The return of activist lawyer Diane Lockhart, the story of the rise of the Lakers basketball team, the arduous journey of a deprecated woman… We tell you all about these new releases, to watch this weekend at the TV or on the platforms.
On TV channels
Y Kiri, miniseries (France 3)
Kiri, a 9-year-old black girl, lives with a white foster family in an upmarket area of Bristol. Her mother is dead and her father, a former violent drug dealer, is not allowed to approach her. While adoption proceedings are underway, the child’s social worker, the endearing Miriam Grayson (Sarah Lancashire, perfect as always), insists that Kiri keep in touch with her birth family. She organizes appointments at the home of the paternal grandparents, without supervision and without the approval of her hierarchy. During one of these meetings, the father arrives and leaves with Kiri. Miriam is pilloried by the media and public opinion. Did the racial question influence his (poor) judgment of the situation? … Read more
U The Good Fight, season 5 (Teva)
Traditionally, American series begin their new seasons with a brief “previously” summarizing past events. The most original legal drama of the moment makes it an entire episode, where unpublished images scroll: the life of its characters in such a pandemic, the departure of two of them, the evolution of those who remain, everything that we might have been able to see in the past season, truncated due to health crisis. A brilliant introductory gesture, for a new volley of boosted episodes.
It is about, among other captivating subjects, the legitimacy of official justice, with the appearance of a low-cost court cobbled together by a false judge (the excellent Mandy Patinkin), the intersectionality between feminist and racial struggles , of the invasion of the Capitol… Read more
T Pretty Hard Cases (Polar+)
On one side is Samantha Wazowski, an ultra-litigious white detective with the Toronto Police’s gang unit and single mother. On the other, Kelly Duff, in her early forties, a black investigator from the narcotics squad, quick to break a few rules to achieve her ends. Clumsy and funny in spite of themselves, the two cops team up to dismantle a network of traffickers. They meet in a backfiring introductory scene that sets the tone: Pretty Hard Cases won’t be another thriller, carried by an ill-matched duo… Read more
Y What Pauline does not tell you, miniseries (France 2)
It is only a voice that we hear, at the opening of this miniseries, the time of a bitter telephone exchange. Methodically, he belittles Pauline, his estranged wife. When he is found dead, just after the phone call, everything accuses the latter. She went to his house, she could have caused his death in a moment of rage, she who suffered his harassment for so many years, this voice which defeated her and locked her in silence… A hypothesis which does not take long to become a conviction for the investigating judge in charge of the investigation… Read more
T Balthazar, season 4 (TF1)
After learning that his second wife had murdered his first, Balthazar drowns his sorrows in alcohol and parties abroad. On the return plane, while the sulphurous coroner is drinking down his vodka, five passengers begin to convulse and suffocate. Food poisoning due to poisoning… Inevitably, if bad luck holds you, it won’t let you go… and Balthazar can’t even sleep cushy. He gets them out of trouble but must now find the culprit with the help of a mysterious nurse-police. Good luck on a long-haul of five hundred passengers!… Read more
Y Good Girls, season 1 (Téva, replay)
On an ordinary morning, Beth, her younger sister, Annie, and their best friend, Ruby, meet at the supermarket. But no question this time of shopping for the week. It is as masked robbers that the three girlfriends enter the store where Annie works. Beth, a mother of four who looks like a “desperate housewife”, hopes to pay off her unfaithful husband’s debts. Ruby will finally be able to buy the expensive treatment that her seriously ill daughter needs… Read more
On the platforms
O Shining Vale (Starz Play)
“A horror series that would be super funny or a comedy that would be super scary. » This is how Sharon Horgan and Jeff Astrof summarize, in an interview with the American site comic book, the original idea of ShiningVale, the series they imagined together, visible from Sunday March 6 on StarzPlay. We discover Courteney Cox in the skin of Pat, a writer of erotic novels with fragile mental health, who begins to see ghosts the day her family leaves New York for an old house in the country… Read more
Y Winning Times: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (OCS)
