Northern style

North of North is partnering with the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq to celebrate the way it has propelled authentic northern fashion into the global spotlight at the gallery’s special edition of Crafted on the Catwalk tonight, featuring fashion and design from Manitoba, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Nunatsiavut and Nunavik.

Arnaquq-Baril and series stars Anna Lambe and Zorga Qaunaq spoke to the Free Press ahead of tonight’s catwalk show.

Rap moguls, rock legends amid slate of fall shows

Even in this advanced age of streaming dominance, September still marks a welcome but also overwhelming arrival of new and returning programming. As usual, the focus here remains on brand-new series and movies, but some returns are worth briefly noting.

When Saturday Night Live returns for a 52nd season on Sept. 26 on NBC, hosted by NBA star Jalen Brunson with music by L.A.’s Katseye, the Canadian simulcast moves from Global to CTV/Crave as announced by Bell Media in April.

This TV lover’s heart is also glad to note the return of the feel-goodiest series of the spring, Best Medicine (Season 2 premières Sept. 20/22 on Fox, Sept. 22 on CTV/Crave).

It follows a very grumpy (but soft on the inside) city doctor (Josh Charles, Handmaid’s Tale) returned to family roots and family practice in a coastal fishing village.

TV to raise and lower your stress-hormone levels

Is it just my Instagram feed that is flooded with prescriptions for how to stem the flood of stress hormones in these trying times? Consult a real professional and take care of yourselves out there. Like social media, TV is not letting up, however. The upcoming 25th (yes!) anniversary of 9/11 is accompanied by a slew of network and streaming programming, including 9/11: United We Stand — 25 Years Later on ABC tonight. As for fictional programming, here are a few harrowing highlights, with a couple of comedies thrown in for an attempt at balance.

●The Runner (movie premières Wednesday, Sept. 2, on Prime Video)

High-profile London lawyer and devoted mom Maia Marten (Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman) thinks her biggest challenge on this day is a big day in court. The problems and the stakes escalate immeasurably after a phone call interrupts her morning run. The title is apt, as this thriller has the heroine racing to meet one demand after another. Failure risks the lives of her near and dear and many more. Go!

● Mayday (movie premières Friday, Sept. 4, on Apple TV)

TV lineup promises pugilism, pickleball and partying

Soccer seems to be here to stay. There’s been barely a minute to recover from the 2026 World Cup final. Big smiles are still lingering after last week’s news that Winnipeg has been awarded the Northern Super League’s seventh franchise, starting in 2027. And because it’s not real if it’s not adapted for TV, there are but two weeks to go before the much anticipated return of Ted Lasso, with Jason Sudeikis’s title character now coaching a women’s soccer team in Season 4 (Aug. 5 on Apple TV). Rolling with that sports theme but venturing to other (occasionally murdery) arenas, here are a few suggestions for some brand new non-soccer programming.

● They Fight (movie streaming now on Disney+/Hulu)

This drama, set in Washington, D.C., concerns an ex-con who is drowning in doubt, from within and without, but trying to find his fight. The boxing gym beckons and it’s no spoiler to say he finally responds and learns that the best way to help yourself is to help others first. As they say in the trailer, “lock in!” Andre Holland (Selma) plays our hero alongside fellow acting heavyweights Samira Wiley (The Walking Dead) and Wendell Pierce (Elsbeth).

● The Dink (movie premières Friday, July 24 on Apple TV)

Reimagined Little House still shot through with the truth

In 1974, NBC had to issue a press release explaining why Michael Landon, starring as Charles (Pa) Ingalls on the new show Little House on the Prairie, didn’t have a beard.

Fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved Little House books, on which the series was based, objected to Landon’s clean-shaven face. The real Charles Ingalls famously had a beard (a wild one, at that), and Pa certainly has a beard on the page, as illustrated by Garth Williams.

My point is: Lauraheads have always had their bugbears when it comes to adaptations.

Netflix’s new Little House on the Prairie, which dropped on July 9, is no exception. Among the criticisms I have seen: Mary (Skywalker Hughes) isn’t blond. Jack the dog isn’t a bulldog. Laura (Alice Halsey) wouldn’t have a slingshot and she wouldn’t wear a boy’s hat. And she wouldn’t have an Osage pal named Good Eagle (Wren Zhawenim Gotts).

