Kidman, Kelley return in ‘Undoing’
Fans of “Big Little Lies” will certainly like “The Undoing” (9 p.m. Sunday, HBO, TV-MA). In so many ways, it’s the same show, moved from Malibu’s golden shores to a glossy look at very wealthy Manhattan society.
Like “Lies,” it’s written and produced by David E. Kelley and stars Nicole Kidman as a seemingly serene wife whose life and status unravel in a very public fashion. As in “Lies,” she’s surrounded by a gaggle of wealthy frenemies whose coven is rattled by the arrival of a younger, poorer woman whose beauty threatens them in ways they can’t quite explain.
As the pilot begins, therapist and mother Grace Fraser (Kidman) enlists her oncologist husband, Jonathan (Hugh Grant), to help her with a fundraiser for their son’s posh prep school. Lily Rabe (“American Horror Story”) leads a game supporting cast of society wives who don’t quite know what to make of Elena Alves (Matilda De
Angelis), a struggling artist and mother of a scholarship student.
To say the show “objectifies” Elena is an understatement, particularly when she begins breastfeeding at a meeting and when she confronts Grace in a gym locker room wearing nothing at all. Hey, it’s HBO!
It’s best not to give too much away, but Grace’s life falls apart after the murder of one character and when another person she thought she knew begins to act in a mystifying manner.
Unfortunately, not a lot of this makes sense. “Undoing” spends its first episode depicting a very tight-knit, nearly incestuous Manhattan society and then proceeds to depict its denizens as virtual strangers without a lifetime of connections, networks and relationships.
Hugh Grant spends much of the first episode sputtering like a Woody Allen character molded to sound just like that writer/ director. The film’s depiction also follows Allen’s way of fashioning atmosphere out of the thinnest veneer. Drive a limo past a glimmering high rise to the strains of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” and you’ve got something “classy.” Donald Sutherland appears here as well, as Grace’s wealthy
father. He reminds us of his role in “Dirty Sexy Money,” an ABC melodrama from 2007 that didn’t come with HBO’s pedigree and price tag and therefore didn’t have to take itself half as seriously as “The Undoing.”
› Now seen starring in the Netflix dramatic miniseries “The Queen’s Gambit,” Anya Taylor-Joy stars in the title role of the 2020 adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma” (8 p.m. Saturday, HBO).
Released in late February, just before the COVID pandemic quarantine, the film was generally well received.
A tale of an endearing, if opinionated, busybody blind to her own shortcomings, “Emma” has been adapted repeatedly.
Gwyneth Paltrow starred in a 1996 screen version, and Kate Beckinsale appeared in a British TV version made that same year. Austen’s “Emma” also inspired the 1995 comedy “Clueless,” starring Alicia Silverstone.
SATURDAY HIGHLIGHTS
› “Barrett-Jackson Live Auction: Super Saturday” (3 p.m., History, TV-PG). From Scottsdale, Arizona.
› College football action includes South Carolina at LSU (7 p.m., ESPN) and Michigan and Minnesota (7:30 p.m., ABC).
› The L.A. Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays meet in Game Four of the World Series (8 p.m., Fox).
› “HBCU Homecoming: Meet Me on the Yard” (8 p.m., BET, TV-14) explores a tradition at historically Black colleges, tied to football, food and fellowship.
› The Kilchers prepare for winter on “Alaska: The Last Frontier” (8 p.m., Discovery, TV-14).
› Satellite imagery reveals a giant pentagram in remote Canada, leading some to theorize about witchcraft in early settlements of North America on “What on Earth?” (8 p.m., Science, TV-PG).