SERIES ON TELEVISION
MEDICOS IN THE AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK
RFDS: Royal Flying Doctor Service (Prime Video)
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If you like medical shows and unusual cases in remote locations, then you might enjoy this Australian series. The main base is in Broken Hill in southeastern New South Wales. Much of the area is desert. In a medical emergency, the most efficient way to reach patients is usually by plane. The Royal Flying Doctor Service is a real organization still in existence today.
This fictional series focuses on the pilots, doctors, and nurses who work in this challenging environment. Chief among them are Dr. Wayne Yates, nurses Pete and Matty, new arrival Dr. Eliza Harrod, and pilots Mira and Graham. Eliza has come from London (her marriage is breaking up) with her teenage son Henry. Wayne and Mira are pretty much of a couple; Pete is single and likes attractive women; Graham is a bit crusty, but caring; Matty embarks on a drag career in his spare time; and ops manager Leonie is super effective. Add in devastating crashes, conflicts and romance, and the result is an engaging, sometimes heart pounding series. There are two seasons of eight episodes each and possibly a third one in the works. Recommended!
HAUTE COUTURE UNDER THE NAZIS
The New Look (Apple TV+)
This dramatic series set in 1940’s Paris focuses on the high fashion industry while France is under Nazi occupation. Designers must decide if they will make dresses for the Nazi wives or if they will quit working and possibly not survive. Coco Chanel closed her studio, but she played both sides in this war and both fraternized with various Nazis and worked to get her nephew Andre released from captivity. She then became a person of interest.
Christian Dior was just coming into his own and designed under the aegis of Lucien Lelong along with others. They did what they did to make a living. Dior is the principal figure in this saga of danger, dresses, and determination. Dior’s sister Catherine was a member of the Resistance and worrying about her fate consumes Dior. At the same time, fashion is changing and a new group of designers, Dior, Balmain, and Cardin challenge Chanel’s precedence.
Juliette Binoche is superb as the fidgety, demanding, yet caring Coco, and Ben Mendelsohn as Christian is hauntingly broody. There will be ten episodes in all, and they are being released weekly on Wednesdays. Highly recommended!
MOVIES: TEACHER & STUDENT
The Holdovers (Prime Video, etc.)
The role of the very strict, no nonsense history teacher, Paul Hunham, is perfectly captured by Paul Giamatti. Left at school during the Christmas holidays as the lone chaperone for prep schoolboys not going home with their parents, Paul is challenged, harassed, and berated by the students. One by one, even the stragglers leave, and Paul is left with just Tully, a smart troublemaker. Tully, Paul, and Mary, the school cook who’s mourning the death of her soldier son in Vietnam, make a for an unlikely set of compatriots.
This is a film that is both funny at points and poignant. The Chief Penguin enjoyed it very much. I thought it was good and did appreciate Giamatti’s performance.
LIVE THEATER: CORSETS AND CLASS IN NYC
Intimate Apparel (Asolo)
Lynn Nottage’s play, Intimate Apparel, encompasses a full spectrum of friendship, romance, prejudice, anger, and forgiveness. In Lower East Side Manhattan in 1905, Black seamstress Esther has made her own way and supported herself making fine underwear for ladies of all types for eighteen years. Strong of character, she has always lived in Mrs. Van Buren’s boarding house and yet wishes for a man of her own, a husband. But Esther is particular and won’t settle for just anyone, so when a laborer in Panama starts writing her letters, she has hopes that become high hopes.
Although she doesn’t really approve of her friend Mayme’s business, the two help each other out. Esther is even an available ear for Mrs. Dickson, her married white upper-class client. What is more challenging is the relationship between Esther and Mr. Marks, the Jewish man from whom she purchases her fabrics. How much can be said with just a silent glance or the barest touch.
The play moves through a series of scenes, much like tableaus, with headings over top echoing the article of clothing key to that scene. The beginning seems long, but the early scenes are essential to developing the characters and providing context for the events to come. It gathers depth and richness as it works to its climax. And I’m still reflecting on it 24 hours later. Highly recommended! It runs through April 18.
