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      in Television

      ‘North of North’ Is a Warm Arctic Comedy

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      Set in a fictional Inuk community in Canada, this Netflix comedy shows abundant tenderness for its characters but also surprising depth and edge.“North of North,” streaming on Netflix, is a bright Canadian comedy set in a fictional Inuk community in Nunavut, remote and TV-quirky. Gossip travels fast in a small town, and our heroine, Siaja (Anna Lambe, terrific), is giving everyone plenty to talk about.Now that her little girl (Keira Cooper) is in school, Siaja feels a bit lost. She’s married to her high school sweetheart, Ting (Kelly William), who kind of sucks, and while she’s glad her mom (Maika Harper) is sober now, their relationship is patchy, and she has never even met her father.While seal hunting with Ting, Siaja falls off the back of their boat into the icy waters, and she has a mystical and transformative experience. Back on shore, Ting berates her, but this time is not like the other times. This time she leaves. Siaja needs something for herself: a job, yes, but also a purpose. And hey — who are those handsome strangers who just got to town?“North” operates in the ways lots of shows about women in their 20s who pursue self-actualization operate. Siaja’s sexual and romantic high jinx are played for laughs and for growth, and the story finds its true heft in the excavation of her mother’s pain. As Siaja resituates herself within her community, she discovers that she has plenty of natural talent that need only be cultivated and directed.She initially scrambles in her new gig as an assistant to the capricious head of the community center (Mary Lynn Rajskub, very fun). “Just make sure you look busy when Helen comes in,” one co-worker warns.“When does Helen come in?” Siaja asks.“When you least expect it,” says another.The show’s abundant warmth and its tenderness for its characters suggest a slightly hokier, cornier show. But the edge and depth of “North” do emerge over its eight episodes, in both the casual cruelty within Siaja’s marriage and in snappy humor. (“You’re an ambassador?” “A brand ambassador.”)On the whole, this is a cozy sweetheart show with lots going for it. There is one aspect, though, that casts a grotesque shadow over everything. It occurs at the end of the pilot, so this is a spoiler, but only barely.One of those handsome strangers in town is Alistair (Jay Ryan), and when Siaja first meets him, she is drunk and spiraling, and he is hot and friendly, so they impulsively make out a little. But lo: Alistair is actually her father. Aaaaaaaahhhh! Save it for “The White Lotus”! The show treats this as merely cringe, but it lands as inescapably disturbing. More

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      in Theater

      ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’: An Origin Story for the Broadway Stage

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      This Broadway production delivers lots of spectacle as it winds back to the teenage years of Henry Creel, an antagonist from the Netflix series.If the economic point of entertainment franchises is to generate new forms of interconnected content, then theater is merely another logical outlet for a property, alongside movies, TV shows, comic books, video games and theme parks. So now here we are with “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” the latest pop-culture phenomenon to manifest into the Broadway dimension.As far as its plot is concerned, the play that just opened at the Marquis Theater fits neatly into the lore of “Stranger Things,” a wildly popular Netflix series about a fictional Indiana town at the juncture of terrifying government experiments and supernatural forces. This production is big, loud, often ingenious and occasionally breathtaking, in a “how the hell did they do this?” kind of way.In other words, “The First Shadow” fulfills its franchise requirements in terms of spectacular art direction and compliance to the series’ canon (to which it adds tantalizing tidbits). Whether it is satisfying as a piece of theater is a dicier proposition.Based on a story by the Duffer Brothers (who created the series), Jack Thorne (“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” a co-creator of the current Netflix phenomenon “Adolescence”) and Kate Trefry, “The First Shadow,” written by Trefry, is a prequel to the series. More specifically, it piggybacks on Season 4, which is set in 1986, and tells the origin story of that season’s primary antagonist, Vecna — the teenager Henry Creel in 1959, when the main plot of the Broadway play takes place.If Vecna doesn’t ring a bell, or if you don’t know that Eleven is better than One, don’t fret: It’s possible to follow the show anyway, and to enjoy it. But it’s hard to deny that audience members who understand those references will have access to more layers of “The First Shadow.”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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      in Television

