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From documentaries to reality TV to movies, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week
When Margaret Atwood first? penned the harrowing story? of the handmaid Offred back in 1985, the Canadian author didn’t know what the world of today would look like. But she could guess, based on what was happening in her own world at the time. With fertility issues on the rise, political unrest dominating the news, and many questioning whether feminism was necessary anymore, Atwood wrote a speculative take on where we were headed. Who knew how enduringly resonant her work would prove?
Filmed in Toronto, this dystopian series based on the award-winning novel stars Mad Men standout Elisabeth Moss as Offred, a handmaid forced into a life of sexual servitude for a powerful commander (Shakespeare in Love’s Joseph Fiennes) and his wife (Chuck’s Yvonne Strahovski). They live in the fictional Republic of Gilead (previously known as Boston), which is lorded over by a dictatorial Christian- fundamentalist regime. Here, women are segregated and objectified based on their functionality, with fertility placed above all. It’s an in-depth, oft-horrifying look at what happens when people are complacent with their governments, fail to fight when they believe others can do the fighting for them, and neglect to question the status quo until it’s too late. Indeed, Atwood’s work has only become more relevant over the years, with women having recently dressed as handmaids before the Texas State Senate in protest of anti-abortion bills.
The series co-stars the likes of Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls), Samira Wiley (Orange Is the New Black) ?and Ann Dowd (The Leftovers), and the pilot features a quick cameo by Atwood herself. The first two episodes air this week, before Bravo switches to hour-long instalments the following Sunday.
Selina discovers just ?how far things can fall for a former president when she and her staff find themselves helping to monitor the first free and open election in Georgia. (We’re talking about the one in Russia, by the way.) While she’s there, she has her first close encounter with Congressman Ryan ?since he gave her the shaft, is reunited with a fellow former world leader—Finnish prime minister Minna Häkkinen—and ends up being courted by both of the Georgian candidates, who are keen to sway her over to their side.
Meanwhile, Mike and ?Gary pick up some unwanted souvenirs as a result of helping with the election, the relationship between Amy and her fiancé grows increasingly tense in the wake of his exposure and subsequent arrest, and Jonah and Richard have a night on the town that they’ll never forget.
How many of us have uttered the words, If I ever won the lottery… at some time or another? Probably everyone who’s come face to face with a dwindling bank account, gargantuan mortgage payment or any number of drool-inducing retail offerings cruelly out of reach and price range behind ?the front window at a boutique outlet. Indeed, much as it might not buy love, money does solve some ?of life’s problems. One of which is the increasingly problematic real-estate market. With home prices in major Canadian cities on the rise and properties becoming mired in exorbitant bidding wars, it can seem like a pipe dream to land the perfect home. But if you did happen to score that jackpot, how much of your winnings would you actually spend on new accommodations?
That’s the question posed in this new series, as hosted by celebrity designer David Bromstad. In each episode, he’s joined by recent lottery winners, whose lump sums range from hundreds of thousands to hundreds ?of millions. These giddy nouveau riche are ready to jump headfirst into the purchase of a new home, but is it a mansion they’re looking for, or merely a functional living space? Either way, the temptation to splurge and set themselves up for a life of luxury is ever-present. They say human nature is to spend money as soon as it’s handed to us, but can these folks find a way to curb that impulse and opt for a more reasonable home/investment property, leaving the big bucks to their savings accounts? We certainly hope not. What fun would that be?
This week marks the official halfway point ?in the all-star edition? of the culinary series. With a frontrunner having just exited the kitchen last week, it’s clear that it takes much more than talent to survive this culinary crucible.
The remaining chefs are ready to showcase their abilities and their gumption this week when the show unveils a brand-new challenge: Retail Wars. As our hungry competitors break up into two teams and face off to see who can create the best on-the-go dining experience at judge Mark McEwan’s gourmet market, they won’t just have to impress the usual judges, but guest-judge and international superstar Lidia Bastianich (mother of former MasterChef meanie Joe Bastianich). No doubt, that kind of pressure will cause more than one contestant’s dish to go up in flames.
If there’s any actor who could be described as the living embodiment of a cartoon, it’s Jim Carrey, which makes this Dr. Seuss classic, wherein he voices the eccentric elephant that stumbles upon the microscopic city of Whoville, a natural fit.
When Neil Gaiman first released his fantastical tale of the old gods confronting ?the new, even he probably had no idea just how far technology and media would progress in the next decade and a half. Given those advances, however, now seems like as good a time as any for this eight-part series to come to television.
Former The 100 star Ricky Whittle plays Shadow Moon, a man released from prison just days after his wife (Emily Browning) is killed. On a fateful plane ride, he meets Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane)—also known as Norse god Odin, who’s come back to reunite his ancient brethren, including Slavic deity of evil Czernobog (Peter Stormare), leprechaun lord Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber) and literal man-eater Bilquis (Yetide Badaki) to topple the new gods: Media (Gillian Anderson), Internet (Bruce Langley) and their leader, Mr. World (Crispin Glover). And he wants Shadow’s help.
It’s being adapted by Bryan Fuller, and given ?his work on Hannibal? and Pushing Daisies ?we’re banking on a witty, moving, visually sumptuous adaptation that does justice to it cultishly adored source material.
It’s a big season ahead for our favourite little people. With two baby bumps in the family and? both Matt and Amy embarking ?on new relationships in the wake of their divorce, it’s going to be more complicated than ever for the Roloffs to come together and keep the farm afloat.
A transgender woman (Terence Stamp) and two drag queens (Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce) file into an RV named Priscilla, braving the Outback and homophobia on their way to a cabaret gig.
If we’ve learned anything from watching entirely too much reality television over the years, it’s this: the cattier the better. Or at least that’s the mentality when it comes to shows revolving around rich women whose bottom line is pretty much dependent on the men they marry, and boy, do people really love those shows. That’s why there have been so many worldwide iterations of Real Housewives, not to mention similarly titled takes like Hockey Wives.
This week’s entry is another riff on the genre, as the cast is made up exclusively of the second (or third, or four, or fifth) life partners of rich, quasi-celebrity men in Hollywood. Meet Shiva Safai, Katie Cazorla, Veronika Obeng, Shawna Craig, Tania Mehra and Morisa Surrey, six ladies who know the struggle and stigma of being the second wife all too well.
And while it may be hard to feel sorry for them given the fact that their ?cars have champagne fridges, their homes have too many rooms to count, and their closets are filled with Chanel dresses you’d expect to see on a Paris runway, it’s hard to deny that their lives are full of drama—though admittedly, neither they nor we would have it any other way.
The financial damage done during the economic meltdown of 2008 is impossible to fully quantify, but filmmaker Charles Ferguson gave it his best shot with this 2010 project. It’s a film which—through interviews with a number of notable insiders, journalists and politicians—takes viewers? on a rough ride detailing how the deregulation of markets and financial services led to tremendous corruption.
As The Guardian wrote in their review of the film, There is a revolving door between the banks and the higher reaches of government, and to some extent the groves of academe. Bank CEOs become government officials, creating laws convenient for their once and future employers.
And as Ferguson told NPR circa the film’s release, he had no idea just how much corruption he would uncover. I had grossly underestimated the level of extraordinarily unethical and even fraudulent behaviour that had occurred on such a large scale. If somebody had told me in the fall of 2008 that this had gone on on a huge scale—tens of billions of dollars—I would have said, ‘No, that’s just too extreme. People don’t do that. And if you do do it, you would go to jail.’ They did do it, and nobody’s gone to jail. At the very least, his film drew attention to the situation, and earned plenty of acclaim in the process, winning the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
