The United States’ relationships with the rest of the world’s nations are fluid right now, but one thing is for sure: We keep importing their television shows. Here are some recent additions to what appears to be an increasingly large trade imbalance, at least when it comes to scripted series.
‘Dog Days Out’
With “Bluey” on a hiatus, this cheerfully mesmerizing South Korean cartoon — it’s like a crackerjack action blockbuster for toddlers — can fill the animated-puppies vacuum. You might even consider the lack of hyper-articulate dialogue to be an advantage: There’s something restful about a soundtrack that consists of smashes, crashes and a variety of canine shrieks and laughter.
On an idyllic suburban cul-de-sac rendered in candy-colored 3-D animation, the puppies come out to play when their barely seen masters are away and destroy everything they can get their paws on. Joining them in the slapstick mayhem are their toys, including a rainbow-hued chew doll that instigates much of the trouble; opposing them are curmudgeonly birds and crafty rodents. Many shows for preschoolers feature the same kind of nonstop action, but the animators at the South Korean studio Million Volt execute this one with a combination of fluid style and infectious spirit that can hook the unwary adult. (Netflix)
‘Douglas Is Cancelled’
Steven Moffat of “Sherlock” and “Doctor Who” wrote this dark four-episode comedy which, consciously or not, pulls a bait and switch. Starring Hugh Bonneville as Douglas, a popular broadcaster anonymously accused of having told a sexist joke, it begins as a brittle farce about the comfortably entitled running afoul of cancel culture and social media mobs. But then it shifts, becoming a sometimes didactic and unconvincing, sometimes powerful and unsettling, examination of men’s corrosive treatment of women.
Moffat, who can be a very clever writer, takes the male repertory of gaslighting, stonewalling and veiled aggression and turns it against the men in his story in amusing ways. It’s also noticeable, though, how the targets of the most pointed satire tend to be young women, and how the best roles are written for middle-aged men. Karen Gillan, as Douglas’s on-air partner, and Alex Kingston, as his wife, are fine in fairly monochromatic parts. But the spotlight is on Bonneville, who is excellent as always; Simon Russell Beale, who is hilarious as Douglas’s diffidently loathsome agent; and Ben Miles, who is chilling as an utterly cynical producer. (BritBox)
‘The Eastern Gate’
This low-fi Polish espionage drama, set in 2021, is very different in mood from the spy thrillers American audiences are used to. The Polish agents who are the show’s protagonists are harried and weary, resigned to being underdogs as they confront the raw power of Russia and the ruthlessness of Russia’s partner state, Belarus. An American general may show up to deliver a speech about cooperation, but the Poles are clearly aware that they are on their own (a fictional dilemma made all the more poignant by recent real-world events).
Lena Gora is terrific as Ewa, an agent who is smart and good in a fight but whose most important powers are resourcefulness and a determination that registers as principled rather than grim. The point of contention in the first season (which concludes on Friday) is the Suwalki Gap, a strip of Polish territory bordering Belarus that would be of vital importance in a confrontation between Russia and NATO. Amid reports of Russian mobilization, Ewa is sent to find a mole in the Polish embassy in Belarus. The disappearances, torture sessions, last-second rescues and threats to family members are familiar elements, but they feel fresh and authentic, set to a different rhythm and following different cues than those of slicker, more pretentious spy shows. (Max)
‘The Leopard’
This six-part series which premiered Wednesday, a British and Italian production, cannot help being seen in the shadow of one of the greatest historical dramas ever filmed: Luchino Visconti’s three-hour movie of the same title from 1963. The comparison is unfair, but Visconti’s “Leopard,” with its indelible performance by Burt Lancaster (in the title role of a Sicilian nobleman during the revolutionary 1860s) and its staggering, hourlong closing scene set at a ball, forces its way into your consciousness.
So if you have seen and loved the film, you might want to pass on this somewhat monotonous but perfectly unobjectionable Italian-language series. That might also be the case if you have read the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa on which both are based; in its second half the show’s plot diverges from the book’s in some predictably melodramatic ways. On the other hand, if you are a fan of conventional, handsomely appointed costume dramas, made with a degree of finesse and intelligence and with picture-postcard cinematography — shot on Sicilian locations, the series is very pretty to look at — then have at it. Just don’t expect any of the poetry that has graced this story in the past. (Netflix)
‘Newtopia’
The enthusiasm of the South Korean entertainment industry for zombies, and how it might tie into martial-law declarations and ultralow fertility rates, is probably generating a Ph.D. thesis at this moment. One of the jokes in this latest iteration, an eight-episode comedy written by Han Jin-won (who wrote the Oscar-winning “Parasite” screenplay with Bong Joon Ho) and Ji Ho-jin (“A Shop for Killers”), is that people in Seoul are actually surprised to see the undead running through the streets.
The outbreak of flesh eating, initially unexplained (the series’s sixth episode arrives Friday), is the framework for a romantic quest in which the soldier Jae-yoon (Park Jeong-min) and his girlfriend, Young-ju (the pop star Jisoo of Blackpink), struggle to reach other through the bloody chaos. But the engine for much of the humor in this consistently amusing show is Jae-yoon’s situation: He is part of an antiaircraft unit located on the roof of a high-rise hotel, where the bored soldiers normally spend their time messing up missile drills and sneaking down to the hotel kitchen for snacks. They’re a comic take on the unit lost in the jungle or on a desert island, except that the burning question here is when will the instant noodles run out. (Amazon Prime Video)
‘Zenshu’
A young, flavor-of-the-month animator, miserably blocked on her next project, eats a bad clam and apparently dies. She wakes up in the world of an anime that obsessed her as a child and inspired her career; even better, she now has magic drawing powers that she can use to help her childhood heroes defeat their giant buglike enemies. But each time she uses them, she pushes the story she remembers further off its track.
“Zenshu,” whose lead director (Mitsue Yamazaki) and writer (Kimiko Ueno) are women, is a jokey, good-looking example of the isekai subgenre of anime (protagonist wakes up in strange world) with a little something extra. The stakes are more real, and the dynamics less childlike, than usual; through nine of 12 episodes, the heroine, Natsuko, has believably progressed from malevolent grouch to inquisitive explorer and love interest. And the allegory of anime’s process and power is unforced but clear: Saving the day by herself at the last minute (on deadline) is exciting, but Natsuko will need to learn teamwork if she’s going to be successful either on the battlefield or in the animation studio. (Crunchyroll)
