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    Two Miss Austens, Asterix & Obelix and Robot Chambermaids

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    New international series include a drama about Jane Austen and her sister, a Netflix reboot of a French institution and a whimsical sci-fi anime.In this roundup of recent series from other shores, we go tripping through time and space: from Roman Empire high jinks to Regency England melodrama, and from contemporary British mystery to a postapocalyptic Japanese hotel.‘Apocalypse Hotel’This whimsical, oddball science-fiction anime has not ranked highly in surveys of this spring’s season of Japanese animated series, perhaps because it doesn’t fit precisely into a standard category. (It also has the disadvantage of being a rare original series, with no ties to an already popular manga or light-novel franchise.) In a Tokyo slowly being reclaimed by nature, on an Earth abandoned by humans because of an environmental catastrophe, an intrepid band of robots keep the lights on at a luxury hotel, prepping every day for nonexistent guests. The staff members’ intelligence may be artificial, but their commitment to service is touchingly genuine.When guests do appear — sometimes decades or even centuries apart — they are not humans but wandering aliens whose habits and needs test the robots’ resourcefulness. A family of shape-shifting interstellar tanuki (raccoon dogs) decorate their rooms with towers of dung; a superpowered kangaroo with boxing gloves for paws is intent on destroying the planet’s civilization, not realizing the job is already done. As the travelers and the staff adjust to one another, the robots enact their own version of exquisite Japanese tact and hospitality, with results that are both melancholy and raucously comic. (Streaming at Crunchyroll.)‘Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight’The tremendous success of the Asterix comics and their offshoots across more than 60 years — hundreds of millions of books sold, a panoply of movies, a popular theme park outside Paris — has never translated particularly well to the United States. The heroes of the stories, a village of 1st-century-B.C. Gauls with egregiously punny names, may hold out against Roman occupation because of the magic strength potion brewed by their druid priest. But their true power, in literary terms, is a projection of insular French wit and wordplay and rough-and-ready Gallic sang-froid. For Americans, the humor can seem both beneath our standards and over our heads.“Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight” is based on the long-running Asterix comics.2025 Les éditions Albert René/Goscinny-Uderzo/NetflixNow that Netflix is involved, however, it is a sure bet that the intention is to cross over into as many markets as possible, not least the United States. This five-episode adaptation of an early (1966) Asterix book accomplishes that goal with sufficient style, primarily through its brightly colorful 3-D animation. The images are vivid and pleasing, and they hold your interest even when the action kicks in and the storytelling loses some of its French particularity, sliding into a Pixar-derived international-blockbuster groove. (Streaming at Netflix.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      International TV Series to Stream Now: ‘Miss Austen,’ ‘I, Jack Wright’ and More

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      New international series include a drama about Jane Austen and her sister, a Netflix reboot of a French institution and a whimsical sci-fi anime.In this roundup of recent series from other shores, we go tripping through time and space: from Roman Empire high jinks to Regency England melodrama, and from contemporary British mystery to a postapocalyptic Japanese hotel.‘Apocalypse Hotel’This whimsical, oddball science-fiction anime has not ranked highly in surveys of this spring’s season of Japanese animated series, perhaps because it doesn’t fit precisely into a standard category. (It also has the disadvantage of being a rare original series, with no ties to an already popular manga or light-novel franchise.) In a Tokyo slowly being reclaimed by nature, on an Earth abandoned by humans because of an environmental catastrophe, an intrepid band of robots keep the lights on at a luxury hotel, prepping every day for nonexistent guests. The staff members’ intelligence may be artificial, but their commitment to service is touchingly genuine.When guests do appear — sometimes decades or even centuries apart — they are not humans but wandering aliens whose habits and needs test the robots’ resourcefulness. A family of shape-shifting interstellar tanuki (raccoon dogs) decorate their rooms with towers of dung; a superpowered kangaroo with boxing gloves for paws is intent on destroying the planet’s civilization, not realizing the job is already done. As the travelers and the staff adjust to one another, the robots enact their own version of exquisite Japanese tact and hospitality, with results that are both melancholy and raucously comic. (Streaming at Crunchyroll.)‘Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight’The tremendous success of the Asterix comics and their offshoots across more than 60 years — hundreds of millions of books sold, a panoply of movies, a popular theme park outside Paris — has never translated particularly well to the United States. The heroes of the stories, a village of 1st-century-B.C. Gauls with egregiously punny names, may hold out against Roman occupation because of the magic strength potion brewed by their druid priest. But their true power, in literary terms, is a projection of insular French wit and wordplay and rough-and-ready Gallic sang-froid. For Americans, the humor can seem both beneath our standards and over our heads.“Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight” is based on the long-running Asterix comics.2025 Les éditions Albert René/Goscinny-Uderzo/NetflixNow that Netflix is involved, however, it is a sure bet that the intention is to cross over into as many markets as possible, not least the United States. This five-episode adaptation of an early (1966) Asterix book accomplishes that goal with sufficient style, primarily through its brightly colorful 3-D animation. The images are vivid and pleasing, and they hold your interest even when the action kicks in and the storytelling loses some of its French particularity, sliding into a Pixar-derived international-blockbuster groove. (Streaming at Netflix.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The 6 Mitford Sisters, Their Jewelry and a New TV Series