      ‘The Gardener’ Is a Great Pop-Goth Spanish Murder Series

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      This Netflix series has plenty in common with slick, dark shows like “Dexter” and “You,” though it more often feels like “Wednesday.”A lot of foreign murder shows are about misery, about agony. Bereft parents bicker in muted kitchens while determined detectives avoid but inevitably confront their own personal failings; grim neighbors offer ominous condolences. Let us gaze at the violent, morose ocean. And then, let us gaze at the violent, morose ocean within.The Spanish series “The Gardener” (in Spanish with subtitles, or dubbed), on Netflix, takes a campier, soapier approach. It still has ample bloodshed and intrigue, but it is a lot more soda than scotch. “The Gardener” has plenty in common with slick, dark shows like “Dexter” and “You,” though it more often feels like “Wednesday,” not only in its pop-goth vibes but also in its reliance on its protagonist’s wide-eyed stare.Elmer (Álvaro Rico) is a young man with a passion for horticulture. Well, maybe not “passion”: He has no emotions, according to his witchy mom, China (Cecilia Suárez), a fount of Freudian oddities. They were in a car accident when Elmer was little, which caused brain damage that affected his ability to experience and interpret feelings. China has had to teach him how to emote, how to fake it, practicing facial expressions with him as a child and directing his speech and behavior as an adult.Sure, there are downsides to raising a blank sociopath. But the upside is that you can craft him into a perfect hit man, which is what China has done. They use their gardening business as a cover for their murder-for-hire work, and they use the literal gardens to bury the bodies — superb fertilizer, the characters say.And then one day Elmer is dispatched to dispatch Violeta (Catalina Sopelana), a young schoolteacher, and suddenly he wonders if maybe he isn’t so empty inside. Maybe he has a lot of feelings, and maybe those feelings are mostly about Violetta and how much he likes her. Maybe instead of killing her, he’ll woo her. Maybe this is love! Or … maybe it’s a brain tumor.You don’t have to know all the #boymom lore to guess that China is no fan of Violeta and that, in fact, Violeta could never understand Elmer the way she does, never love him for who he truly is, as she does. A boy’s best friend is his mother and all that.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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      in Television

      In ‘Ransom Canyon,’ Minka Kelly Enjoys the Ride

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      There were times when Minka Kelly assumed that her acting career was over.Kelly, 44, had never planned on becoming an actress. Before breaking out in her mid-20s as the sassy cheerleader Lyla Garrity in the football weeper “Friday Night Lights,” she worked as a scrub nurse. A decade ago, during a slow period, she graduated from culinary school.So later, when fallow months turned into fallow years, she would tell herself this was fine. If Hollywood had finished with her, she would survive it.But recently, having published a sensitive, unsparing memoir, “Tell Me Everything,” a New York Times best seller, Kelly found herself again in demand. An offer came for “Ransom Canyon,” a Netflix neo-western series with romance elements. Kelly would fill the cowboy boots of Quinn O’Grady, a concert pianist who runs a dance hall in the Texas Hill Country. Quinn’s enthusiasms include soap making, love triangles, looking wistful in prairie skirts.Kelly didn’t think a romantic lead would be available to a woman in her 40s. But it was. And audiences have been enthusiastic: “Ransom Canyon,” based on the novel by Jodi Thomas, has been one of Netflix’s most popular shows since it debuted last week. And there is also more to come. After Kelly finished shooting “Ransom Canyon” in June, she flew to Paris to film her first romantic comedy, “Champagne Problems.” That movie will debut in November, also on Netflix.Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly in a scene from “Ransom Canyon.” “This is Lyla 20 years later,” Kelly said of her new role, comparing it with the one she played in “Friday Night Lights.”Anna Kooris/Netflix“I’ve gotten to a place in my life where I am my best, and now the best thing has happened,” she said.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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      in Television

      ‘Black Mirror’ Showed Us a Future. Some of It Is Here Now.

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      The long-running tech drama always felt as if it took place in a dystopian near future. How much of that future has come to pass?Since “Black Mirror” debuted in 2011, the dystopian sci-fi anthology series has taken seeds of nascent technology and expanded them to absurd and disturbing proportions.In doing so, it has become a commentary on defining issues of the 21st-century: surveillance, consumerism, artificial intelligence, social media, data privacy, virtual reality and more. Every episode serves in part as a warning about how technological advancement run rampant will lead us, often willingly, toward a lonely, disorienting and dangerous future.Season 7, newly available on Netflix (the streamer acquired the show from Britain’s Channel 4 after its first two seasons), explores ideas around memory alteration, the fickleness of subscription services and, per usual, the validity of A.I. consciousness.Here’s a look back at a few themes from past episodes that seemed futuristic at the time but are now upon us, in some form or another. Down the rabbit hole we go:‘Be Right Back’Season 2, Episode 1Not long after “Be Right Back” came out, services that digitally resurrect people via recordings and social feeds began to be introduced.NetflixA.I. imitations, companion chatbots and humanoid robotsWhen Martha’s partner, Ash, dies in a car accident, she’s plunged into grief. At his funeral, she hears about an online service that can help soften the blow by essentially creating an A.I. imitation of him built from his social media posts, online communications, videos and voice messages.At first she’s skeptical, but when she finds out she’s pregnant, she goes through with it. She enjoys the companionship she finds by talking with “him” on the phone and starts neglecting her real-life relationships. She soon decides to take the next step: having a physical android of Ash created in his likeness. But as she gets to know “him,” a sense of uncanny valley quickly sets in.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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      in Theater

