TV

Opinion

Fans line up in the rain outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York on Thursday, ahead of the final episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” (Ted Shaffrey / The Associated Press files)

Colbert exits late night on defiantly joyful note

Brad Oswald 6 minute read Sunday, May. 24, 2026

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).

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Movies

Apple TV Tatiana Maslany stars in Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, premièring May 20.

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

Denise Duguay 5 minute read Preview

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

Denise Duguay 5 minute read Tuesday, May. 12, 2026

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+)

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Tuesday, May. 12, 2026

TV

Courtesy of CBC Winnipeg Blue Bombers running back Brady Oliveira cohosts the new show Must Love Dogs with his partner, realtor and rescue influencer Alex Blumberg.

To the rescue

Jen Zoratti 5 minute read Preview

To the rescue

Jen Zoratti 5 minute read Monday, Apr. 20, 2026

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.

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Monday, Apr. 20, 2026

Movies

Apple TV Elle Fanning plays a glittery self-employed mom in Margo’s Got Money Troubles.

New series offer comfort of escapist fare

Denise Duguay 4 minute read Preview

New series offer comfort of escapist fare

Denise Duguay 4 minute read Tuesday, Apr. 14, 2026

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)

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Tuesday, Apr. 14, 2026

Opinion

WARRICK PAGE / HBO Max Charge nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa, right) suffers burnout in medical drama The Pitt.

Gimme a break with supporting burnout culture

Jen Zoratti 5 minute read Preview

Gimme a break with supporting burnout culture

Jen Zoratti 5 minute read Saturday, Apr. 4, 2026

There are many things HBO’s hit medical drama, The Pitt, does very well, and one of those things is capturing burnout.

It’s in the small details, such as the specific ways in which burned-out workers joke about needing a break. “Throw me in jail; I could use the vacation,” quips nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa).

It’s in the big ones, too, such as Dr. Robby’s (Noah Wyle) increasingly brusque treatment of his staff, the sabbatical he keeps threatening to take, how he feels the entire emergency department rests on his shoulders alone and how he takes great offence when it is suggested that running the ED is a two-doc job by Dr. Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), who will be running the show while he’s away.

Burnout in medicine is a well-known and well-documented problem. It’s gruelling and often thankless work. Ask any nurse who has been spit on, sworn at or threatened in the space of a shift. (The Pitt addresses this, too.)

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Saturday, Apr. 4, 2026

Movies

Spencer Pazer / Netflix Dan Levy returns to comedy in Big Mistakes.

Narco nannies, sharks and other TV dangers

Denise Duguay 4 minute read Preview

Narco nannies, sharks and other TV dangers

Denise Duguay 4 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2026

Anticipation has value, but it requires familiarity. Those viewers in that camp are already counting the days to the likes of the next Margaret Atwood-inspired feminist dystopia, The Testaments, which premières the first three of eight episodes on April 8, on Disney+. Fans of the Vermont-born singer-songwriter are already primed for the documentary-concert combo Noah Kahan: Out of Body, premièring on Netflix on April 13.

But this list of viewing suggestions is more targeted to the series and movies that are less well telegraphed, or more easily overlooked (hidden?) in the streaming-app menus. And so, behold five series and movies you might be less likely to already know about, but should give a try.

●Dear Killer Nannies (series premières with all eight episodes Wednesday, April 1, on Disney+)

Child care is an important consideration for every family. Despite being a violent Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar is no exception. His son Juan Pablo Escobar’s memoir is the basis for this new series, which centres the story of young Juampi, the hitman caregivers assigned by papa Pablo (John Leguizamo) and Juampi’s struggle over whether — and how — to accept or reject the family legacy.

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Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2026

Movies

Daniel Boczarski / Getty Images files Director BenDavid Grabinski frequented the Handsome Daughter while in Winnipeg.

Film director calls Winnipeg a ‘chill’ place to shoot

Randall King 5 minute read Preview

Film director calls Winnipeg a ‘chill’ place to shoot

Randall King 5 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2026

The action-comedy Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (now streaming on Disney+) stars Vince Vaughn as Nick, a gangster who employs time travel to right a personal wrong.

So it’s only fair to ask the film’s director, BenDavid Grabinski, to step back into 2024, when he worked on the film in Winnipeg from May to October.

Winnipeg wasn’t a particular culture shock for Grabinski, by the way. Though he is based in Los Angeles, he was born in Nebraska and spent his formative years, ages 16 to 23, in Iowa, so he was familiar with a Prairie landscape.

“I gotta tell you, I had a really good time in Winnipeg,” says Grabinski, 43, during a Zoom interview Thursday. “I shot 42 nights in a row, so I didn’t get to have that much of a life.

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Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2026

Movies

Merit photo Jeff Newman (left) is the director of Athens: Birth of Democracy, co-produced by Winnipeg’s Merit Motion Pictures for CBC’s Nature of Things.

Tracing the roots of democracy to today’s fragmentation

Conrad Sweatman 6 minute read Preview

Tracing the roots of democracy to today’s fragmentation

Conrad Sweatman 6 minute read Thursday, Mar. 26, 2026

People sometimes joke that we would be no worse off if we picked someone at random from the phone book to rule the country.

