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TV Shows To Watch This Weekend: 'All Creatures Great and Small' Season 4, 'Death and Other Details,' and 'Detective Forst'
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Emma B, Rachel Shenton, Nicholas Ralph, Anna Madeley, Callum Woodhouse, and Melissa Gallant during the "All Creatures Great and Small" Q&A at BFI & Radio Times Television Festival, at BFI Southbank.
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January can make for an interesting time for most entertainment, with media flocking to awards conversations and not as much promotion for fresh releases. There are, however, still television and streaming shows to talk about.
This time of year, viewers can also try out popular overseas programs to play catch-up on things they've been holding on their watch list. So as U.S. distributors get their hands on shows to release, we help you learn about some of them.
Each week on AirTalk, LAist 89.3's daily news show, we're joined by television critics who help parse through notable releases and tell us what's worth a binge. This week we were joined by Melanie McFarland, TV critic for Salon, and freelance TV critic Steve Greene.
Listen to the full conversation for a rundown of the variety of shows they hit on. I’ll dig into three of them a little further to offer added insight.
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Listen to what the critics think here
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TV-Talk: 5 Shows To Watch Including ‘All Create Great and Small’ & ‘Death and Other Details’
This week's shows include:
- All Creatures Great and Small [Season 4] (PBS & PBS App)
- Death and Other Details (Hulu)
- Monsieur Spade (AMC & AMC+)
- Reacher [Season 2] (Amazon Prime Video)
- Detective Forst (Netflix)
All Creatures Great and Small [Season 4]
Airing on PBS & Streaming on the PBS App
Based on the popular book series by James Herriot, this show blends fictional elements into his past. It follows Herriot’s life as a veterinarian in Northern England, along with the townsfolk where he lives in rural Yorkshire just before World War II. Season 4 sees the locals feel some of the impacts of the war as it wages on in 1940.
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"This season, we get to see what happens when [World War II] comes into James Herriot's direct orbit, what happens with his family, and how people go on in these moments." — Melanie McFarland
"[It] expertly balances the small scale and the large scale... [and] I think something that's run through every season of this show is that even if tragedy is over the horizon, you still have to live your life." — Steve Greene
Overall take: A mostly feel-good show that brings you to a warm town, although its time and place start to set in for its characters this season. Nonetheless, it's through the show’s lens that you can get a visual representation of what Herriot saw in the world around him.
Fun facts: The show is based on a popular series of books, with its first British installment being titled If Only They Could Talk. When its book distribution came to the United States in 1972, its publishers felt the need to sell them in a volume format, the first of which was titled All Creatures Great and Small, which brought together the first British installment with its sequel It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet.
When and where: Episodes 1 and 2 are now streaming; Episode 3 airs Sunday, Jan. 21 at 9 p.m. Those streaming in the US should be aware that episodes will stream for only 14 days, starting on the night of its national broadcast premiere for PBS.
Death and Other Details
Streaming on Hulu
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A murder on a cruise ship stirs up fear among its passengers and crew, bringing together a renowned detective and his curious protégé as they look to solve the case.
"If you want something light — [co-creator] Mike Weiss was on the team that gave us The Mentalist— ["Death and Other Details"] is kind of a light mystery to enjoy." — Melanie McFarland
Overall take: As you can tell from watching the trailer, the show does take the whodunnit, noir tropes folks might’ve become familiar with Knives Out and creates a season-long mystery that some folks might enjoy.
Fun facts: The show features Mandy Patinkin as Det. Rufus Cotesworth, but he’s also best known for his roles on the show Homeland and the movie The Princess Bride. LAist’s AirTalk also interviewed Patinkin last November for his concert performance titled Being Alive.
When and where: Episodes 1 and 2 are now streaming on Hulu; Episode 3 releases Tuesday, Jan. 23.
Detective Forst
Streaming on Netflix
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Based on the popular Forst book series by Remigiusz Mróz, this show follows a loose-cannon detective who works with a journalist to solve a series of murders throughout Poland.
"I feel like when you have a story [like this] told with confidence and a certain amount of visual flair...it does paper over that familiarity." — Steve Greene
Overall take: It’s a noir that takes a much different approach to Death and Other Details — you’ll find some chilling visuals along with some brutal murder scenes, sitting much more on the macabre side of many detective stories in this genre.
Fun facts: Mróz’s work has been admired in Poland, he’s been one of the Top 3 most popular authors in the country since 2017, with him being the most popular from 2019-2022.
When and where: All six episodes are now streaming on Netflix.
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