The British Be Invadin

As Clovis and Maggie Cats have decamped for parts unknown, I felt it behooved yours truly to update all of you lovely people about the programs I have been spending my time watching instead of keeping up with Mad Men. (It's on my DVR, chickens! Fear not.) I thought perhaps you lovelies all thought I had shut myself in my apartment, huddled in blankets, binge watching Call the Midwife while eating cookies and cream gelato directly out of the pint. Me? Do such a thing? So, I thought I would keep you abreast of what I had been up to TV-wise.

I've been watching the hell out of Call the Midwife.

My dudes, this show gets me right in the feels. Now having completed its third, yes, third season, the BBC One drama has seen some major changes occur in the lives of the young midwives and the nuns of Nonnatus House. The most significant event of Season 3 is that Jessica Raine, who portrays the late Jennifer (Lee) Worth (on whose memoirs the show is based) has said goodbye to the series in the hopes of finding greener pastures elsewhere in some absurd little backwater known as Hollywood. After three seasons of filming graphic births, Raine is ready to move on to new challenges and new roles. Jenny starts a new job at a Marie Curie cancer hospital, working with terminally ill patients, and she begins her life with Philip Worth.  However, her departure does not mean the end of the series. BBC has renewed Call the Midwife for Season 4, starting in 2015. Like all good ensemble shows, Call the Midwife has done a fine job of developing its supporting characters, so there is plenty of interest in Chummy, Trixie, Cynthia, kind Sister Julienne, BAMF Sister Evangelina and batty Sister Monica Joan. 

RIGHT IN THE FEELZ!

If you watched all of Season 2 and the Christmas special, you will know that Sister Bernadette has thrown off her habit like she is Maria Fucking Von Trapp, and gotten herself married to Dr. Turner. She dyed her hair and went back to being called Shelagh and she is all kinds of prosh. Dr. Turner and Shelagh were being all kinds of improperly flirty in Season 1 and it's nice to see that relationship come to a successful conclusion. However, Shelagh discovers that her bout with tuberculosis during Season 2 has left scar tissue on her lady bits and she is told that it is unlikely that she will be able to conceive a child.

The show also shifted focus this season somewhat away from Jenny's personal life and more on the personal lives of Trixie and Chummy. Chummy has a bittersweet reconciliation with her posh mum, and she tries to become a Modern Lady, attempting to balance marriage and family with a career. And Trixie starts dating A VICAR. 

Go on with your bad self, Trixie.

I'm sure there will be more development of Cynthia, and the producers have introduced two new characters: Sister Winifred, direct from the Mother House, and new midwife Patsy. 

Call the Midwife is a huge hit in the UK and I encourage all of you duckies to tune in. The guys on this show are so hot. Even Dr. Turner is sexy for an old dude. Seasons 1 and 2 are available via Netflix streaming and through Netflix DVD. Generally, it airs Sunday nights at 8 EST on PBS. 

Next in PBS news (I'm not frontin or nothin; I watch a lot of PBS) is Mr. Selfridge.

 I'm actually glad I gave this show another shot. It's done the opposite of what Downton Abbey has done -- Mr. Selfridge started out weak and it's getting stronger. The shows are pretty comparable, and I do think Mr. Selfridge is a much better show at this point. Season 1 began in 1909, and Season 2 has moved forward in pastfuturetime to 1914, and addresses the outbreak of World War I. Harry (Jeremy Piven) and Rose (Frances O'Connor) Selfridge have stopped cheating on each other with really scary stalker people and are trying to rebuild their marriage. Since the show moved five years into the future, the role of Gordon Selfridge has been recast with an older actor (now portrayed by Greg Austin) and Harry sets the lad to work in the store, starting in the stock room and moving up to the perfume counter, where he begins a flirt with a young shopgirl. D'aww. 

With the outbreak of war, Harry attempts to break into the British establishment by using his money and connections to secure a seat on the Procurement Committee. He runs into a roadblock in the form of Lord Loxley, who dislikes Harry on a personal level. The Procurement Committee is dismissive of Harry's attempts to break into the British aristocracy because he is of low birth and American and all that jazz.