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      The costume designer for “Outrageous” talks about finding designs that the women would have worn.The Mitford sisters, known for their 20th-century aristocratic glamour and political scandal, were not among England’s most gem-laden women. But jewelry did play a role in their outsize public profiles.“Diana the fascist, Jessica the communist, Unity the Hitler-lover, Nancy the novelist, Deborah the duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur” is how Ben Macintyre, a writer for The Times of London, once described the six women.Now they are the subjects of “Outrageous,” a six-part series scheduled to debut June 18 on BritBox in the United States and Canada and June 19 on U and U&Drama in Britain. The series is set in the 1930s, the era in which they became famous — and infamous — and arrives on the heels of the discovery of a diary kept by Unity, who was obsessed with Hitler and, by her own account, was his lover. Excerpts were published this year by The Daily Mail.A childish prank involving Unity and Jessica was most likely one of the sisters’ earliest jewelry episodes. “A diamond ring was used to etch both the image of a hammer and sickle and swastika on a window in their childhood home,” Sarah Williams, the writer of “Outrageous,” said in a recent video interview. “They had such a young bond as kids, but they were both rebels, and that bond of rebellion was stronger than their political beliefs. They were absolute extremes.”The sisters — there also was one brother, Thomas, who was killed in World War II — were the children of David Freeman-Mitford, the second Baron Redesdale, and his wife, Sydney Bowles. While the family was not particularly wealthy, the sisters were schooled at home and then entered society.“As part of our research, we specifically collected images of jewelry pieces worn by the Mitford girls,” Claire Collins, the costume designer for “Outrageous,” said by email, “and although we couldn’t replicate certain pieces, we were able to use them as a guide.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      This Charming British Detective Show Is an Escape From Uncertain Times

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      “Ludwig,” streaming on BritBox, stars David Mitchell as a reclusive puzzle setter who solves mysteries. And then the world makes sense again.In the opening scene of the detective show “Ludwig,” the camera pans up and down the floors of a glass office building while jaunty music plays on the soundtrack. Employees chat as they pack up and leave for the day, and then we reach an upper level, where a man in a button-down shirt and slacks is sprawled on the floor, an ornate knife sticking out of his chest.When the comedian David Mitchell read this first page of the show’s script last year, he immediately thought, “This aesthetic is exactly what I want,” he said in a recent interview. “It just felt — which is weird to say when it involves someone being murdered — but it felt fun.”When “Ludwig,” starring Mitchell in the lead role, aired in Britain late last year, viewers seemed to agree: Nearly 10 million people tuned in, making it the BBC’s most popular new scripted program in years.In the show, which comes to BritBox in the United States on Thursday, Mitchell plays the kind of endearingly unworldly, fiercely intelligent character that has made him a household name in Britain.Mitchell’s character, John, is a reclusive genius who lives alone, setting crosswords and other brain teasers under the pen name Ludwig.Colin Hutton/Big TalkHis character, John, is a reclusive genius who lives alone, setting crosswords and other brain teasers under the pen name Ludwig. His identical twin brother, James, got married, had a son and is working as a police detective — but then James disappears, leaving his wife Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) a cryptic note.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

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      ‘Ludwig’ Is Like a Fun British Version of ‘Monk’

