‘Victoria,’ more ‘Poldark’ head to PBS
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — PBS’s “Masterpiece” brings back “Poldark” for a second season Sept. 25, and a third season has been ordered.
Star Aidan Turner, who plays Ross Poldark, said the love triangle continues with the title character yearning for both his ex, Elizabeth (Heida Reed), and the urchin-like Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson).
“He is emotionally quite inarticulate,” Mr. Turner said at a PBS press conference during the Television Critics Association summer 2016 press tour. “I don’t think he quite understands it himself. With Elizabeth, there is unfinished business. To come home and not be able to have her, not be able to tell her how he feels or to marry her is probably pretty difficult, and he can’t quite get over that. With Demelza, he’s absolutely in love with her. I guess the question is, is it possible to be absolutely in love with more than one person?”
In January, to fill the “Downton Abbey” void, “Masterpiece” introduces “Victoria,” which tells the story of Queen Victoria (Jenna Coleman, “Doctor Who”) from the moment she was 18 and awakened in her bed and told she was the queen of England.
Her reign lasted more than 60
years and the first season, which re-created Buckingham Palace in an airplane hangar, only chronicles the first three years of her reign.
“There’s more than enough [story] to take us quite a long way if that’s what the audience wants,” said series creator/writer Daisy Goodwin. “She does have nine children, and they all have amazing stories, too, so it potentially could be a long-running thing. That is certainly how I thought of it.”
For 2017, “Masterpiece” will adapt the Broadway show “King Charles III,” which imagines Prince Charles’ ascension to the throne following Queen Elizabeth’s death.
Ken Burns’ latest
For his latest PBS film, Ken Burns teams with co-director Artemis Joukowsky, the grandson of Waitstill and Martha Sharp, who are central figures in “Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War” (Sept. 20).
The Sharps, a Unitarian minister and his wife, helped rescue displaced and endangered World War II refugees, including many Jews.
“Children are the main victims of war,” Mr. Joukowsky said. “When you talk about the resilient child, you realize in talking to people who have been through this kind of crisis, they have this resilience but they also have a need to tell this story.”
Mr. Joukowsky culled the 90-minute film’s story from his grandparents’ writings and historical documents. Much of the work in finding archival footage and conducting interviews was done before Mr. Burns, a longtime friend of Mr. Joukowsky, came onto the project initially as an adviser and eventually as a co-director. The film has no narrator but uses letters — voiced by Tom Hanks as Waitstill and Mariana Goldman as Martha — to tell the story.
‘Sesame Street’ firings
Reports surfaced this week that three longtime cast members of “Sesame Street” — Bob McGrath (Bob), Emilio Delgado (Luis) and Roscoe Orman (Gordon) — were let go following the show’s migration from PBS to HBO.
PBS president Paula Kerger said she learned of the firings only after they happened and pointed out that the series is produced by the independent production company Sesame Workshop for HBO (episodes later air on PBS).
Sesame Workshop released a statement saying the three actors “remain a beloved part of the Sesame family and continue to represent us at public events. To us, and for millions of people worldwide, they are a treasured part of ‘Sesame Street.’ Since the show began, we are constantly evolving our content and curriculum, and hence, our characters, to meet the educational needs of children. As a result of this, our cast has changed over the years, though you can still expect to see many of them in upcoming productions. As we’ve stated previously, Sesame Workshop retains sole creative control over the show. HBO does not oversee the production.”
‘Stranger Things’ sequel plans
Matt and Ross Duffer, creators of Netflix’s word-ofmouth phenomenon “Stranger Things,” said they’ve already started thinking about a second season for the supernatural thriller because season one ends with several unanswered questions.
Warning: Spoilers follow for season one of the series that debuted earlier this month. The show follows some preteens in a small Indiana town in the 1980s as they try to find a missing friend with the help of a girl who has escaped from a government facility.
Netflix has not officially given “Stranger Things” a green light for a second season, but given the show’s buzz, it seems like a nobrainer.
“We kind of hint at where we might go at the end of the season,” Matt Duffer said following a Netflix press conference. “Will was living in this other dimension for about a week and the repercussions of that can’t be good. And this interdimensional rift we left open, and that also can’t be good. We want to retain the tone, but I think all of our favorite sequels feel a little different [from the original]. It’s not just having another monster come. and it’s a bigger, badder monster. We want it to be different, maybe a little darker, but still have the sense of fun this one had.”
The Duffers envision about the same number of episodes in season two (about eight), depending on what the story can sustain. And many season one characters will return.
“When we first pitched it to [Netflix executives]m we realized we were falling in love with these characters, and the audience would fall in love with these characters,” Ross Duffer said. “So we’ll treat it like a sequel but with a different tension.”
And the ’80s touchstones will remain, although the Duffers were surprised by how much attention those got in season one. They felt as if sometimes they pushed the references too hard, including the “E.T.”-like bike chase.
“The minute you have kids on bikes and government agents, that’s way too on the nose, obviously,” Matt Duffer said. “But we wanted to do a bike chase, and we got it out of our system. And if people knock us for it, I totally understand.”
Portions of this column originally appeared online in the Tuned In Journal blog. Post-Gazette TV writer Rob Owen is attending the Television Critics Association summer press tour. Follow RobOwenTV at Twitter or on Facebook. You can reach Rob at 412-263-2582 or rowen@post-gazette.com.