Showtime imports bleak ‘The End’
Count Showtime’s Australian import “The End” (8 p.m. Sunday, TV-MA) among the (thankfully) rare comedies to kick off with a botched suicide attempt. But it’s not the first!
Among the more amusing things about “The End” is just how aggressively bleak it becomes. To say this show rubs your face in agony is an understatement. Harriet Walter (“The Crown”) stars as Edie, an English minister’s widow determined to end it all. After that fails, she’s shipped halfway around the world to be cared for by her daughter, Dr. Kate Brennan (Frances O’Connor).
Actually, Kate puts her in a senior facility because she’s too busy running a palliative care facility for the terminally ill. But not to worry, Kate lives just down the block from Edie’s new “home.” There, Edie takes to heavy drinking and shunning the social circles of aggressively cheerful seniors engaged in dancing and exercise and strategic flirting with the few superannuated males in their midst. Among Edie’s new neighbors is a chain-smoker played by Noni Hazlehurst, who some may remember for playing the starchy matriarch in “A Place to Call Home,” the addictive Australian melodrama available on Acorn.
When not consumed with Mom’s suicidal tendencies and newly flourishing alcoholism, Kate must contend with the hospice care of her patients. Some of them want to hurry “the process” along as well.
Did I mention Kate’s husband is in prison?
With so much tragedy going around, “End” never condescends to its characters or collapses into farce. In its own way, it presents a grown-up meditation on dark thoughts many of us share, but might not consider “entertaining.” It may appeal to fans of the U.K. hospice comedy satire “Getting On,” which was Americanized by HBO some years back.
› For the second summer in a row, Discovery and now Discovery+ will shift from the ocean depths and reefs of “Shark Week” to the vast expanse of “Serengeti” (8 p.m., Sunday, TV-PG). Not unlike old-fashioned nature documentaries or the more recent BBC America offering “Meerkat Manor: Rise of the Dynasty,” “Serengeti” has fashioned characters out of the wild animals it profiles, complete with names and personalities. Viewers can catch the first two installments on Discovery on Sunday. Subscribers to Discovery+ can stream all six installments at their convenience.
› Ten years after its debut, season one of “The Hour” (7 p.m. Saturday, Ovation, TV-14) returns. For the uninitiated, the series was set at the BBC in the mid-1950s, exploring the culture of a culture-shaping institution when it was dominated by a white male elite.
Many saw it as a British take on “Mad Men,” also popular at the time. It featured Ben Whishaw, since seen in “Fargo,” as well as Dominic West, then already known for “The Wire” and who has appeared since in “Les Miserables” on PBS and in “The Affair” on Showtime. Romola Garai (“Atonement,” “Emma”) also stars.
› The six-episode docuseries “100 Foot Wave” (10 p.m. Sunday, HBO, TV-14) follows legendary Hawaiian surfer Garrett McNamara as he prepares to ride the giant, legendary swells off Nazare, Portugal.
Few sports have inspired as much pop culture as surfing. From the ephemeral “Gidget” movies to the surf guitar sounds of Dick Dale, the Beach Boys and so many others, the pursuit of waves evoked a culture of the American loner in search of something “awesome,” an achievement both physically challenging and even fatally dangerous as well as spiritually fulfilling. Beach volleyball just doesn’t carry as much cosmic weight.
Surf culture also impacted documentary and “indie” filmmaking. The 1965 documentary “The Endless Summer” was a rare box-office hit for a nonfiction film and inspired a worldwide surf-travel culture in search of the right waves.