Could a Housewife save Dynasty?
The Sinner, Season 2 10 episodes, available Friday
This series, based on the titular novel by German crime writer Petra Hammesfahr, works purely on the level of a good mystery. It does seasonally what shows like Law & Order and The X-Files used to do episode by episode, namely having central characters solving a new case every week.
Murder is again the heart of the case in season two, but set in a world of strange cults, eerie dreams and memories kept under the rug.
The director is Antonio Campos, who is also directing the upcoming Omen remake. In the first episode here he shoots the story with deep shadows and cold palettes, bringing out the eeriness of small town life.
Where Season 1 focused a lot on Christianity and the conventional definition of sin, the second season introduces a non-traditional (and, to this point, mysterious) belief set, spinning the idea of what it means to be “the sinner” — what’s forgivable, what’s justifiable and what’s not — in a new, intriguing direction.
Dynasty, Season 2 10 episodes, available today
Deliciously vulgar and manipulative, with gloss and dosh sprinkled all over it to keep the smell down, Dynasty’s second season is just what the doctor ordered after that dour first season.
The brilliant addition of Joan Collins as the over-sexed, vengeful Alexis Carrington rocketed the original Dynasty into the stratosphere of camp TV, and saved the series’ ratings bacon.
Will the same thing happen for the newly rebooted Dynasty, which has been struggling to find numbers over on America’s The CW, (where the second season premiered a few weeks ago)?
Apparently, the producers are taking a page from the original Dynasty’s second season, by casting prime time soap vet Nicollette Sheridan (Desperate Housewives) as Alexis Carrington 2.0 — a shrewd move that may pay off — even if Joan Collins herself has said she’s not interested in watching. What can we tell you? It certainly ain’t art... but it’s 10 times more entertaining.
Westside 8 episodes, Available Friday
This has been described as a cross between The Hills and Glee and we’ll go with that.
It’s a so-called ‘docu-soap’ which tells the story of nine aspiring musicians living in Los Angeles, working together, hanging out together.
It’s scripted, but in what the producers call “a raw and authentic” way (presuming your barometer for such qualities were the aforementioned shows) the celebrity hopefuls alternate between belting their hearts out with some seriously overcooked vocals, butting heads over their competing egos, and casually dropping one-liners like, “We’re going to mine our lives for the truths we want to share”.
Yes, it’s really that deep but with similarly cliche-ridden musical efforts like Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born both riding high in the film charts, the timing feels right for this kind of series release and its Cinderella-meets-The X Factor themes.
Also the new push for unscripted shows on Netflix follows the recent surprise success of the streamer’s makeover reboot Queer Eye.
They’re all over the market for “raw and authentic” reality dialogue
Misery (1990) Available now
Kathy Bates is memorably unhinged as murderous super-fan Annie Wilkes in Rob Reiner’s other Stephen King adaptation.
A die-hard obsessive of Paul Sheldon’s Misery Chastain novels, she takes it upon herself to nurse her favourite author back to health when she finds him unconscious in the wake of a car crash in a snowstorm.
But upon discovering that he was going to kill off Misery in his latest novel, she holds Sheldon captive in her remote house and demands he give her literary heroine a different fate.
Sharply written, with excellent performances — and more relevant than ever in this era of super-fandom.
In Kathy Bates it also features one of the few female leads in a horror movie to win the Oscar for Best Actress (Jodie Foster was the other in The Silence Of The Lambs).