What to Watch This Week: October 15 to 20

From fur-trading frontiers and zombie finales to ladies on the lam and classic Jack, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week

 

1. The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman – Sunday, October 15, 6 p.m. & 9 p.m., National Geographic | Series Premiere

What is humanity and what does that mean in today’s day and age exactly? Are revenge and justice two separate things? Does love really conquer all? And how do you hate someone you’ve never even met? These are just some of the questions pondered in the latest project from actor/director/voice of God Morgan Freeman. Over six episodes, the Oscar winner will travel around the world to meet inspiring people and hear tales both unique and universally relatable, as he searches for the common threads that bind us all together.

 

2. Fear the Walking Dead – Sunday, October 15, 6 p.m., 9 p.m. & Midnight, AMC | Season Finale

Get into the Halloween spirit with the third-season finale of this zombie spinoff. The two-hour instalment makes Strand’s motivations crystal clear in the first half, while Madison makes a horrifying discovery that could change things forever in the second.

 

3. Bob’s Burgers – Sunday, October 15, 7:30 p.m., City & Fox

Louise and Millie (guest voice Molly Shannon) play detective to find out who attacked Mr. Frond’s therapy dolls while Teddy suddenly decides that he’s going to start making inspirational posters.

 

4. White Famous – Sunday, October 15, 9 p.m. & 9:30 p.m., TMN1 | Series Premiere

White Famous may be principally Jamie Foxx’s story but it rings true for Jay Pharoah too. The Saturday Night Live alum plays a fictionalized version of Foxx in his early professional days in White Famous, a seriocomic Showtime series developed by Tom Kapinos (Californication).

The show’s Floyd Mooney (Pharoah) is a comedian who has to determine how much of himself he’s willing to forsake to attain fame, especially after a video of him dressing down a major movie producer goes viral and suddenly puts his career on the fast track.

Though Foxx—an executive producer and recurring guest star—is the show’s main source of inspiration, Pharoah maintains the process has been “very collaborative” and also reflects his own experiences. “It’s the story of a young comic who’s getting a chance to cross over into the mainstream and be known by the world,” Pharoah says.

 

5. Vice News Tonight – Monday to Friday, 6 p.m., Much; 11 p.m. HBO Canada | Series Premiere

Vice News Tonight garnered worldwide media attention for its stunning coverage of the Charlottesville riots, boiled down into a 22-minute special that’s been viewed more than 50 million times on various platforms.

With all the media attention the Vice brand is generating, the timing is apparently ideal for Vice News Tonight to enter the Canadian market, with this millennial-targeted 30-minute newscast airing Monday to Friday on Much and HBO Canada.

As anyone who’s seen Vice News Tonight can attest, this is not your grandfather’s newscast, offering hard-hitting journalism that strays off the beaten path for a significantly different take on stories than you’ll find on cable news.

 

6. No Fixed Address – Tuesday, October 17, 9 p.m. & Midnight, Knowledge

Vancouver might be a beautiful place to live but make no mistake: it’s also a very expensive place to live, as evidenced by the cost of housing and the number of citizens who struggle to even keep the housing they’ve got. This, of course, isn’t a situation that’s limited to our local area but documentarian Charles Wilkinson and producers Tina Schliessler and Kevin Eastwood have teamed up to take a hard look at the worldwide situation through the prism of Vancouver. The film has a diverse cast of characters involved in telling the tale, including Mayor Gregor Robertson, “Condo King” Bob Rennie and scientist/broadcaster/activist David Suzuki.

 

7. Frontier – Wednesday, October 18, 7 p.m. & 9 p.m., Discovery | Season Premiere

This gritty historical drama set in the days of the fur trade returns for a second go-round, immediately picking up from the first season’s dramatic cliffhanger. With Fort James in chaos after munitions were detonated, Declan Harp (Jason Momoa, Game of Thrones) has escaped the hangman’s noose. While nobody knows whether Harp survived, Lord Benton is taking no chances, offering a dead-or-alive bounty that attracts a cadre of killers.

 

8. Thelma & Louise – Thursday, October 19, 2 p.m. & 8:30 p.m., Lifetime

Thelma (Geena Davis) has an awful husband. Louise (Susan Sarandon) has a boyfriend who won’t commit to marriage. Fed up with their men, the two ladies decide to embark on a weekend road trip, but when a sexual assault turns into a murder, Thelma and Louise find themselves on the run.

 

9. Haters Back Off – Friday, October 20, Netflix | Season Premiere

When we last saw Miranda, she’d experienced a major triumph with one of her videos—100K views!— precisely as she was feeling lonelier than she’d ever felt in her life. But in the final instants of the season one finale, she heard the sound of Patrick’s bike bell. Has he really returned? Like we’d tell you even if we knew! Since then, star Colleen Ballinger has been keeping busy with other projects, but her alter-ego found time to pop onto her YouTube channel, Miranda Sings, and address the rumours that she’s left Netflix. “You’re right, I did leave Netflix,” she said. “I left Netflix, I left my annoying cat, I left my favourite American snacks and I went to Vancouver and I shot season two of Haters Back Off. But now I’m back, baby… and so is season two!”

 

10. The Shining – Friday, October 20, 10:10 p.m., ENC2

Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of his classic novel about a writer (Jack Nicholson) who takes a job as the winter caretaker at the Overlook Hotel and slowly slips into madness, threatening the lives of his family. And, yet, it’s one of the most critically acclaimed of all King’s adaptations.