Rivals, Disney+
David Tennant shines as Lord Baddingham in the self-described “naughtiest show on television”, Rivals.Supplied
It’s a big week for the delightful Scottish actor David Tennant. (Who? That’s right – he was the Tenth and Fourteenth Doctor.) First, on Amazon’s Prime Video, Good Omens – a fantasy comedy in which Tennant plays a demon named Crowley opposite Michael Sheen’s angel Aziraphale – ends its curtailed-by-controversy run with a 90-minute episode. Then, on Disney+, Rivals – a British romp in which Tennant plays a ruthless nouveau riche 1980s TV executive named Lord Baddingham – is back with the first three episodes of its second soapy season on May 15.
The latter is a highly enjoyable comedy that somehow won an International Emmy Award for best drama. Tennant ups the evil energy this season as Baddingham escalates a professional rivalry with a womanizing toff and Tory MP named Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and self-serious Irish presenter named Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner). Based on a book series by the late Jilly Cooper, the campy show is partly about the TV biz but mostly about all the sex going on among the upper and not-so-upper classes in the fictional county of, ahem, Rutshire. The first line of first new episode, which is heavy on penises and polo, is: “Welcome to the naughtiest show on television.” Perhaps!
Dutton Ranch, Paramount+
As Beulah Jackson, Annette Bening delivers a swell performance to help anchor Yellowstone sequel Dutton Ranch.Emerson Miller/Supplied
Speaking of camp, this new neo-Western sequel series to Yellowstone premiering on Paramount+ borders on it. It’s built around the chaotic-evil cowgirl character of Beth Dutton, played by British actor Kelly Reilly. As it starts, Beth, Rip, her husband, and Carter, their foster son of sorts, move away from all the mayhem in Montana to quietly raise cattle in Texas – but, of course, it only takes an episode for a body to show up on their new property.
They shouldn’t have moved in next door to a ranch run by Beulah Jackson, played with deliciously understated menace by Annette Bening behind an amazing pair of oversized glasses. Beulah’s got a ne’er-do-well son and a hard-working son who covers up his brother’s tracks, and quickly has Beth in her sights. There’s much familiar in the plotting to anyone who’s watched a show in the extended universe of executive producer Taylor Sheridan (Landman, Lioness, etc.), but there are some swell performances, especially from Bening, Marc Menchaca as an ex-con farmhand and Ed Harris as a kind-hearted vet. The first two episodes, out May 15, lassoed me.
Good Fortune, Crave
Written and directed by Aziz Ansari, Good Fortune stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Oh, and the laughs rarely let up.Eddy Chen/Supplied
Speaking of Good Omens, how about another high-concept comedy about an immaterial being with “good” in the title? This 2025 movie written and directed by Aziz Ansari concerns a bored guardian angel named Gabriel, played by Keanu Reeves, who decides to pull a spiritual switcheroo on a gig worker (Ansari) and a finance mogul (Seth Rogen).
In his Globe and Mail review of Good Fortune, Barry Hertz noted the high concentration of Canadians in the cast (Sandra Oh plays Gabriel’s boss) and awarded it a Critic’s Pick designation: “It is all fairly silly and sometimes wildly uneven stuff, with Ansari’s rather dark socioeconomic themes often colliding uneasily with a barrage of lighthearted zingers. But the laughs rarely let up, with Ansari committed to ensuring that barely a minute passes by without a wry observation or sharp gag.” It lands on Crave on May 15.
Academy of Country Music Awards, Prime Video
Canada’s sweetheart Shania Twain is a seasoned emcee of televised awards show at this point. The country-pop crossover superstar hosted the 2003 Juno Awards in Ottawa on CTV, the 2018 Canadian Country Music Association Awards in Hamilton on CBC and the 2024 People’s Choice Country Awards in Nashville on NBC.
Academy of Country Music Awards host Shania Twain is also releasing her seventh studio album this year.Vivien Killilea/Getty Images
This Sunday, Twain will step into boots previously found under the beds of Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire to host the Academy of Country Music Awards, live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas; it could be her biggest gig yet in this field given Prime Video is set to bring the big hoedown to more than 240 countries and territories and it’ll be broadcast live on Twitch, too. Twain will banter in between performances from the likes of Cody Johnson, Kacey Musgraves, Lainey Wilson, Little Big Town, Miranda Lambert and Riley Green. But if we’re lucky, she’ll come on over to the mic herself and impress us muchly with a tune from her forthcoming seventh album.
Conbody vs. Everybody, Criterion Channel
The quietly compelling Conbody vs. Everybody, streaming on Criterion Channel.Criterion Collection/Supplied
While serving a sentence for drug dealing, Coss Marte developed a workout routine that he could do in a nine-by-six-foot cell – and lost 70 pounds. By the time of his release, the young New Yorker had turned this experience into a business idea with a social-justice angle: Conbody, a gym offering prison-style workouts taught by former prisoners.
Filmmaker Debra Granik’s quietly compelling, character-driven documentary series, now on the Criterion Channel, follows this con-trepreneur on his quest to build his business, beginning in 2014 by pitching it to investors through a Dragons’ Den-style re-entry and anti-recidivism program. The involvement of ex-cons – Marte dislikes the euphemism “formerly incarnated” – is its unique selling point but also throws up roadblocks in a radically changing America.