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      The twisty, serialized mystery stars David Mitchell of “Peep Show,” who plays identical twins, one of whom goes missing.David Mitchell stars as identical twins in “Ludwig,” the latest charming quirky British detective show, coming to BritBox on Thursday. The show is a big hit in England and has already been renewed for a second season.Mitchell is mostly playing John, the extra-fastidious twin, the one who lives a solitary life. But he has his puzzles: He makes a living as a puzzle creator known as “Ludwig” and publishes books that thrill the cryptology crowd.He is yanked from his hermitage by a phone call from his sister-in-law, Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin), with whom he has been close since early childhood. His twin brother, James, a detective, is missing, and she has a kooky scheme to get to the bottom of it. John needs to pretend to be James, go to the police station and gather the intel they need. What could go wrong?John is not a smooth operator, and he struggles with office chitchat and idiomatic language. But dang if our guy isn’t a genius observer and brilliant logician who gets to play Sherlock Holmes on cases by seeing all the ways they remind him of his games. This one is an elaborate deductive reasoning puzzle; this one is like a game of chess. You, ma’am, are under arrest.The procedural aspects here are clever and twisty, and the serialized mystery of James’s disappearance is an ample engine. In addition to being like a fun British version of “Monk,” “Ludwig” is a stationery aficionado’s utter dream. The pens, the pencils, and oh, the notebooks. You can tell by just the sound of their snips that those scissors have the heft and excellence of God’s own shears. Appropriate for its title, the show also has a fantastic score.SIDE QUESTSMitchell is one of the team anchors in my favorite British panel show, “Would I Lie to You?” Several seasons are on Amazon Prime Video and BritBox, but you can have just as much fun looking up clips on YouTube.Mitchell is perhaps best known as the star of “Peep Show,” all nine seasons of which are on Amazon, Hulu, the Roku Channel and Pluto.In addition to “Monk” (Amazon, Peacock) and “Psych” (Amazon, Peacock), “Ludwig” reminds me a lot of “Death in Paradise,” which also centers on a fussy fish-out-of-water detective who solves nutty cases and maybe learns to soften up along the way. That’s on BritBox, as are dozens of similar shows.If you want to watch Maxwell Martin do more of the solving, she is one of the stars of “Bletchley Circle,” a period drama about female code crackers who solve crimes after World War II. That’s on Amazon, Peacock and the Roku Channel. More

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      International TV Series to Stream Now: ‘The Leopard,’ ‘Newtopia’ and More

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      New international series include an espionage thriller on Max, a horror comedy on Prime Video and a new Netflix adaptation of “The Leopard.”The United States’ relationships with the rest of the world’s nations are fluid right now, but one thing is for sure: We keep importing their television shows. Here are some recent additions to what appears to be an increasingly large trade imbalance, at least when it comes to scripted series.‘Dog Days Out’With “Bluey” on a hiatus, this cheerfully mesmerizing South Korean cartoon — it’s like a crackerjack action blockbuster for toddlers — can fill the animated-puppies vacuum. You might even consider the lack of hyper-articulate dialogue to be an advantage: There’s something restful about a soundtrack that consists of smashes, crashes and a variety of canine shrieks and laughter.On an idyllic suburban cul-de-sac rendered in candy-colored 3-D animation, the puppies come out to play when their barely seen masters are away and destroy everything they can get their paws on. Joining them in the slapstick mayhem are their toys, including a rainbow-hued chew doll that instigates much of the trouble; opposing them are curmudgeonly birds and crafty rodents. Many shows for preschoolers feature the same kind of nonstop action, but the animators at the South Korean studio Million Volt execute this one with a combination of fluid style and infectious spirit that can hook the unwary adult. (Netflix)“Dog Days Out” is a new animated slapstick kids show on Netflix. Netflix‘Douglas Is Cancelled’Steven Moffat of “Sherlock” and “Doctor Who” wrote this dark four-episode comedy which, consciously or not, pulls a bait and switch. Starring Hugh Bonneville as Douglas, a popular broadcaster anonymously accused of having told a sexist joke, it begins as a brittle farce about the comfortably entitled running afoul of cancel culture and social media mobs. But then it shifts, becoming a sometimes didactic and unconvincing, sometimes powerful and unsettling, examination of men’s corrosive treatment of women.Moffat, who can be a very clever writer, takes the male repertory of gaslighting, stonewalling and veiled aggression and turns it against the men in his story in amusing ways. It’s also noticeable, though, how the targets of the most pointed satire tend to be young women, and how the best roles are written for middle-aged men. Karen Gillan, as Douglas’s on-air partner, and Alex Kingston, as his wife, are fine in fairly monochromatic parts. But the spotlight is on Bonneville, who is excellent as always; Simon Russell Beale, who is hilarious as Douglas’s diffidently loathsome agent; and Ben Miles, who is chilling as an utterly cynical producer. (BritBox)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

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      Small Streamers Like Hallmark+ and BritBox See Subscribers Surge

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      Like Christmas shows? So does Hallmark+. Like horror? Dare to try Shudder. And British shows? There’s BritBox and more.Executives from the Hallmark Channel made a curious decision this fall: They started a new streaming service.It seemed like an awfully late date to do so. Most media companies entered the streaming fray years ago, and few have had success going head-to-head against titans like Netflix, Amazon and Disney.But Hallmark executives decided the timing was not an issue. Their app, Hallmark+, did not need to appeal to the whole country, they said, just their core audience — the people who regularly flock en masse to the network’s trademark holiday and feel-good programming.“We don’t have to make content that are all things to all people,” said John Matts, Hallmark Media’s chief operating officer.He might very well be onto something.For much of the past decade, conventional wisdom inside the entertainment world has been that only a small handful of megaservices would survive the streaming wars. After all, they had the stars, the budgets and the technological prowess.But numerous media executives now believe that there could be room for some more modest streaming services, too.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