The world of sport is fertile ground for American series, but few have been able to capture the intensity of matches, the tension behind the scenes while promoting a politico-social approach. Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, which started on OCS City on Monday March 7, gets around the obstacle by playing a card halfway between a series like American Crime Story and a documentary on a prosperous period of American sport. It depicts the 1979-1980 season of the Los Angeles Lakers, a club shunned by the public who, under the impetus of its new owner, high roller Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly), and a young prodigy, Irvin “Magic” Johnson (Quincy Isaiah), turned into the most spectacular team of the decade… Read more
Y The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, miniseries (Apple TV+)
Adaptations of novels in series are commonplace on American screens. Rarer, on the other hand, are those which are scripted by their author, such as The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray (The Last Days of Ptolemy Grayin VF), declination in miniseries of the eponymous book of the African-American writer Walter Mosley (author of Devil in blue dress). This intimate drama, the first episodes of which are available on Apple TV+ on Friday March 11, features Ptolemy Gray (Samuel L. Jackson), a nonagenarian suffering from dementia, who lives reclusively in a decrepit apartment where his memories are piled up. When his only contact with the outside world, his nephew Reggie (Omar Benson Miller), is murdered, he accepts a clinical trial allowing him to recover his memory, and all his faculties… for a few days…
T Upload, season 2 (Prime Video)
The tidal wave of series that breaks through our screens each month drowns out certain “small” series, which benefit neither from the media impact of a prestigious distribution nor from a subject that echoes current events. Upload, whose season 2 is available on Prime Video on Friday March 11, is one of those works that are talked about too little. Born in the shadow of BlackMirror, this dramatic comedy by Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks and Recreation) depicts the life after the death of Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell), a young computer scientist who died in a suspicious road accident and “uploaded” into a virtual world, Lakeview, a kind of paradise where the digitized souls of the deceased are sent. A luxurious afterlife, presumed ideal but corrupt…
T Demon Slayer: The Pleasure Quarter (Wakanim and Crunchyroll)
In May 2021, cinemas reopened in France with the film Demon Slayer: The Infinity Train, an extension of season 1 of the anime. A box ! It has since become the most successful Japanese animated feature film in the world. With The Pleasure District, sequel in eleven episodes available on Wakanim and Crunchyroll, it is now half of Koyoharu Gotouge’s manga which is adapted into anime. The plot, still set in the Taisho era (1912-1926), sees Tanjiro, Inosuke and Zenitsu, three teenage demon slayers, summoned to defeat the upper moons, formidable enemies… Read more
O Her True Face, miniseries (Netflix)
Laura Oliver, a 50-year-old educator who has just recovered from breast cancer, puts an end to a shooting in a restaurant with astonishing dexterity. Tracked by an obscure organization, she asks her daughter Andy, 30, to flee… We were curious to see this thriller carried by the always excellent Toni Collette. Alas, after a barely effective start, this bloated product drowns in a winded scenario, full of preposterous twists and implausibilities. Poorly drawn characters, unremarkable staging, tasteless interpretation by Australian Bella Heathcote… Pieces of Her (in VO) is hardly better than the adaptations of Harlan Coben’s novels which already abound on Netflix. PL
Y The Boys: Diabolical (Prime Video)
This animated spin-off of the caustic superhero series The Boys, is not an appetizer of its long-awaited season 3 – clues to its plot could however be hidden there. Like the latter, Diabolical also flourishes in gore and the second degree. In eight (too) short episodes, Eric Kripke delivers a full-fledged anime proposal, offering an alternative vision of the lives of the “Seven” (a gang of corrupt and violent superheroes) and the Boys (the mercenaries who hunt them down). , but also, exciting novelty, features ordinary New York citizens. All are confronted with the effects of Compound-V, the serum of superpowers concocted by the company Vought. Each episode has its own story, characters and animation style. Like, for example, a chapter like Looney Toons, which will delight those nostalgic for the golden age of American cartoons. A real success. VG