Well, the ancient Greeks tried something just like that with their “kleroterion,” a slab of stone and primitive machine used by the Athenians to choose citizens for public office.

Near the end of Athens: Birth of Democracy, co-produced by Winnipeg’s Merit Motion Pictures for CBC’s Nature of Things, host Anthony Morgan and a group of students give this contraption a whirl under the blazing Athenian sun.

Students applaud as they’re randomly chosen by the machine’s system of dice. In reality, Athenians often grumbled at this rude imposition of civic duty.

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Thursday, Mar. 26, 2026

Movies

Apple TV From left: Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington and Kate Mara play best friends in Imperfect Women, premièring Wednesday.

You just can’t keep a good plotline down

Denise Duguay 5 minute read Preview

You just can’t keep a good plotline down

Denise Duguay 5 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2026

Esteemed Irish playwright Samuel Beckett could likely have written some excellent absurdist sitcoms if he had been born a little later (though no quibbles with his stellar oeuvre, including Waiting for Godot, which will be onstage at Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre next spring). But especially on point for this edition of viewing recommendations, consider his most famous quote: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” This is the dogged spirit that propels the characters in these streaming options beyond death, war and career failure. Enjoy.

● Imperfect Women (series premières with the first two of eight episodes Wednesday, March 18, on Apple TV)

If indeed “friendships are built on secrets,” as the trailer for this mystery intones, some hard stares will be on the menu at the next brunch. Onscreen here, Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Kerry Washington (Scandal) star and produce, joined by a solid supporting cast including Kate Mara (The Astronaut), Joel Kinnaman (The Killing), Corey Stoll (House of Cards) and Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton). The basic story — a crime shatters lives and assumptions in the decades-long friendship of three women — sounds very similar to that of the newish How to Get to Heaven From Belfast (Netflix). The latter is darkly hilarious, with some good twisty developments, whereas the new series sounds a little worryingly slick.

● Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (movie sequel to the series premières Friday, March 20, on Netflix)

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Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2026

The Arts

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Gislina Patterson (left) and Dasha Plett portray clueless late-night talk show hosts on Men Explain Things To Us… And We Like It!

Public-access talk show parody offers comedic look at masculinity

Ben Waldman 6 minute read Preview

Public-access talk show parody offers comedic look at masculinity

Ben Waldman 6 minute read Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026

There’s not much glitz or glamour in the world of public access television, and that’s part of what makes the medium enticing to Winnipeg artist Gislina Patterson, who’s spent hundreds of hours watching YouTube clips of low-budget, off-the-wall programming that wasn’t beholden to Nielsen ratings or network interference.

“What’s really exciting about those shows is that they’re this really pure, free form of expression,” says Patterson, who with Dasha Plett runs We Quit Theatre, a collaborative performance collective that wilfully and skilfully defies expectation.

“It’s people making something that they really like, that they really, really want to make. They have professional equipment, but there’s no expectation of what the material they create will be. And there are really beautiful things that emerge out of that.”

Plett and Patterson’s latest beautiful thing is Men Explain Things to Us … And We Like It!, a project that is exactly as it sounds, but so much more.

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Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026

Movies

Jordan Strauss / Invision Files Catherine O’Hara was beloved by seemingly everyone.

Catherine O’Hara flipped tropes, brought humanity to every role

Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Preview

Catherine O’Hara flipped tropes, brought humanity to every role

Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026

Like many kids growing up in the ’90s, I first encountered Catherine O’Hara as Kevin’s mom in Home Alone.

Back then, she was just that: Kevin’s (Macaulay Culkin) mom. But watching the 1990 holiday classic as an adult, as I do every single Christmas with a lovely cheese pizza just for me, you realize the brilliance she brought to the character of Kate McCallister.

Only O’Hara could elevate one line into a movie-trailer tentpole catchphrase — “Kevin!” — by delivering it in a wide-eyed, two-syllable shriek.

Her comedic genius is everywhere, from her interactions on the phone with the Chicago police — “Yeah, hi, look…” — to her banter with real-life friend John Candy, as the Polka King of the Midwest.

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Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026

Opinion

Bell Media Connor Storrie (left) and Hudson Williams have become stars thanks to the series.

Heated Rivalry scores on so many levels

Jen Zoratti 5 minute read Preview

Heated Rivalry scores on so many levels

Jen Zoratti 5 minute read Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026

Heated Rivalry’s current cultural moment looks improbable on paper: how did a little six-episode Canadian show with no stars, from a Canadian director, based on a Canadian gay hockey romance series, released on a Canadian streaming platform set the world on fire?

Jacob Tierney’s (Letterkenny) sports romance, based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers novels, about the long-simmering — and secret — love between on-ice hockey rivals Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Conner Storrie, who is Patrick Swayze incarnate) more than lives up to the hype.

It does so much so well: the white-hot chemistry between two charismatic leads, the storytelling (you will weep), the cinematography, the tension, the payoff.

