Chuck Barney
East Bay Times
DONâT MISS: The Summer Olympics â Yes, weâre bummed out that, due to coronavirus concerns, there will be no fans in attendance for the Tokyo Games. But the global event, after being delayed for a year, should still deliver plenty of must-see TV. As usual, things get rolling with the opening ceremony, and because of the vast time difference, NBC will broadcast the festivities live in the morning (7 a.m., Friday) for the first time ever. But for viewers wanting to stick to traditional evening viewing, the networkâs âcomprehensiveâ prime-time broadcast will feature special coverage of Team USA, along with the performances, pageantry and Parade of Nations. (7:30 p.m., NBC).
By Chuck Barney Tribune News Services
July 16, 2021
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People walk by the Olympic rings installed by the Nippon Bashi bridge in Tokyo on Thursday. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
DON’T MISS
SUMMER OLYMPICS Yes, we’re bummed out that, due to coronavirus concerns, there will be no fans in attendance for the Tokyo Games. But the global event, after being delayed for a year, should still deliver plenty of must-see TV. As usual, things get rolling with the Opening Ceremony, and because of the vast time difference, NBC will broadcast the festivities live in the morning (Friday, 7 a.m.) for the first time ever. But for viewers wanting to stick to traditional evening viewing, the network’s “comprehensive” prime-time broadcast will feature special coverage of Team USA, along with the performances, pageantry and Parade of Nations. (Prime-time coverage: Friday, 7:30 p.m., NBC)
Around the remote: Summer Olympics begins Friday dailyrepublic.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailyrepublic.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The End will be one of the best local dramas you’ll see this year.
You can thank the exquisite relationship between Dame Harriet Walter and Noni Hazlehurst for plenty of that success. Their friendship as two seniors lifts off the screen and ignites a captivating tale from insightful writer Samantha Strauss (
Dance Academy, The Wrong Girl).
“It says ‘Do not resuscitate! ” Edie tells British paramedics after a botched suicide attempt, but having survived a fall from her first floor window, she is whisked away by family to Queensland.
Daughter Dr. Kate Brennan (Frances O’Connor) and children Persephone (Ingrid Torelli) and Oberon Brennan (Morgan Davies) welcome Edie to a Gold Coast retirement village which frankly, horrifies the poor woman.
At the beginning of
The End, the exceptional new Australian comic-drama about how we confront the difficult realities of both life and death, Edie Henley (Harriet Walter) does her best to take her own life. The sequence has a shocking alacrity and a clockwork mirthfulness – you’re jolted upright, but compelled to laugh at Edie’s exasperation when she realises she’s battered but definitely still breathing. It’s a highwire act of tonality: the series is uncompromising, but its blows are illuminating.
A widower and breast cancer survivor, Edie is shipped off to the Gold Coast and a place in a retirement village that’s a gilded hospice secured by her daughter, Kate Brennan (Frances O’Connor), a doctor who specialises in palliative care. Kate is “ethically bound” to keep her patients alive, even when they want to die, while the indignant Edie is insistent that she’s preparing for another go at suicide. This stand-off soon comes with euthanasia drugs, and startling e