Focusing more on the ensemble cast and their personal struggles has allowed the characters to become more fully fleshed out, and in many cases, more likeable. Case in point is Mae Loxley (Katherine Kelly), who during Season 1 was a very cougary vampy person, but this season has revealed that the formerly MIA Lord Loxley is a TOTAL fucking asshole and I kept wishing for Mae to push him down the stairs.

Just you wait, my dears. 

There has also been a bit more focus on Store Ginger, Kitty Hawkins (Amy Beth Hayes), late of ladies' accessories. Kitty is now Miss Mardle's assistant, and she gets to boss the junior accessories assistants. Her character has revealed itself to be less catty and much more amiable, likely due to her character maturing, and through her burgeoning relationship with newspaper man Frank Edwards (British mainstay Samuel West). All workplace dramas need a ginger. Fact.

And then I told him I never wanted to speak to him again. I think I'm in love!

The title may be Mr. Selfridge, but the star of the show is, and always has been, Agnes Towler (Aisling Loftus). Agnes returns from her design studies in Paris and takes over as head of design.  There, she must contend with the jealousy of wannabe rival in ladies' fashion, the bitchy Mr. Thackeray. Agnes is also conflicted due to the return from America of her former lovvvvaaahhh, Henri LeClair (Grégory Fitoussi) because, in his absence, she has grown closer to Victor Corleone. Agnes realizes she must choose between one of her suitors, and compounding her work and personal stress is the fact that her brother, George, is one of the very first to sign up for active military duty. Oh, the dramz.

Oui!

The adorable Miss Mardle (Amanda Abbington) receives two life bonuses this season, while Mr. Grove continues to be a clueless douche. If you haven't noticed, and you should, Amanda Abbington also appears on Sherlock as Mary Morstan, and she is totes Martin Freeman's lady friend in real life. She is just wonderful on Mr. Selfridge, and if you haven't tuned in, you should.

We'll mad your men. And sell it a sturdy pair of boots.

Seriously, this show has gotten under my skin. The first few episodes of the first season are melodramatic and silly, but this season has made up for it in spades. If you're looking for a British costume drama that has the bells and whistles of Downton Abbey, but with better writing and a perfume counter, I very much encourage you to get on board with Mr. Selfridge. The show's home network, ITV, has renewed it for a third season. Mr. Selfridge normally airs around 9 p.m. EST Sundays on PBS. Some episodes are available for streaming on PBS.org.

The next ensemble of which I speak is BBC America's Brit-Can-Am Orphan Black, which is an entirely different kind of ensemble show altogether.

My dudes, this show is crack. I can't say too much about the season thus far without revealing major spoilers. 

Cosima (Tatiana Maslany) is working for the Dyad Institute, but the symptoms of her mysterious illness begin to worsen. Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) searches for answers about Mrs. S's involvement in Project LEDA. We learn more about pro-clone Rachel (Tatiana Maslany), and Helena (Tatiana Maslany) survived being shot by Sarah, but was abducted by some creepy International House of Prayer culty science people. Alison (Tatiana Maslany) turns into a pill popper due to her guilt over Ainsley's death, and the fact that she's finally realized that her husband, bumbling, oafish Donny, is in fact her monitor.

Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany (Tatiana Maslany) deserves some kind of acting Olympic gold medal. Much has been said about her performance  and it all bears repeating. Her portrayal of each of the clones is so mesmerizing and utterly believable that you really do forget that Cosima, Rachel, Sarah, Alison, and Helena are all played by the same actress, and the illusion goes far beyond wardrobe, make-up, and hair. 

Orphan Black airs Saturday nights on BBC America at 9 p.m. EST. Netflix for some odd reason does not have this available for streaming, but they do have Season 1 on DVD.

Everyone Cries When They're Stabbed

So, I just spent the better part of the last view days mainlining the Canadian gem of a show, Slings & Arrows, to the detriment of all else. Yes, yes, the first season is ten years old, but if you missed it the first time it aired on Sundance, the entire series is back on Netflix streaming. I am an uber geek and I own a box set, but if you, unlike me, spend your money on things like food, rent and bills, you can also get it on DVD from same. 

Slings & Arrows, people. OMG. Where to begin.

