#SetTheVCR: August 12-18, 2024

Welcome back to #SetTheVCR. It was either this or Plan B is to join The Union of TV Recommendations like a Bad Monkey.

Monday, August 12

SEAL Team: Season 7 (Anytime / Paramount+)

The series follows the lives of the Navy SEALs’ most elite unit as they execute dangerous high-stakes operations to defend their country at a deeply personal cost. In the final season, Jason Hayes (David Boreanaz) struggles to balance his warrior’s existence with the responsibilities of single fatherhood. Ray Perry, his trusted second in command, questions whether he will be able to leave the battlefield behind as his retirement nears. And so on…this is the seventh and final season of the military drama.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: PLAN B: SEASON 2 (ANYTIME / CBC GEM)

An ambitious young lawyer discovers a way to travel through time to fix his relationships, and create his perfect life, but even when he knows what’s going to happen next, he can’t control everything.
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Plan B is back. (No, not the sex pill and no not Plan B Entertainment…Brad Pitt’s production company.) This is CBC Gem’s time travel TV show. It’s an anthology so each season tells a different self-contained story. This looks decent. I didn’t watch Season 1 but I can check this out. “After Montreal police officer Mia Coleman and her partner Tyler take a lenient approach to a marital dispute, the husband, Paul Whitman, murders his wife Keri and their two small children, then kills himself. But Mia has stumbled across Plan B and finds herself able to book a trip into the past, and perhaps alter the outcome.” Not bad, right? It is an English-language adaptation of Season 3 of the original Quebecois French language series that premiered on Ici Radio-Canada Télé in 2018. Season 1 was about a man who discovers how to go back in time, giving him the chance to save his relationship with love of his life Evelyn (awww), his law firm and his dysfunctional family. It’s Summer time, a perfect season for time travelling.

Tuesday, August 13

The Last Timbit Musical (Anytime / Crave)

The Last Timbit was created to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Tim Hortons and is based on the true story of a group of strangers who find solace during a blizzard in a Tim Hortons restaurant in Ontario. I have no idea why anyone would watch this. Irony? Filmed in front of a live studio audience at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre, this is an 80-minute musical special.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: MONKEY MAN (ANYTIME / PRIME VIDEO-CANADA & PEACOCK)

An anonymous young man unleashes a campaign of vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to systematically victimize the poor and powerless.
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Well, Brown John Wick looks way better than Brown Doogie Howser. Good start. While I’m unwilling to invest in Dev Patel as an Action Jackson I’ll check this out on streaming. Recently, Jessica Alba starred in Netflix’s Trigger Warning. Action movies are like the lottery, many will enter, few will win. Let’s see Patel’s body count, cool kills, degree of difficulty, mastery of hand to hand combat, ingenuity and resourcefulness, clever bad guys and more. The standard hallmarks that all action movies are judged by. You ain’t gonna make a monkey outta me, I know what good action movies are.

Wednesday, August 14

Taken Together: Who Killed Lyric and Elizabeth? (Anytime / HBO Max & Crave)

Known as “the case that haunts the Midwest,” the three-episode series dives into the haunting 2012 double abduction of two cousins, 10-year-old Lyric Cook-Morrissey and 8-year-old Elizabeth Collins, in Evansdale, Iowa. True Crime and all that.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: BAD MONKEY: SEASON 1 (ANYTIME / APPLE TV+)

Welcome to the shady side of paradise where Vince Vaughn has a long list of unusual suspects.
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Oh man: Vince Vaughn is slumming it and doing TV now? I feel bad for the dude. It sucks when a movie star hasta make TV. I don’t buy into the whole “Prestige TV” junk or Golden Era of TV nonsense. You gotta overlook a crap load of reality TV like Farmer Wants a Wife to sell me this is the Golden Era of TV. As for Bad Monkey? Well, Bad Monkey looks…cooler than Colin Farrell’s Sugar, funner than Natalie Portman’s Lady In The Lake and better than Jake Gyllenhaal’s Presumed Innocent. See? I feel bad for em all. Based on Carl Hiaasen’s bestselling novel: “Andrew Yancy (Vaughn) has been bounced from the Miami Police Department and is now a health inspector in the Keys.” Cue the Florida Man: “After stumbling upon a case that begins with a human arm fished up by tourists, he realizes that if he can prove murder, he’ll be back in. He just needs to get past a trove of Floridian oddballs and one bad monkey.” I don’t miss Swingers Vince Vaughn, but oh I how miss Wedding Crashers Vince Vaughn. If this is closer to that Vince Vaughn this should be a delight. Programming Note: The 10-episode series premieres with the first two episodes. New episodes will stream every Wednesday through October 9.