      How ‘Stranger Things’ Scaled Up for Broadway

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      The cold open: In television, it’s a scene that begins an episode before the title sequence, often without leading characters but almost always with foreshadowing hooks to confound or set a mood.Theater doesn’t really have much of a cold open tradition. The expectation is that you introduce the main characters and get moving.Not so for “Stranger Things: The First Shadow.” The new Broadway play, based on Netflix’s hit horror-science fiction series, starts with a bold five-minute cold open of loud gunfire, marauding Demogorgons and no leading characters. It’s a coup de théâtre, and it swiftly signals that the lead producers, the Broadway heavy-hitter Sonia Friedman and Netflix, are betting their big-money gamble will knock theatergoers’ socks right off.The scene begins with audiences glimpsing a ship’s crew members via two rectangular boxes. It look straight out of a graphic novel. “We always wanted to open with a big scene and a big moment, something that’s going to shock the audience,” said Ross Duffer, who, with his twin brother, Matt Duffer, created the “Stranger Things” series. Both are credited as the play’s creative producers.The play is a prequel to the 1980s-set TV series, and gives an origin story about a shy teenager named Henry Creel (played by Louis McCartney) who became an important figure in Season 4. It’s set in small-town Hawkins, Ind., mostly in 1959.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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      in Television

      Trump and ‘The Residence’ Share a Fixation on Water Pressure

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      Paul William Davies, the creator of “The Residence,” talks about overlapping themes between his series and the actual Trump administration.This week, as the global economy struggled to adjust to whipsawing tariff policies, President Trump signed an executive order to address another national crisis: weak shower head pressure.The order, aimed at reducing bureaucracy and regulation, reverses limits on how much water can pour out of a nozzle per minute, which were implemented by the Obama and Biden administrations in an attempt to conserve water.Mr. Trump, while signing the order, noted that, in particular, he doesn’t appreciate that weak pressure hinders him from getting a good hair wash.“In my case I like to take a nice shower, to take care of my beautiful hair,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “I have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.”Weak shower pressure has been one of Mr. Trump’s longstanding pet peeves. But the whole thing may have sounded familiar — a little too familiar — for anyone who has been watching Netflix’s recent screwball mystery series, “The Residence,” in which President Perry Morgan, played by Paul Fitzgerald, has a similar pet peeve, with a White House usher explaining that he demands “pressure like a fire hose.”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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      in Theater

      ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’: What to Know About the Broadway Show

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      The new play, set 24 years before the start of the Netflix series, combines lavish spectacle with a cast of familiar characters.After a critically acclaimed premiere in London’s West End in 2023 — where it is still running — “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” a play that serves as a prequel to the popular Netflix series, is set to open on April 22 at the Marquis Theater on Broadway.Of course, fans of the show, which is set to release its fifth season later this year, are excited (though it’s small consolation for having to wait more than three years between seasons). But what if you can’t tell a Demobat from a Demogorgon? Can you plunge right in?Here’s what you need to know about the TV series, how it informs the show and more.Winona Ryder stars as Joyce Byers in the Netflix series. In the play, her character’s younger self, Joyce Maldonado, is just as spunky. NetflixWhat is the TV series about?Set in the 1980s in the fictional town of Hawkins, Ind., the Netflix series follows a group of friends as they try to get to the root of supernatural forces and secret government experiments in their town. They discover an alternate dimension — the Upside Down — filled with monstrous creatures, who are not content to sit back and leave them well alone.Over the course of four seasons, a cast anchored by Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), David Harbour (Chief Jim Hopper), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven, a young girl with mysterious powers) and Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson) save one another from the jaws of death while navigating the complexities of their relationships. (And, in Eleven’s case, eating lots of Eggo waffles.)Where does the play fall in the timeline of the TV series?It’s a prequel set in 1959 — 24 years before the start of the Netflix series — and centers on a character introduced in Season 4: Henry Creel, a troubled teenager with telepathic powers who will later become Vecna, the show’s primary antagonist.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