Ovation brings back Lucy Lawless
Ovation begins streaming the Australian thriller “The Code” (7 p.m. Saturday, TV-14), starring Lucy Lawless (“Xena, Warrior Princess”) as a teacher who uses her phone to record a car accident that may reveal evidence that threatens to topple the country’s political establishment.
In addition to its place on the cable dial, Ovation offers the Ovation Now app, offering streaming content from the channel that can be accessed online or on streaming devices including Apple TV and Roku. It’s easy to forget that cable networks including A&E (Arts and Entertainment) and Bravo once offered viewers a chance to watch ballet or hear classical music. Ovation remains the only cable channel dedicated to arts programming.
Lawless can also be seen in the Australian detective series “My Life Is Murder,” streaming on Acorn.
› The absence of an actual Comic-Con gathering inspires alternatives. “SyFy Wire After Dark” (11 p.m. Saturday, SyFy,
TV-14) celebrates pop culture including comic book series, superheroes and other corners of “nerdom” that have blossomed into billion-dollar businesses.
Speaking of dollars, “Wire” will invite viewers to use something called NBCUniversal Checkout, which allows (and encourages) viewers to purchase items under discussion. Who needs ads when the show itself is a catalog!
› Streaming on Saturday, Crackle presents the documentary “Anything Is Possible: The Serge Ibaka Story.” The film follows the NBA’s Toronto Raptors power forward as he returns to his native Congo after a championship season. “Possible” juxtaposes his life as an athlete with his troubled youth that saw his mother die and father jailed as a political prisoner. We also meet his very first coach and the children he has supported with a scholarship program.
› Few events have changed the world and affected history quite like the beginning of the atomic age. “Hiroshima: 75 Years Later” (9 p.m. Sunday, History, TV-14) looks back three-quarters of a century and presents archival footage about the building of the atomic bomb, its use on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the days and
months after, when teams of American scientists and military technicians visited both cities to measure the bomb’s explosive power and the lingering effects of radiation on Japanese survivors.
“Hiroshima” presents only archival footage and the recorded voices of military officers and scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project or flew the planes that dropped the bombs, as well as the scientists who examined the aftermath. It contains no narrative voice of authority putting events in historical context or musing on how Hiroshima changed the world. That’s a subject for a different film, or films.
It chronicles masses of experts galvanized to build a weapon of hitherto undreamed-of destructive power. Much of their motivation was fear that the Germans, the world leaders in theoretical physics, may have had a head start on a bomb. Even before it was
first tested in the American desert in July 1945, some scientists had misgivings about its military use. They knew they had succeeded in building something new and awe-inspiring. They were also aware of its potential for evil.
For a different take on this subject, you might watch “The Atomic Cafe,” a 1982 documentary that collected period postwar government footage about how to prepare for and survive atomic warfare. It can be streamed on Amazon Prime for a 99-cent rental fee. “Cafe” popularized the “duck and cover” films shown to grade-school students who grew up under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. It also features a soundtrack of curious pop, country and gospel songs, like “Atom Bomb Baby” and “Uranium.” The film’s co-director Kevin Rafferty died on July 2.