Thursday, August 15

Bel-Air: Season 3 (Anytime / Peacock)

In season three, the school’s out for the summer, and Will is doing Bel-Air his way. Being a part of the Banks family has given him a new perspective – it isn’t just about wealth, it means that Will now has options to lean into other things that excite him and has the privilege to dream bigger. This premieres with three new episodes at launch; 10 episodes total.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: THE CREATOR (ANYTIME / CRAVE & HULU)

Against the backdrop of a war between humans and robots with artificial intelligence, a former soldier finds the secret weapon, a robot in the form of a young child.
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While we wait to see if Tom Cruise can defeat evil A.I. in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 2 the next John Connor up: John David Washington in The Creator. Is the Terminator movie we wanted but never got? I miss James Cameron so much. I’m not willing to compromise and watch an Avatar movie, yeah nope. “Set in 2070, 15 years after artificial intelligence (AI) set off a nuclear detonation in Los Angeles, which started a war of humans against AI, a former special forces agent is recruited to hunt down and kill the “Creator,” who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war.” So, some Matrix as well in this movie co-written and directed by Gareth Edwards. Well now. Let’s see how creative The Creator really was. Programming Note: This movie was streaming on Disney+ (Canada) and Hulu, beginning on December 20, 2023. Check it might still be on those platforms. However, if you have Crave it’s now been added.

Friday, August 16

Emily in Paris: Season 4 – Part 1 (Anytime / Netflix)

Split into two parts (Netflix does this a lot, now): these five episodes explore this high school drama: After the dramatic events of Camille and Gabriel’s misbegotten wedding, Emily is reeling: She has strong feelings for two men, but now Gabriel’s expecting a baby with his ex, and Alfie’s worst fears about her and Gabriel have been confirmed. More high school drama: also consisting of five episodes, Part 2 of the season debuts on September 12, 2024.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: THE UNION (ANYTIME / NETFLIX)

Mike (Mark Wahlberg), a construction worker from Jersey, is quickly thrust into the world of super spies and secret agents when his high school sweetheart, Roxanne (Halle Berry), suddenly comes back into his life and recruits him on a high-stakes U.S. intelligence mission.
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The Netflix Algorithm has spit out a gender reversed True Lies. Marky Marky is Jamie Lee Curtis; Halle Berry is Arnold: surprise! I’m a spy! Which makes J. K. Simmons Tom Arnold. The Union is a fairly generic action movie, exactly the type of work a real union would issue. Terrible to pay for, acceptable on a streamer. I’ll join The Union tonight, because why not?

Saturday, August 17

Solar Opposites: Season 5 (Anytime / Hulu & Disney+ Canada)

Saturday Morning Cartoons: On season 5 of Solar Opposites now that alien mission partners Terry and Korvo are married, the whole Solar Opposites team is focused on family values. A team of four aliens escape their exploding home world only to crash land into a move-in ready home in suburban America. They are evenly split on whether Earth is awful or awesome. Their mission: protect the Pupa, a living super computer that will one day evolve into its true form, consume them and terraform the Earth.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: JUST THE FACTS WITH STEVE BALLMER (ANYTIME / YOUTUBE)

Ahead of the 2024 election, USAFacts founder and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is launching a new video series called Just the Facts, aimed at explaining to Americans the government data related to a variety of topics, including the economy, immigration, healthcare, and more.
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Remember Schoolhouse Rock! and the whole How A Bill Becomes A Law? I suspect this Just the Facts video series is like that, just (sadly so) without all the delight ’70s style animation. You may know Steve Ballmer as the former Microsoft CEO; I know him as the LA Clippers owner. He’s presenting to American voters…Just The Facts. As he says: “The more we know, the better voters we can be. So I’ll deliver you the facts, straight up, and you make up your own minds.” Ballmer launched USAFacts in 2017 as nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization to provide insight into how the nation is being run. The site draws on data from more than 70 government sources and regularly crunches numbers in an effort to take the pulse and track trends in America. This is what I’m talking about! Politics is brutally boring because it’s just sports teams; voters are just another fanbase. (The current meltdown over Project 2025 is a textbook ’80s moral panic. That’s exactly how you cry wolf and galvanize your fanbase.) So, any opportunity to reject and ditch hyperbolic emotions and wisely focus on data is welcome. Future episode titles beg a number of questions, including: “Is the U.S. economy strong?” “How does America get its energy?” “Are Americans getting healthier?” and “How is the U.S. population changing?” Videos will also show up on the organization’s YouTube channel; linked below.

Sunday, August 18

Rory Scovel: Religion, Sex, and a Few Things In Between (Anytime / Crave)

Comedian Rory Scovel performs standup at Minneapolis’ Goodale Theater, touching on religion, sex, mushrooms, vaccines, parenting, and other topics. Not sure if I dig Rory’s standup, yet. Need to watch this special to begin the verdict. (This has been on HBO Max since February 22, 2024.)
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: IMMACULATE (ANYTIME / HULU)

Cecilia, a woman of devout faith, is warmly welcomed to the picture-perfect Italian countryside, where she is offered a new role at an illustrious convent. But it becomes clear to Cecilia that her new home harbors dark and horrifying secrets.
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On March 22, 2024 Immaculate opened before The First Omen (a 2024 prequel to The Omen from 1976, and the sixth film in The Omen franchise) and yet both movies don’t have a prayer. Both of em are banished to hell as Tubi specials. However, before they’re banished to the streaming catacombs this Sister Act plays out on Hulu. (On Prime Video-Canada on August 20 for Canadians.) Between this Nunsense and Sydney Sweeney’s other junk Madame Web, 2024 is a race to the bottom for her. I’ve not seen any hope or potential with Sydney Sweeney so I’m not a devout believer in her. It’ll take a miracle for me to expect this to be any good.