“The Past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” So wrote L.P. Hartley, in his 1953 novel “The Go-Between.” And the phrase has been cited ever since.
Unfortunately, it no longer applies to great swaths of our entertainment world. In an increasingly franchised media, the past is just another “brand” — a fact reflected in two new series premiering today.
As the title implies, “The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin” is more silly than serious. Streaming on Apple TV+, it stars Noel Fielding (“The Mighty Boosh,” “The Great British Bake Off”) in the title role as a legendary 18th-century British bandit, or highwayman, and follows his roguish gang as they steal from stagecoaches, speak saucily to wenches and confound pompous authorities and lawmen in the person of Jonathan Wilde, played by Hugh Bonneville (“Downton Abbey”).
It’s all terribly glib and studded with punchlines and knowing asides to contemporary concerns. Raised by a butcher with the expectation that he will follow in his gruff dad’s footsteps, Turpin declares he’s a vegan and can’t slaughter creatures, and makes elaborate model houses fashioned out of vegetables instead.
Except to make such rather weak gags, there is no reason why the characters should be beset by 21st-century concerns. There is no real sense of what “Turpin” is trying to send up or satirize.
— Now streaming on Britbox, the period mystery adaptation “Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy” is another good example of how historical periods can be whitewashed and made more palatable to contemporary audiences through the use of color-blind casting.
In “Easy,” the lead sleuth is Luke Fitzwilliam (David Jonsson), a Nigerian national traveling by train through a picturesque British countryside, circa 1950, on his way to a diplomatic assignment in London. He strikes up a conversation with Miss Pinkerton (Penelope Wilton, “Downton Abbey”), who informs him that her bucolic village of Wychwood Under Ashe has seen a series of untimely deaths and that she fears there is a killer on the loose.
So, we are expected to believe that a foreigner and diplomat will insert himself into mid-20th-century village life and that all the rustic folk will think nothing of a mysterious African fellow snooping around their homes and thatch-roofed cottages.
Not to belabor the point, but Christie’s characters lived in a world far removed from our own. One need only look into the evolution of the title of the 1939 Christie novel that has come to be known as “And Then There Were None,” to realize just how far that author was from the idea of a color-blind Britain.
But we’re reminded time and again that not even viewers of BBC-produced period series want to think that hard, “go there” or consider how the past might have been different. So instead, we have a safe, rather sanitized experience, with historical eras completely absolved and shorn of all thorny notions.
Not unlike Hallmark’s recent romp through the Jane Austen canon, “Easy” turns Christie’s works and her world into a theme-park ride, with a historical lobotomy the price of admission.
— Franchise expansions of another sort, the 2023 animated movie “Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate” and the new series “Megamind Rules!” stream on Peacock.
— The Roku Channel streams the new game show/competition series “Side Hustlers.”
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— Meech moves to Atlanta as “BMF” (8 p.m., Starz, TV-MA) enters its third season.
— The voices of Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray and Neel Sethi animate the 2016 adaptation of “The Jungle Book” (8 p.m., Disney, TV-PG).
— Family meals loom large on “Blue Bloods” (10 p.m., CBS, TV-14).
CULT CHOICE
Progressives (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, in his last role) have a hard time seeing their daughter (Katharine Houghton) engaged to an accomplished Black surgeon (Sidney Poitier) in the 1967 drama “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (6 p.m., TCM, TV-PG).
SERIES NOTES
Yakuza assassins arrive from Japan on “S.W.A.T.” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … “Password” (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG) … “WWE Friday Night SmackDown” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … Cruelty-free marshmallows on “Shark Tank” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … As a conflagration rages, a family resists orders to evacuate on “Fire Country” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … “Dateline” (9 p.m., NBC) … “20/20” (9 p.m., ABC).
LATE NIGHT
Matt Damon and Danielle Pinnock drop by “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (11:35 p.m., CBS, r) … Jimmy Fallon welcomes Dave Bautista, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Esther Povitsky on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … Sarah Paulson, Punkie Johnson and Brad Meltzer visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC, r) … Taylor Tomlinson hosts Billy Eichner, Nico Santos and Pete Holmes on “After Midnight” (12:35 a.m., CBS, r).
