TV: ‘Blue Lights’
This isn’t the first TV series to focus on the daily grind of street cops as opposed to detectives — Canada’s “19-2,” England’s “The Responder” and “Happy Valley” are other examples — but “Blue Lights” has both grit and charm singular to its Northern Irish setting. It follows a group of new “peelers” on patrol in Belfast on calls that range from mundane to murderous. In the third season, which began Thursday with weekly episodes on BritBox, the target is a new gang that’s exported its highly sophisticated drug trade from Dublin, which has Grace (Sian Brooke), Stevie (Martin McCann) and their colleagues butting heads with intelligence and organized-crime officers. — Debra Yeo
I’m a Grinch when it comes to made-for-TV Christmas rom-coms. I loathe them with all my being. But I thoroughly enjoyed “Predictable Holiday Rom-Com: The Musical,” a new show at Second City (1 York St.) running until Sunday. George Reinblatt and Suzy Wilde’s romp skewers all the tropes of the genre. You know the story: A young woman (Tess Barao) returns to her small town for the holidays, without her detached, overworked boyfriend (A Braatz). Back home, she falls in love with a charming single dad (Tenaj Williams) with a precocious daughter (Nikki Brianne Samonte). But, uh oh, there’s another woman (Barbara Johnston) who’s caught his eye, too. You know how this all ends. But this show is so endlessly witty that you can’t help falling in love with it. — Joshua Chong
TV: ‘All’s Fair’
A collective spiteful squeal of glee erupted recently when news got out that Ryan Murphy’s 143rd show released this year (on Disney Plus) was debuting with an astonishing 0% rating on Rotten Tomato’s Tomatometer. We have one thing to say to these haters: do you not like fun? Because “All’s Fair” is F-U-N. Casting Kim Kardashian as the lead despite her complete inability to act? Everyone dressed like a Bond villain at all times? A parade of your favourite aged character actors spitting the most deranged insults you’ve ever heard? Niecy Nash? It may be 0% quality — but it is 100% delightful. — Briony Smith
Documentary: ‘Tura!’
Narrated by comedian Margaret Cho, this moving and illuminating documentary (available to rent or buy on Apple TV Plus) tells the story of stripper-turned-actress Tura Satana, who memorably played one of the lead badasses in Russ Meyer’s 1965 cult hit “Faster, Pussycat! Kill, Kill!” From her rough beginnings in Chicago as a mixed-race Asian girl during the Second World War through her romantic liaisons with big-name stars (one of whom, we learn, fathered one of her daughters), the film, featuring testimonials by the likes of Dita Von Teese and John Waters, compellingly covers a fascinating life. — Doug Brod
