereotypes about German efficiency as Dr. Parker (Haley Louise Jones) tries to bring an unruly, unravelling emergency room back to order.
The distinctly Berlin vibe starts with Dr. Weber (Slavko Popadic) going straight to work after a night clubbing, at Berghain presumably, with ketamine still in his system – and continues with how many patients-of-the-week are involved in bike accidents. The hospital itself is a gorgeous/monstrous Communist-era Brutalist building covered in graffiti – and every episode ends with a brutal emotional punch. The first two excellent episodes are out now; six more to come weekly on Wednesdays.
Fargo, Crave
Carrie Coon and Ewan McGregor in Fargo.FX
I couldn’t bring myself to watch the first season of Fargo when it premiered on FX in 2014; I revered the Coen brothers’ original 1996 film that inspired it too much – and a quick peek at the serialized remake totally turned me off. But Noah Hawley’s darkly comic crime anthology series deserved a deeper look than that – and, in subsequent seasons, it completely wriggled away from its original inspiration and into its own place in TV history. The Globe and Mail’s John Doyle, writing about the “little masterpiece” of a third season starring Ewan McGregor in a double role, wrote that it was “astonishingly good.” “The off-kilter humour and nightmarish, haunting violence mean that Fargo isn’t for everyone. But it is magnificent storytelling.” All five seasons are now streaming on Crave for a new set of viewers to discover.
Etalk Live at the Oscars, 6pm ET; The 97th Academy Awards, 7pm ET; CTV, Sunday
If any Canadians want to sit out the Oscar pool this year because of U.S.-Canada tensions, it will be completely understandable. But between the devastation of the Los Angeles fires and the dumpster fire that is American politics now encroaching on Hollywood, it seems a good time to check in on the mindset of the south-of-the-border, Western world-dominating entertainment industry at its flagship fashion show. I suspect Etalk anchor Tyrone Edwards’s red-carpet coverage will provide more insights into how Americans view Canadians right now in light of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of annexation than last week’s cross-border episode of CBC’s Cross Country Checkup did. As for the ceremony itself, it will be fascinating to discover which Hollywood stars speak up, now that it’s no longer easy to do so, and which will be toeing the line. Conan O’Brien hosts.