Slings & Arrows is a cynical behind-the-scenes look at the goings-on of The Stratford Festival  a fictitious Canadian Shakespeare festival in the equally fictitious New Burbage, Ontario. No one can ignore the fact that the show is mocking the famous and successful mecca of North American theater. However, most of the actors and writers on the show are Stratford vets themselves. Uber hottie Paul Gross portrays Geoffrey Tennant (no relation to David), the unstable yet brilliant artistic director of the New Burbage Festival, who fights the good fight against forces that would destroy good theater: apathy, pretension, commercialization, mass marketing, cynicism, corporate interference, cliche, musicals and Darren Nichols.

If you want to say something to the proletariat, just cover it in sequins and make it sing.

Geoffrey is given the job as artistic director after his former friend and mentor, Oliver Welles (Stratford mainstay Stephen Ouimette), is killed after he falls into the road drunk and is hit by a pig truck.

But not to worry, Oliver's ghost appears to Geoffrey after his death to guide him as he directs, and only Geoffrey can see him, lending more credence to everyone's belief that Geoffrey is insane. Before Oliver's death, Geoffrey hadn't seen Oliver in over seven years after Geoffrey walked off stage during an apparently incandescent production of Hamlet, which Oliver directed. Geoffrey had a mental breakdown and left, and Oliver lost his edge and began staging trite, predictable productions which relied on special effects and big-name stars as draws, rather than relying on honest productions with a core group of solid, gifted actors. Further complicating things is the fact that Geoffrey's former love, Ellen Fanshaw (Stratford and Shaw Festival vet Martha Burns), is still at the festival, but she's getting older, thus is playing Gertrude and boinking men half her age in a desperate attempt to feel young again.

Each season, the show focuses on one main production of a Shakespearean play, and OMG we get to watch brilliant acting not only from the cast, but also from the "company" of players when the productions are ready for previews and performance. Although they can't show one or two entire Shakespearean plays during the performance episodes, we do get to see scenes from these productions, which are no less magical on teevee than I'm sure they would be in real life.

The show was written by Susan Coyne, Bob Martin and Mark McKinney of Kids in the Hall fame, who also stars as starched-shirt managing director, Richard Smith-Jones. 

The first season focuses on Hamlet, and stars Rachel McAdams as Kate/Ophelia. If you can watch her turn as Ophelia and not get chills, then you my friend, are dead inside. DEAD. DEAD LIKE YOU'VE BEEN HIT BY A PIG TRUCK.

 You mean after this I'm going to make The Notebook?

The second season features The Scottish Tragedy and Romeo and Juliet, and the third features a hysterically bad original musical and King Lear. I can't even begin to talk about how good this show is, and if you like theater, black comedy and good TV, you must get all over this forthwith. The acting is phenomenal and the writing is sharp-witted and wickedly funny. I just love Canadians. Even when they say "fuck" every other word or are supposed to be drunk or partying, they are SO ADORABLY DORKY. 

Fabulous Canadians appearing on S&A:  writer, actor and filmmaker Don McKellar as the uproariously pretentious Darren Nichols; actress, writer, director Sarah Polley as Cordelia/Sophie (her father, Michael Polley, appears in each episode as well); actor and erstwhile Gilbert Blythe, Jonathan Crombie, as Geoffrey's understudy in Season 1 and Lionel Train (yes) in Season 2; Warehouse 13 star Joanne Kelly as Sarah/Juliet; the late William Hutt as Charles Kingman/Lear and the late Jackie Burroughs (Aunt Hetty on Road to Avonlea) in a minor but effective role during Season 2. 

Unlike some other shows about theater which I won't mention that try to push their preachy, phony agenda upon the masses, Slings & Arrows takes the stand that good theater does not have to be dumbed down to be appealing to the masses. It carries the message that overwrought, overly thought-out and (dare I say it) overly theoretical productions are not good theater; they are simply dishonest interpretations that are more about the director and his/her enormous ego than anything else. In Geoffrey Tennant's mind, the play is the thing.

There are only three seasons, but the story feels very complete when you finally finish the last episode. Slings & Arrows doesn't take on social problems and try to correct them in "a very special episode" and that's what makes is so true and so goddamn fucking honest. It says within the tiny world of the New Burbage Festival and struts and frets its hour upon the stage with stunning brilliance.