Brotherly bond boosts local Amazing Race competitors

Sacha has a feeling and Sébastien has a plan — together they’ll work it out.

Winnipeg brothers and best friends Sébastien and Sacha Régnier have added “teammates” to their list of achievements as The Amazing Race Canada launches its 12th season with the siblings on board.

The reality series, which kicks off this year on Whistler Mountain in British Columbia, follows 10 pairs of competitors in a global race, vying for a prize of $250,000 and a trip around the world.

Both Sébastien and Sacha grew up playing sports, so they’re natural competitors.

Little house, big female energy and golf drama

From its earliest black-and-white flickers to today’s kaleidoscope of small-screen streaming options, television has offered many pleasures.

This new handful of new viewing recommendations dances nicely along that spectrum, from a period drama with a much needed modern perspective, a weekend of she-raging, a couple of spy thrillers and golf as a path to true grace (and a few gut-laughs). Onward!

●Little House on the Prairie (series premières Thursday on Netflix)

Based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved Little House books, a new Winnipeg-shot adaptation moves beyond the 1974-83 sentimental TV adventures of the Ingalls family homesteading in the 19th-century American Midwest. The new effort promises to be not only grittier but also narratively broader, expanding beyond the story of the family planting roots in “free land.” Says the show’s Osage Nation consultant Julie O’Keefe, “If you’re going to tell the story, then you need to tell both sides.” The series has already been renewed for a second season. For more on the series, check out Randall King’s recent preview.

Why Widow’s Bay feels like the perfect show for our current moment

Do you ever get the feeling that the world around you is being shaped by events totally beyond your control?

Is it even possible not to have that feeling these days?

If you count yourself among the number who feel powerless in the face of contemporary reality, fret not, because there is a show that understands that feeling perfectly.

That show is Widow’s Bay. If you haven’t heard of it, ask around. It’s all but guaranteed that someone you know loves it. In fact, try as you might, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who’s experienced the show’s well-balanced blend of horror, comedy and pathos who isn’t a fan. And for good reason.

Cutting comedy, frilly diversions

Do not go gentle into that good small-screen summer. There are difficult decisions to be made, philosophically and narratively, and intense Bear-ish drama to be endured.

In between, Mary, Larry and Elle will provide some relief. Well, mostly relief.

●Ryan Hamilton: This Just Hit Me (comedy special premières Tuesday, June 23, on Netflix) and Louis C.K.: Ridiculous (premières Tuesday, June 30, on Netflix)

Happy Face (2017) was tall Idaho-born comic Ryan Hamilton’s first Netflix special. He concentrated his considerable dryly delivered comedy on his perpetually affable, slightly surprised expression. Very funny but uncomfortably self-lacerating at times. That same year, a much more urgent kind of discomfort surfaced when comic Louis C.K. admitted to sexual misconduct after five women publicly accused him. Now both performers have new comedy specials this month. Hamilton’s new special riffs on getting hit by a bus. C.K.’s, recorded last fall, talks about getting older and putting his dad in a home. Tragedy + time = comedy has never been truer, or more challenging to discerning viewers.

Upcoming production spotlights Winnipeg artisans

Think Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, but for Winnipeg artisans instead of U.S. eateries.

That was Amanda Buhse’s pitch to Rogers. Television executives approved.

Now Buhse, whose Coal and Canary candles have landed in Hollywood swag bags and Manitoba markets, is hitting the road with a camera.

She aims to produce an eight-episode series called Made in Winnipeg. It will air on Rogers TV this fall, by current timelines.

Love, music and the return of a weird noir

There really is no excuse for staying indoors, except for streaming these five viewing suggestions.

● It’s Not Like That (series now streaming on Prime Video)

Religion is never not a volatile subject, but faith or belief or whatever word is preferred can/should be a different, more personal matter. Yet it is so seldom factored into small-screen storylines. Netflix’s Nobody Wants This (back for a third season in July) — a rom-com about a rabbi (Adam Brody) and a non-believer (Kristen Bell) — proved that with less preaching and more personal faith, audiences would respond.

