Around the Tubes: February 13, 2021

  

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on The Great, Genius: Aretha,  Boss Level, COVID Diaries NYC, Hulu documentaries, The Show, Greta Van Fleet,  and Bellator MMA.

- Golden Globe nominee Elle Fanning revealed an exciting first look at Empress Catherine the Great in season two of Hulu's Golden Globe and SAG nominated comedy series The Great. In season two, Catherine becomes both a mother to Russia and a child.  

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- National Geographic and Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet,” “The Color Purple”) revealed today during the network’s TCA session the highly-anticipated premiere date and official series trailer for the multiple Emmy award-winning anthology series GENIUS: ARETHA. From 20th Television and Imagine Television, this new season will premiere in the U.S. on the channel with double-stacked episodes across four consecutive nights, beginning on Sunday, March 21, at 9/8c. The premiere episodes will be available the next day on Hulu, culminating in a celebration of Aretha Franklin’s birthday, with all eight episodes available to stream by Thursday, March 25. 

- The official trailer and key art for Hulu’s action-packed Original Film BOSS LEVEL is here!  BOSS LEVEL premieres Friday, March 5, on Hulu.  Trapped in a time loop that constantly repeats the day of his murder, former special forces agent Roy Pulver (Frank Grillo) uncovers clues about a secret government project that could unlock the mystery behind his untimely death. In a race against the clock, Pulver must hunt down Colonel Ventor (Mel Gibson), the powerful head of the government program, while outrunning skilled ruthless assassins determined to keep him from the truth in order to break out of the loop, save his ex-wife (Naomi Watts) and live once again for tomorrow.

- COVID DIARIES NYC, debuting TUESDAY, MARCH 9 (9:00-9:40 ET/PT), chronicles the lives of five young filmmakers, ranging in age from 17 to 21, who turn their cameras on themselves to tell the stories of their families during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. The deeply personal film illuminates the plight of essential workers and their families during the early days of the COVID-19 crisis as they navigate the deadly virus and a country riven by social upheaval.  The film will be available on HBO and to stream on HBO Max. The trailer is available now on YouTube.

- Hulu's Spring Original Documentary Slate:  

kid 90 premieres Friday, March 12.  As a teenager in the ‘90s, Soleil Moon Frye carried a video camera everywhere she went. She documented hundreds of hours of footage and then locked it away for over 20 years. After all this time, kid 90 unlocks the vault and presents a true time capsule of a group of friends growing up in Hollywood and New York City in the ‘90s, balancing childhood and fame pre-internet and social media explosion. It is a deeply personal coming-of-age story that explores how “sometimes we need to look back to find our way forward.” Soleil is joined by lifelong friends and fellow child stars who provide commentary on growing up in the ‘90s; including David Arquette, Stephen Dorff, Balthazar Getty, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Brian Austin Green, Tori Leonard, Heather McComb and more.

WEWORK: OR THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF A $47 BILLION UNICORN premieres Friday, April 2.  WEWORK: OR THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF A $47 BILLION UNICORN is a feature documentary that explores the rise and fall of one of the biggest corporate flameouts and venture capitalist bubbles in recent years - the story of WeWork, and its hippie-messianic leader Adam Neumann. Utilizing interviews with journalists, experts, high-ranking former employees, and former WeWork members, WEWORK: OR THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF A $47 BILLION UNICORN takes a look at the community-centric, people-first ideal that sent the little co-working venture sky-rocketing into unicorn investment territory, and then investigates what was really going on behind the scenes.

Sasquatch premieres Tuesday, April 20.  While visiting a pot farm in Northern California in 1993, investigative journalist David Holthouse heard a story that still haunts him: On a nearby farm three men were torn limb from limb in a savage Bigfoot attack. Sasquatch follows David as he revisits the Redwoods 25 years later, in search of any evidence that might lead to the truth of what happened that night. As he pulls at the threads of this story he’ll be taken down a path that’s far more terrifying than anyone would have imagined. 

- SHOWTIME has announced that it will air THE SHOW, a 90-minute feature documentary that will provide a unique, first-ever look into the making of the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show. This year’s show starred The Weeknd and was executive produced by Emmy nominee Jesse Collins (BET Awards, Grammy^® Awards, Oscars^®), Roc Nation and directed by acclaimed multi-award nominated Hamish Hamilton (who has directed the Halftime Show since 2010). Directed by Emmy nominee Nadia Hallgren (Becoming), THE SHOW is produced by the Pepsi in-house content studio and Boardwalk Pictures (Cheer, Chef’s Table) and will premiere later this year.

- Hot on the heels of their fifth #1 at rock radio, GRAMMY®-winning band Greta Van Fleet today announce a luminous new single, “Heat Above.” It is the third track released from their forthcoming sophomore studio album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate, produced by Greg Kurstin (Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters, Adele) and due out April 16 (Lava/Republic Records).  “Heat Above" is an ethereal track that opens with a Hammond B3 seeping in slowly to set the tone for a triumphant sonic build. You can listen to the song HERE,

- Bellator MMA and SHOWTIME Sports, both leaders in the combat sports arena, have teamed up to bring live, world-class mixed martial arts events back to the premium television service for years to come. Bellator MMA and SHOWTIME Sports, both owned by entertainment giant ViacomCBS, will air live events exclusively on SHOWTIME on Friday nights and will launch with three consecutive weeks of action-packed fights beginning Friday, April 2, live at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT, and continuing on Friday, April 9 and Friday, April 16. The upcoming live events will emanate from Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., where Bellator MMA and SHOWTIME Sports have held more than 20 live combat sports events since July 2020. 

