Whoa ‘Nellie,’ Lifetime movie embellishes a real-life story
Lifetime’s “Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story” is just that — a story, one whose dramatic thrust is mostly made up.
Premiering at 8 p.m. Saturday, the cable movie is inspired by the real life of Armstrong County native Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, who took on the pen name Nellie Bly while writing for the Pittsburgh Dispatch about adverse working conditions for women in Pittsburgh factories.
But “Escaping the Madhouse” takes the true story of Bly’s 1887 undercover investigation of abuse and neglect at New York’s Women’s Lunatic Asylum — on what is now Roosevelt Island — and attempts to turn it into a psychological thriller.
The broad strokes in the film are true enough — reporting for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World newspaper, Bly feigned insanity to gain access to the asylum — but the dramatic stakes in “Escaping the Madhouse” are built on the fabricated notion that Bly (Christina Ricci, “The Lizzie Borden Chronicles”) has lost her memory and doesn’t know she’s a reporter on an undercover assignment.
Bly relies on the kindness of a new doctor (Josh Bowman, “Revenge”) and suffers the indignities perpetrated by head nurse Matron Gray, a more nuanced Nurse Ratched played by Carnegie Mellon University grad Judith Light, who is eminently watchable as always, especially when smoking a pipe or feeding Gray’s pet parrot (yes, there is a bit of a camp factor at play, too).
One has to wonder why the true story wasn’t dramatic enough that the memory loss plot got added, because the resulting film is pretty paint-by-numbers dull. If the goal was to goose the drama, “Escaping the Madhouse” falls well short of its intent.
‘Black Monday’
Recent cable and streaming comedies have suffered from being not that funny. HBO’s “Veep” bucks that trend, but so many halfhours are not exactly uproarious (see: “Girls,” “Transparent,” “Mozart in the Jungle”).
Showtime’s “Black Monday” (10 p.m. Sunday) is both a welcome deviation from that trend, but also an odd duck. Sometimes funny but often too over-the-top (screaming and wild behavior are not inherently humorous), the comedy in “Black Monday” is significantly broader than usual for a premium cable channel show, often calling to mind a more profane iteration of a single-camera broadcast channel comedy.
Perhaps this should come as little surprise given the show’s creative auspices. David Caspe, showrunner of ABC’s raucous “Happy Endings,” created “Black Monday” with Jordan Cahan (“Marry Me”). The series is executive produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (“Preacher,” “Sausage Party”), who also directed Sunday’s pilot episode.
Set in the late 1980s, “Black Monday” begins one year before the still-unexplained October 1987 stock market crash. “Black Monday” purports to explain the real reason for the crash. A flash forward at the outset, on actual Black Monday, shows a death, leading viewers to speculate if the deceased could be one of the show’s leads.
Maurice “Mo” Monroe (Don Cheadle, “House of Lies”) is the cocaine-snorting head of an upstart trading firm who leans heavily on his smart, savvy first lieutenant, Dawn (Regina Hall, “Girls Trip”). She brings sass and soulfulness and proves one of the show’s most grounded characters through three episodes made available for review.
Mo comes off as a wild man, but by the end of the pilot “Black Monday” reveals he’s crazy like a fox, albeit in such an unbelievable way that the second episode spends a significant amount of time attempting to justify the credibility of his actions in the premiere.
Enter Blair Pfaff (Andrew Rannells, “Girls”), a recent MBA grad with a revolutionary algorithm that might change the face of Wall Street trading. Blair gets caught up in Mo’s maelstrom when he’s not fending off demands from his obnoxious girlfriend (Casey Wilson, former “Happy Endings” star and wife of Mr. Caspe).
References from the 1980s abound, from “Wall Street” to “Working Girl” to the Showtime logo of that era that begins each episode. The show’s cocaine-fueled energy is undeniable, although some may find it exhausting. In early episodes “Black Monday” seems to be trying to find its footing while rushing headlong into schemes and character development at as loud a volume as possible.
‘The Other Two’
No reservations, just a ringing endorsement for Comedy Central’s “The Other Two” (10:30 p.m. Jan. 24), a smart half-hour comedy about adult siblings Cary (Drew Tarver, “Bajillion Dollar Propertie$”) and Brooke (Helene Yorke) who find themselves upstaged by their 13-year-old brother, Chase Dreams (Case Walker), when his music video — “I Wanna Marry U at Recess” — goes viral.
Molly Shannon plays their mom. She’s not exactly a stage mother, but she does like the perks that come with her son’s fame.
Often satirizing pop culture obsession, the impacts of fame and the industrial entertainment complex, “The Other Two” offers consistent laughs. But there’s also a beating heart beneath the ridiculous circumstances Cary and Brooke find themselves in, and the show, created and written by former “Saturday Night Live” head writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, avoids the predictable trope of the siblings getting jealous over Chase’s fame.
Kept/canceled/rebooted
Fox renewed “So You Think You Can Dance” for a 16th season to air next summer. CBS’s “Criminal Minds,” currently airing its 14th season, was renewed for a 15th, final 10-episode season to air during the 2019-20 TV season.
Bravo is developing a reboot of “Queer as Folk.” The original American version aired on Showtime (2000-05) and was set in Pittsburgh but filmed entirely in Toronto.
WGN America has picked up a new series starring Dog the Bounty Hunter, “Dog’s Most Wanted.”
HGTV ordered a 10-episode reboot of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” but has not yet revealed the cast.
CBS All Access will spin off Michelle Yeoh’s “Star Trek: Discovery” character into her own separate “Star Trek” series.
Netflix renewed “Grace and Frankie,” which returns for season five this week, for a sixth season to premiere in 2020.
NBC renewed “Ellen’s Game of Games” for a third season.
NBC’s “Trial & Error” won’t be back. It was canceled by NBC; producing studio Warner Bros. was unable to find a new distributor.
Syfy canceled “Channel Zero” after four seasons.
Channel surfing
HBO’s “Game of Thrones” returns for its six-episode final season at 9 p.m. April 14. … NBCUniversal is developing its own ad-supported streaming service to roll out in 2020. … NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” kicks off 2019 this weekend with Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) as host and Greta Van Fleet as musical guest; James McAvoy hosts Jan. 26 with Meek Mill . ... Steve Carrell is re-teaming with “The Office” showrunner Greg Daniels for a new Netflix comedy series inspired by President Trump’s planned “space force.” ... Comcast Xfinity customers get free access to the premium cable channel Epix on demand library Jan. 18-24 as well as to VOD subscription services Lifetime Movie Club, History Vault and Hallmark Movies Now.
Tuned In online
The TV Q&A column responds to questions about reruns, “Project Runway,” “Superstore,” WTAE and Jeff Verszyla. This week’s Tuned In Journal includes posts on Fox’s “The Passage.” Read online-only TV content at http:// communityvoices.post-gazette.com/arts-entertainment-living/tuned-in.