What to Watch This Week: July 3 to 8

From romantic remakes to new sci-fi thrillers, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week

1. P-Valley – Sunday, July 3, 2:10 a.m., Starz 2; Crave (Stream)

CraveTV Week: Is it true you had to audition for this role despite originating it in the stage play? 
Nicco Annan: It’s true. People in the studio world of film and television did not necessarily know my name. They saw my theatre credits. They saw my choreography credits and my work. But they did not know me. So I took it as an opportunity for me to show them who this character is. I tend to think of auditions in that way in the first place but when it came to P-Valley, I said, “Let me show you her skin.” 

How exactly did you do that? How did you re-land the role?
They had called and said to come in on Wednesday and I turned them down because I was in the middle of another show at the time. And I didn’t have the time to go and get my beard cut in the [character’s style]. I also needed the time to think about the wardrobe. I wasn’t stressed about the lines or anything like that, because I knew the character. But I needed time to be able to prepare so that when I walked into the room, you saw her. So, I didn’t leave any room for them to imagine who the character is. I showed them who this character was from the gate. 

What will we learn about Uncle Clifford in season two?
All of the characters get deeper because of the storytelling. This season addresses the pandemic of it all and it was interesting to see how Uncle Clifford clicked into her creativity more and found ways to keep the club afloat and to provide for her family. She goes so much deeper internally and as an audience member you can relate to her more and understand her more. And hopefully you will love her more. 

2. Big Brother – Wednesday, July 6, 8 p.m., Global & CBS | Season Premiere

GlobalYour summer reality obsession is back for another season of Head of Household challenges, controversial contestants and the even more controversial oatmeal “slop.”  

This time around, host Julie Chen welcomes a wholly new cast (no all-stars) into the infamous abode where cameras will record their every last move as they try and outmanoeuvre one another for big bucks—i.e. the new top prize of $750,000, which was introduced in season 22.  

Of course, fans are also wondering whether Big Brother Canada will have any influence on the game, given the positive American streaming reaction to our Home and Native Land’s iteration of the show and its penchant for taking bold risks with the format. (BB Canada recently pulled off a downright unprecedented triple eviction, for example.) 

3. Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between – Wednesday, July 6, Netflix

NetflixHigh school sweeties Clare (Talia Ryder) and Aidan (Jordan Fisher) make a pact to break up before they head off to their respective colleges—promising no regrets and no broken hearts. However, when they embark on one final, epic goodbye date, will that change their well-laid plans and offer the two one last chance at love? That’s the question at the centre of this coming-of-age flick based on Jennifer E. Smith’s novel. 

4. Moonhaven – Thursday, July 7, AMC+ (Stream) | Series Premiere

AMC+Darkness finds a way. Such is the tagline for this new post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller that makes its debut on AMC+. The series revolves around a utopian colony on the moon (hence the name) that may have the secret to preserving life on Earth. Our entry point is a character named Bella Sway (Emma McDonald), a lunar cargo pilot and smuggler who is accused of a crime and marooned on the colony.  

There, she’s sucked into a conspiracy to take over the A.I. keeping this miraculous colony alive and teams with a local detective to stop those who want to dismantle it all and destroy Earth’s last hope.  

Dominic Monaghan, Joe Manganiello and Hoji Fortuna also star.

5. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Thursday, July 7, 6 p.m. & 11 p.m. – CTV Sci-Fi | Season Finale

CTV Sci-FiIf you’ve been boldly going along with this acclaimed Star Trek: Discovery spinoff, you’ll be disappointed when the series powers down the warp drive with this week’s finale. The good news: it’s already received a second-season order, and with that second season will come the introduction of another famed Trek captain: James T. Kirk.

6. Black Bird – Friday, July 8, Apple TV+ | Series Premiere

Apple TV+In the 1990s, a man named Jimmy Keene wound up on the wrong side of the law in Chicago. The son of a respected policeman and a high school football star, he got tangled up in drugs and, eventually, landed in prison for 10 years of hard time.  