-  Under Comcast NBCUniversal’s newly launched Plan Your Vaccine awareness campaign, Telemundo, the leading media company for U.S. Hispanics, will provide news, information and resources in Spanish, through Planifica Tu Vacuna, a comprehensive interactive tool in Spanish, to help Latinos plan for their COVID-19 vaccination.  The tool’s launch marks the kick-off of Telemundo’s year-long company-wide initiative to raise awareness in the Latino community about the COVID-19 vaccines and provide critical information to help Hispanics navigate the vaccination process and overcome this unprecedented global health crisis.  Data shows Latinos make up a lower percentage of people getting vaccinated for COVID-19 despite being disproportionately affected by the virus. Comcast NBCUniversal’s customizable tool offers Spanish-language users detailed information about when and where to get a COVID-19 vaccination. It will help users track the vaccine rollout process by state, providing up-to-date local and national information including who’s eligible, vaccine availability plus state specific requirements and rules.

Previewing Into the Dark: Tentacles

Into the Dark banked a few episodes before the Coronapocalypse before shutting down productions going all the way to July before going on hiatus.  This was very unfortunate for me because August is the month I most look forward to being the month with no major holidays.  Though the first season gave us a start of school themed episode which was kind of anticlimactic but did make plenty of sense.  The anthology series is back just in time for Valentine’s Day which gave us one of the best episodes of the first season, but also one of the worst episodes of the second season.

 

The third February episode Tentacles falls in the middle of those two.    The story follows a homeless woman who goes around to open house for the free cookies and if she is lucky, no one notices she hid in the closet and finds a place to sleep for the night.  But after a chance encounter with a photographer / house flipper who has a place where she can crash, she may have some stability in her life.  Well, stability and copious amount of sex with the photographer / house flipper including a sex session so long they showed it is fast forward as to not add an extra ten to twenty minutes to the episode.

 

After a slow start (probably why they put in copious amounts of sex at the beginning) things start to get really creepy and you begin to realize what you thought the episode was about is a completely different thing leading to a pretty satisfying ending for fans of the horror genre.  But this makes the eleventh episode released in the second season and the twelfth and final episode coming next month.  So I do wonder if it is renewed, will Hulu start season three right in April or wait to launch in October like the previous season.  Hopefully it is right away, might as well produce the August and September scripts I am sure were already written, and yes I am suggesting this so I would not have to wait another year and a half for the next August episode.  Really, I mostly want weird, more obscure holidays for a potential third season.

 

Into the Dark: Tentacles premieres tomorrow only on Hulu.

57 Channels and Only This is On: February 7, 2021

 

Your Honor:  So people are people now just wearing masks in court now?  That was just ransom for a show that I do not believe has referenced the Coronapocalypse up to this point.  And the judge says the gangsters son is easily going to be convicted even while dismissing the juror?  So is he lying to her or is he really going to let the jury convict him?  But we did get the teacher back for the first time in maybe a month.  I originally said I found this relationship more interesting than the one on A Teacher, but now that show is over, it feels like this relationship just got ickier.  Granted the lady teacher wants to move to New York to be closer to her even though that relationship was severely undercooked since she disappeared for about a month.

 

Snowpiercer:  So to stave off global warming, they shot something into the atmosphere to cool the planet but it did too good of a job?  Huh?  This is why it is a bad idea to try and explain a sci-fi plot; you are just going to sound silly.

 

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist:  More drugged up Zoey please.  If that is a way they get more musical numbers with her, so be it.  But what is up with the neighbor and his Aussie accent so thick that it even comes through when he sings?  Is he originally from there and moved next door as a teen?  Did he spend so much time Australia after school he picked it up?  Did they hired the actor because he was hot and when they realized he could not do an American accent they just said fork it?

 

Big Sky:  So if you are shot in the head, the frontal loab is the place to be hit?  Got it.  But just when I thought the show could not get any any weirder, here comes Dre Carey’s brother’s lawyer with her story of biting the head off a chick. And she said it to a doctor.  Oh my.

 

The Challenge: Double Agents:  Just how incompetent is Meechie that Josh just kept on hilariously throwing balls at places in te wall that had a brick wall against them and still lost?  Ugg, I really need Josh gone.  But after that performance, everyone left without a Gold Skull will want to send him in to take Josh’s.  But we finally got out first challenge this season that did not completely suck, yet they almost screwed it up with that stupid rule that they would keep going until both partners won in the final round.  I wonder if CT just gave up because no way Big T ever wins a round so why waste your energy?

 

Wandavision: Well, that was shocking.  Sure, with all the talk of her brother over the last couple episodes, it is not that surprising that Quicksilver showed up, but it was completely shocking that it was that Quicksilver who showed up.  I was not expecting mutants to show up this soon and on Disney+ and definitely was not expecting they were going to do the Fox X-Men.  But gotta love Darcy’s line about Wanda recasting her brother.  Though it would have been even better had they did the old soap opera troupe of having the announcer say, “This week, Quicksilver will be played by Evan Peters.”  

 

The Blacklist:  I feel like we have done this episode before where Lizzie needed to testify in court to keep a Blacklister behind bars.  That is the problem with a show that has gone on for this long.