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Task, Crave
Mark Ruffalo, left, plays an FBI agent named Tom in Task on Crave.Crave/Supplied
This new HBO cat-and-mouse crime drama from Brad Ingelsby (Mare of Easttown) has many familiar elements.
FBI agent Tom (Mark Ruffalo) heads a task force aiming to stop a crew of masked thieves who, led by Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), have been stealing drug money from a motorcycle gang and leaving violent chaos in their wake. Tom is an alcoholic has-been leading a ragtag group of second-tier agents; Robbie is an overconfident criminal who presses his luck with one job too many.
From this collection of tropes, however, Ingelsby has crafted a series that immediately stands out in its initial episode, premiering Sunday on Crave. There’s a strong specificity to the setting – it’s again Mare’s Delaware County, Pa. – and the main characters are complex with uniquely nested griefs.
The family and friends of each are compelling too, especially Robbie’s niece and accidental caretaker of his kids, played by standout Emilia Jones. There’s no whodunit here, just a strong drive to find out more about who these people are as urgent dramatic events unfold.
Seven Veils, Crave
The film Seven Veils arrives on Crave starting Sept. 5.Elevation Pictures
This Atom Egoyan film about an opera director named Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried) grappling with trauma as she works on a post-#MeToo production of Salome premiered a year ago at the Toronto International Film Festival – and now lands on Crave starting Sept. 5.
The movie is the culmination of Egoyan’s decades-long obsession with the Richard Strauss opera, which the Canadian director helmed multiple times for the Canadian Opera Company in productions that were themselves controversial (though how could they not be, given the action revolves around the teenaged title character performing an erotic striptease for her stepfather in order to get a literal head on a platter).
The Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz made Seven Veils a Critic’s Pick when it was released in cinemas earlier this year: “With a second viewing, the tangle of relationships with which Egoyan explores voyeurism, sexual exploitation and artistic appropriation becomes clearer – and all the more impressive.”
The Unstoppable Jenny Garcia, CBC Gem
The Unstoppable Jenny Garcia, starring Ava Louise Murchison, is based on Jenny, an earlier internationally acclaimed francophone UnisTV show.Karine Dufour/CBC Gem/Supplied
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column urging CBC to get with the times and subtitle Radio-Canada’s French-language shows on its Gem streaming service – and to stop wasting money remaking them in English. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe there are occasions where remakes have value. Such is the case with The Unstoppable Jenny Garcia, a new Gem series about a 13-year-old hip-hop dancer with acute lymphoblastic leukemia that is based on Jenny, an earlier internationally acclaimed francophone UnisTV show.
Told in 15-minute episodes, this sweet show aimed at tween viewers is a proper adaptation. Showrunner Catherine Hernandez has moved the story to Scarborough (the Toronto neighbourhood that inspired her novel of that name) and clearly thought through what it would mean for a more working-class Jenny (Ava Louise Murchison) to be diagnosed with cancer – and for her single Filipino father (Byron Abalos) to navigate the health care system without supports in his second language.
There’s levity in the series too: Haven Markus is adorable as Jenny’s 11-year-old brother who, with his family distracted, suddenly has a huge amount of freedom and uses it to chow down on processed cheese balls for dinner.
Have I Got News for You, CNN
CNN’s Have I Got News for You returns Saturday at 9 p.m. ET/PT and features Dave Foley, right, as one of the panellists.CNN/Hat Trick Productions/Supplied
The comedy panel show is a favourite format of mine, especially those in which panellists riff on the week’s news in a friendly competition. Such programs are cheap to produce, and a nice extra source of income and visibility for comedians, and I wish there were more Canadian examples beyond CBC Radio’s Because News and The Debaters (both of which, alas, only briefly had television versions).
The British are the best at these satirical weekly romps – or at least have the most of them, with BBC’s Have I Got News For You the longest running. Roy Wood Jr. started hosting an American version on CNN a year ago that returns Saturday at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black remain team captains. This week, Kids in the Hall’s Dave Foley is one of the guest panellists.
One for the Pot, YouTube
From left, Barry MacGregor as Charlie Barnet, David Schurmann as Jugg and Heath Lamberts as Hickory Wood in One for the Pot at the Shaw Festival, in 1985.David Cooper/Supplied
Last week, the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., announced that the country’s foremost stage director of farce, Chris Abraham, would be taking on One for the Pot for its 2026 season. This led me to discover that a long-lost CBC recording of the Shaw’s famous (and much-remounted) 1985 production of this ridiculous British play by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton has been uploaded to YouTube.
It’s a VHS transfer but it’s watchable – and it truly captures the comic genius of the late Canadian stage legend Heath Lamberts, who plays triplets in One for the Pot, the plot of which revolves around a bequest that is contingent on only one of them being alive. It’s clear the Lecoq-trained actor was virtuosic in the part.
“Make no mistake, the show belongs to Lamberts, whose foolproof timing, rubber face and clowning body take what is only a good example of farce and turn it into a classic,” The Globe and Mail’s Kate Taylor wrote when the production had its final encore run in Toronto in 1996.