But the authorities had an idea: if Keene could go undercover and convince a fellow convict named Larry Hall to confess to the murders of 19 women, all of the lad’s troubles would go away. It sounds like a story destined for Hollywood, so it’s no wonder a series based on Keene’s subsequent biography, In With the Devil: A Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption, is hitting the streaming service Friday.  

Kingsman’s Taron Egerton stars as James; I, Tonya’s Paul Walter Hauser plays Larry; and Ray Liotta portrays James’ dad, Big Jim, in one of the actor’s last roles before passing away suddenly in May. 

7. Boo, Bitch – Friday, July 8, Netflix | Series Premiere

NetflixIt’s hard to imagine that there are any remaining teen viewers of Netflix who aren’t already familiar with Lana Condor: the 25-year-old actress has already been seen by an astronomical number of eyes as a result of playing Lara Jean Covey in the streaming giant’s rom-com trilogy, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018), To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (2020) and To All the Boys: Always and Forever (2021). Now, she’s back to headline Boo, Bitch, a series which originated as a script by newcomers Tim Schauer and Kuba Soltysiak and was then adapted by Erin Ehrlich and Lauren Iungerich, both of whom worked on MTV’s cult favourite Awkward.  

Condor plays a high school senior who’s spent her adolescent years flying under the social radar, but just as she finally lands in a position to turn her life and her popularity around, she’s crushed by a moose and becomes a ghost. Or does she? The series definitely goes out of its way to leave things a little bit enigmatic, since it turns all of the typical ghost-story tropes upside down. (Everyone can still see her, she can still physically interact with the world, and so on).  

“It is hilarious, it is filled with chaos in the best way and [it has] drama, but really, it’s about how we can lose ourselves in the pursuit of trying to fit in… and that’s just a part of life,” Condor told PureWow.com in a November 2021 interview. “There’s a paranormal aspect to the show, but it is about staying true to yourself, how you can make mistakes in your life, but that never defines you. You can always come back from them. I cannot wait for it to come out. The actors that we cast are all phenomenal and incredible. I think people are gonna really love it. I hope they do.”

8. Conjuring Kesha – Friday, July 8, discovery+ (Stream) | Series Premiere

Discovery+Singer Kesha shows off her supernatural side in this new series that follows her investigations into an array of paranormal phenomena, joined by various celebrity guests as she visits what she describes as “the most haunted, energetically wild, interdimensionally active, magical locations ever.”

9. Dangerous Liaisons – Friday, July 8, Netflix

NetflixNetflix puts a modern spin on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s 1782 novel, transporting the sexual impropriety to a high school in a French surf town. Here, a booksmart newcomer is seduced by the local bad boy, not knowing she’s actually part of a cruel bet he’s made with his social media queen girlfriend.

10. The Sea Beast – Friday, July 8, Netflix

NetflixThe last time Sony ImageWorks joined forces with Netflix, the result was a film that scored an Oscar nom for Best Animated Feature: The Mitchells vs. The Machines. Naturally then, excitement is running high for their latest collaboration, The Sea Beast, in which filmmaker Chris Williams—director of Big Hero 6 and co-director of Moana—dives headlong into an adventure on the high seas. After surviving an attack by a sea beast as a child, orphan Jacob Holland becomes one of the greatest and most celebrated monster hunters sailing the ocean blue.  

His swashbuckling exploits get complicated, however, when one day he finds a stowaway on his ship: a young girl named Maisie Brumble, who—in addition to being a fellow orphan—lost her parents because they were also monster hunters.  

The unlikely twosome soon bond and embark on an expedition together, one which takes them into dangerous territory, but rest assured that there’s humour and heart intertwined with the action, and the animation is just as gorgeous as you’d expect.  

Voices include: The Boys’ Karl Urban, Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens and The Terror’s Jared Harris.