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      ‘Alan Cumming’s Paradise Homes’ Is a Cheeky and Fabulous Distraction

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      Need a healthy does of escapism right about now? Look no further than this series on BritBox.There are certain television shows that seem as if they were created as an excuse for famous people to take nice vacations. “Alan Cumming’s Paradise Homes” is one such program. But that doesn’t mean the series, streaming now on BritBox, isn’t a charming, escapist watch.Cumming is the Scottish actor known for his work on Broadway in the likes of “Cabaret” and his stint on “The Good Wife,” but recently he has been using his thick brogue for reality TV hosting gigs. His stint lording over the bickering competitors of Peacock’s “The Traitors” won him an Emmy earlier this year. “Paradise Homes” continues the trend, but it features far less back stabbing.In the five-episode first season, Cumming travels around Europe and North America, poking his nose into extraordinarily designed homes. Cumming bills himself as an architecture buff who has designed several building projects of his own, and as he tours each spot, he evaluates it based partly on whether it is the type of place he picture himself in. It makes the entire enterprise feel like “Architectural Digest” by way of your most fabulous friend with a judgmental side.While I’m no expert, the houses really are incredible, mostly modernist palaces in unusual locales. Still, as is the case with most shows like this, the entertainment value varies based on who is living in the homes. The best subjects have the most curious houses, like the couple in rural Ontario who revamped a 19th century cabin with sleek and contemporary additions, painted black. The couple also get Cumming’s sense of humor, and they invite him to sing karaoke in their hot tub with them.For all the gorgeous scenery, Cumming, with his penchant for snooping and his stylish suits, is really the main attraction. He wants to have a good time, and when he vibes with the homeowners, the show sparks. He is also delightfully thrilled by tasty (vegan) food and splendid (alcoholic) beverages.“Paradise Homes” is light on the nitty-gritty of how these living spaces are funded and built, leaving the financial details vague. The lack of transparency can at times feel a little tone-deaf, but maybe it’s better that the show doesn’t get too bogged down in reality: “Paradise Homes” is an excellent distraction. For a couple of hours you can imagine you’re living the good life, sipping on wine with a amusingly cheeky guide. More

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      Angela Merkel Is Solving Crimes on TV

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      This fall on TV from the rest of the world: a German small-town murder show called “Miss Merkel,” an Italian “Citadel” and an Israeli act of witness.Plucked from the bountiful fall harvest of international series, this selection of notable shows travels from the sheerly fanciful — Angela Merkel whiling away her retirement investigating small-town murders in “Miss Merkel” — to the achingly real, as survivors of the Oct. 7 attacks tell their stories a year later in the Israeli series “Picture This.”‘The Tower’Gray and quiet in tone, this British cop show is a little like a more serious, less amped-up “Line of Duty” and a little like a simpler, less emotionally walloping “Unforgotten.” Situating it between two of the most absorbing British crime dramas of recent years does not do this modest series (its four-episode third season concluded last week on BritBox) any favors, but it holds its own as a character piece in genre clothing.Gemma Whelan (the seagoing Yara Greyjoy in “Game of Thrones”) stars as Sarah Collins, a by-the-book detective sergeant in a working-class, racially mixed district of south London; the show’s title refers to the apartment building from which a Muslim girl and a policeman fall to their deaths in the first season. Collins is variously allied or at cross purposes with a cocky inspector (Emmett J. Scanlan), a nervous rookie (Tahirah Sharif) and a tough, stoic constable (Jimmy Akingbola) in stories involving agonizing questions of personal and professional conduct; all four are excellent.‘Miss Merkel’Angela Merkel, free of her duties as chancellor of Germany and retired to the fictional Klein Freudenstadt (Little Happy Town), stays sharp by solving the occasional local homicide in two German television movies that premiered Tuesday on MHz Choice. This Merkel, played by the veteran stage actress and director Katharina Thalbach, is a gossipy, evidence-stealing, slightly smug 70-ish pixie whose stern East German upbringing gives her the wherewithal to run rings around feckless local cops in the former West.That attention-grabbing twist on the cozy-village mystery (the films are based on novels by David Safier) does not entirely make up for some lackluster direction and a Teutonic propensity to deliver even sharply written laugh lines with as little expression as possible. But Thalbach’s running patter of political in-jokes and jabs at Merkel’s contemporaries and successors is consistently amusing, even accounting for the number of references that are most likely opaque to American viewers. “How do you manage to exploit me for your own goals against my beliefs?” Mike (Tim Kalkhof), her young bodyguard and reluctant crime-solving partner, plaintively asks, speaking for a generation of European politicians.Matilda De Angelis stars in “Citadel: Diana” as an operative caught between rival spy organizations.Marco Ghidelli/Prime VideoWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More