But lots of shows are excellent and even era-defining. What is it about this show that has led to a frenzied fandom that rivals Swifties in obsession and intensity, specifically among women? Some of my friends are on their third rewatch of the first season (it’s been picked up by HBO, of course) which was released in November and ended late last month.

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Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026

Movies

Helen Williams / BritBox From left: Joanna Scanlan, Tamsin Greig, Rosalie Craig and Amelia Bullmore start a punk band in the British series Riot Women.

Hey ho, let’s go watch punks, cops and spies

Denise Duguay 4 minute read Preview

Hey ho, let’s go watch punks, cops and spies

Denise Duguay 4 minute read Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026

Punk rock, kooky spies, crooked cops, a hilarious old man and a contract killer with a big, big problem: that should be enough to tide viewers over for a couple of weeks!

● Riot Women (series premières Wednesday on BritBox)

Happy Valley writer-director Sally Wainwright has a new series, which is reason enough to celebrate. That this one is about the forming of a punk band by a handful of menopausal women makes it even more appealing to those revelling in CBC’s brilliant menopause comedy Small Achievable Goals. Sisters are doing it! The performances are bound to also be good, from the likes of Joanna Scanlan (Slow Horses), Tamsin Greig (Friday Night Dinner), Lorraine Ashbourne (Sherwood), Taj Atwal (Line of Duty) and Rosalie Craig (Moonflower Murders). Hey ho, let’s go!

● Ponies (series premières Thursday on StackTV and Showcase)

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Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026

Opinion

Bell Media Noah Wyle (centre, back) stars as Dr. Michael (Robby) Robinavitch in The Pitt.

Anticipation TV: In celebration of waiting together for the next episode

Jen Zoratti 5 minute read Preview

Anticipation TV: In celebration of waiting together for the next episode

Jen Zoratti 5 minute read Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026

Remember “Must-See TV”?

For decades, this was how the Thursday-night lineup on NBC was marketed as that was when all the network’s most popular sitcoms aired. Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, Mad About You, Cheers and Wings were part of the original ’90s Must-See TV lineup, a tradition that was carried on through the 2000s-10s with shows such as Parks & Recreation, The Office, Community and 30 Rock. The two-hour comedy block was followed by a prestige drama at 9 p.m., before the news.

At the risk of sounding like a Things Were Better Back When scold, this really was a golden age for viewers. It was a scheduled time to catch up on your stories, but it also functioned as a community builder. All the new episodes from the night before were discussed and debated and quoted around watercoolers at the office or desks in the classroom on Friday morning, and if you missed them or had them waiting on a VHS tape or something, well, sucked to be you. This was Appointment Television. Best be on time.

The Pitt, the hit HBO Max medical drama which began its second season on Thursday night, feels like a welcome return to Appointment Television. For one, it shares a lot of DNA with ER, the other John Wells-produced medical drama which, for 15 seasons, dominated Must-See TV’s drama slot. We can literally once again watch Noah Wyle play a doctor on Thursdays at 9 p.m.

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Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026

TV

Supplied Meredith MacNeill (right) and Jennifer Whalen explore the realities of later life.

Series continues to mine later-life feminine reality for laughs, insight

Jen Zoratti 7 minute read Preview

Series continues to mine later-life feminine reality for laughs, insight

Jen Zoratti 7 minute read Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026

The Judy Blumes of menopause are back.

Small Achievable Goals, the workplace comedy about menopause from creators, executive producers, writers and stars Jennifer Whalen and Meredith MacNeill (Baroness Von Sketch Show), returns to CBC tonight for a second season of boundary-pushing TV.

“It’s kind of like we’re always in labour,” Whalen jokes.

Season 1, which premièred last winter, put Whalen and MacNeill firmly in the menopause cultural zeitgeist. Here, finally, was a frank and funny coming-of-middle-age comedy, with relatable characters played by women roughly the same age — Whalen is 55, MacNeill is 50 — who weren’t making hackneyed open-freezer hot-flash jokes or wallpapering over reality with euphemisms.

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Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026

TV

APTN Jesse Bochner’s Animal Nation is a Canada-centric take on the nature-documentary genre and its exciting, poignant dramas.

Pointing a truer lens on nature

Conrad Sweatman 4 minute read Preview

Pointing a truer lens on nature

Conrad Sweatman 4 minute read Friday, Jan. 2, 2026

At first glance, Winnipeg-born producer Jesse Bochner’s seven-part series Animal Nation brings to mind docu-series such as Wild America, Planet Earth and Nature.

Much of its trailer is a slow-mo montage of caribou and bison galloping majestically through Prairie and Arctic landscapes. Interspersed are shots of northern predators such as wolves and bears, suggesting a Canada-centric take on the genre and its exciting, poignant nature dramas.

Then there are the figures glaringly absent from many other northern wildlife series: the rural and Indigenous people who live closest to these creatures, as they have traditionally for millennia.

“I’ve always loved nature documentaries, so getting to make a nature documentary about animals and all the beauty and wonderful stuff that you come to expect from a blue-chip type of documentary is in there,” says Bochner, who is Ojibwa.

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Friday, Jan. 2, 2026

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