Now, producers Ian Deitchman and Kristin Robinson (Parenthood) have delivered a new story about a widowed minister (Scott Foley of Scandal) and his wife’s best friend (Erinn Hayes from The Goldbergs). Their families still do everything together, which dovetails humorously and pointedly into their processing of grief and will-they-won’t-they intimacy. The children’s characters are also well developed, one of them observing about their elders: “I love how they get to start over and we’re supposed to pick up where they left off like nothing happened.” Buy tissues and enjoy!

Colbert exits late night on defiantly joyful note

Well, hello there … remember me? I’m the guy who used to be the guy who got paid to watch television and then write about it in these pages. I’ve been gone for a while — I left the TV beat about a decade ago and, after spending the last six years of my career as editor of the Free Press’s perspectives/political commentary pages, retired in 2022.

I still love watching TV, and am reminded every day, as I flip through the channels, sample what’s new on the streaming services and generally peruse the pop-culture landscape, what a unique privilege it was to draw a paycheque for doing what most people do for fun, and at a cost. As good gigs go, being the Free Press’s TV critic was most definitely one of the best.

And last week’s news cycle included an event that converged the two subject areas that defined my Free Press years — entertainment and politics — in a way that prompted me ask Arts & Life editor Jill Wilson to let me dust off the ol’ Watching TV logo and offer a few thoughts.

I’m speaking, of course, about the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which aired last Thursday, bringing a defiantly joyful end to one of TV’s late-night institutions after an 11-year run with the former Colbert Report star as its host (the show’s creator and original host, David Letterman, retired in 2015 after 22 years at its helm).

TV that brings you home, whether you like it or not

Escape is the theme of this edition of new-TV recommendations? Can you escape home? Or once decamped, can you ever return home? The first selection is the wisest of all, admitting that when pain and loss make their inevitable appearance, the only true path forward is through.

● Marty, Life Is Short (documentary premieres Tuesday, May 12, on Netflix)

Netflix is going ahead with director Lawrence Kasdan’s documentary celebrating the life of Martin Short, despite the recent death by suicide of the comic’s daughter. (The film was completed before her death.) Could definitely be seen as insensitive, or worse exploitive. Or, drawing from Short’s own playbook, that it’s not only OK but necessary for this show to go on. Before, during and after the time the Canadian-born comic actor was honing his skills on SCTV, Saturday Night Live, Only Murders in the Building and comedy tours with and without pal Steve Martin, Short has been impressively frank about the early deaths of his parents, his brother, his wife and recently friends and colleagues Catherine O’Hara and Rob Reiner. “Those kinds of situations are horrible,” he told The Guardian a few years ago, “but I think that you are either empowered by them or you become a victim of them.” This life and film lesson is yet another reason to be grateful for Martin Short.

● Dutton Ranch (series premières with two of nine episodes Friday, May 15, on Paramount+)

To the rescue

Winnipeg Blue Bombers running back Brady Oliveira and realtor/rescue influencer Alex Blumberg may be the charismatic couple at the heart of Must Love Dogs, a new half-hour docuseries steaming on CBC Gem, but the stars of the show are the dogs they rescue.

Especially a sweet pup named Stella, who will no doubt be an early fan favourite.

“She’s a special dog. Her rescue was actually very easy in the grand scheme of rescues because she basically just came right into my arms and we picked her up and put her in the car,” Blumberg says.

While it was an easy rescue, it was on a hard, big day. Some 40 dogs were rescued, and there weren’t enough people to foster them.

New series offer comfort of escapist fare

A new lineup of recommended viewing leans heavily toward escapism. Except for the latest from Baby Reindeer creator and star Richard Gadd, from which some further escapism might be welcome. Onward!

● Trevor Noah: Joy in the Trenches (comedy special premières today, Tuesday, April 14, on Netflix)

Everyone could use a laugh right now and Trevor Noah is the comic for the job. Kind comedy with great, smart, muscular pokes at the bear of dread. Such as pondering what would be Martin Luther King Jr.’s new dream. Also featured will be, according to the publicity bumph, an “unexpected social media beef” and “a therapist’s truth bomb.” Cue applause.

● Margo’s Got Money Troubles (series premières on Wednesday, April 15, Apple TV)