Watching This Week #133

Welcome to the December 11, 2023, edition of Watching This Week, the weekly newsletter from Where Can I Watch – covering the latest news on where TV shows and movies will be available in Canada.

Ahead this week, we’re starting to hear about the broadcast networks’ winter programming plans, and we answer a couple of questions about the future of FX and Hulu programming availability in Canada. But first, the listings for the coming week.

What's new this week – December 11–17

Compiled from our monthly listings and/or any subsequent updates we've come across. We strive for accuracy but schedules may change without notice. Some series/seasons may have weekly rollouts; we won't list new episodes every week (though we may note significant episodes such as series finales). *An asterisk denotes programming added in past weeks that we've learned about (or has been rescheduled) since our last newsletter.

• Netflix
  • Series: Single's Inferno (season 3 – Tuesday); The Crown (final episodes – Thursday); Archer (season 14 – Friday); Carol & The End of the World (adult animated miniseries – Friday)
  • Films: Talk to Me (2022 Australian horror film – Tuesday); Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (animated sequel – Friday)
  • Docs: Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only (comedy doc – Tuesday); Under Pressure: The U.S. Women's World Cup Team (docuseries about the team at the 2023 WWC – Tuesday)
• Disney+
  • Series: Undead Unluck (anime – Wednesdays)
  • Library: JFK: One Day in America (Nat Geo docuseries – Wednesday)
• Crave
  • Crave / Bell Media originals: Paranormal Revenge (season 1 – Friday); Canada's Walk of Fame 25th Anniversary Celebration (Saturday)
  • HBO / Max content: Trees and Other Entanglements (doc – Tuesday); Leo Reich: Literally Who Cares?! (stand-up special – Saturday)
  • Films: Barbie (2023 film starring Margot Robbie – now confirmed for Friday, possibly also available in ASL); The Blackening (2023 dark comedy slasher film – Friday, apparently)
  • Other licensed series: Reginald the Vampire (season 1 – Friday); Veneno 2: Dressed in Blue (Spanish series – Sundays)
• Prime Video
  • Series: Los Farad (Spanish crime drama – Tuesday); Reacher (season 2 – Friday)
  • Films: The Black Demon (2023 sci-fi thriller – Tuesday)
• CBC Gem
  • Series: War and Peace (2016 British miniseries – Wednesday); Something Undone (original crime drama series – Thursday); Bardot (French bio-drama series – Friday)
  • Films: The Christmas Setup (2020 Canadian film – Wednesday)
  • Docs: Is There Anyone Out There? (2023 British doc, as an edition of The Passionate Eye – Wednesday)
• Paramount+ (also available as a channel on Prime Video and Apple TV)
  • Films: Parasite (2019 film – Tuesday); Beau is Afraid (2023 surrealist horror film – Friday); Finestkind (original crime drama – Friday)
  • Series: Criminal Minds (seasons 13–14 from 2017–19 – Tuesday); Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders and Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior (full series of both – Friday)
  • Docs: The Lady and the Legend (docuseries about Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett – Tuesday)
• Apple TV+
  • Films: The Family Plan (original, Skydance-produced action comedy film – Friday)
• BritBox (also available as a channel on Prime Video and Apple TV)
  • Series: Sister Boniface Mysteries (2023 Christmas special – Tuesday)
• Adult Swim (also on StackTV)
  • Series: Archer ("Into the Cold" [series finale] – presumably airing Sunday, though on at least one listings provider it is currently listed as an unrelated 2010 film also titled Into the Cold)
• Starz (also available as an add-on/channel on Crave, Prime Video, and Apple TV):
  • Notable films: Groundhog Day (1993) – Friday, Dec. 15

This week in deals

As a reminder, we may get an affiliate commission for services you sign up for through links in this newsletter, which helps support our site maintenance, at no additional cost to you. Prices are in Canadian dollars before applicable sales taxes, and may change in the future.

• Crave is currently offering 25% off a $100 gift card, meaning you can get $100 in value towards a Crave direct streaming subscription for $75. This offer lasts until Friday, January 5, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time.

Programming news

• This past week, Global announced its programming plans for the winter, with most series back in production following the conclusion of the writers' and actors' strikes.
   
  As usual, the Corus-owned broadcast network will be heavily reliant on simulcast programming from CBS, including previously-announced new series Elsbeth, but still has Canadian rights to 9-1-1 and Abbott Elementary (both now on ABC in the U.S.). Many of the holes in Global's schedule resulting from CBS series aired by other Canadian networks (like The Amazing Race and the new Tracker on CTV) will be plugged by a new season of Big Brother Canada which starts on March 5.
   
• Meanwhile, we also know some of what's coming to Corus' specialty channels in January. Coming to Showcase: the new season of Peacock's Dr. Death will air Sundays starting January 7, shortly after its U.S. premiere on December 21, while the Ted prequel series will premiere on January 11, the same date as the U.S. debut. However, we expect that episodes will continue to be released weekly, not all at once as on Peacock.
   
  Over on W Network: Australian (ABC) period comedy series Gold Diggers will air starting Monday, January 1; British (Sky) comedy series Smothered will air starting the following Monday, January 8; Hallmark Channel co-production The Way Home returns Sunday, January 21; and another season of When Calls the Heart (we believe it's season 8, which aired on Super Channel in 2021) begins Sunday, January 7.
   
• While much ink this past week was devoted to the CBC's anticipated future budgets and resulting staff cuts (but not yet executive bonus cuts), CBC Television's winter season has already been budgeted and paid for. As has been typical of the past few years, many of the public broadcaster's biggest Canadian series, like the new season of Son of a Critch and new series including Wild Cards and Allegiance, were held for January premieres instead of debuting in the fall.
   
• TSN / RDS has acquired Canadian rights to the 2024 edition of the Copa America, the South American (CONMEBOL) soccer championship which this time around will also feature six North and Central American teams, potentially including Canada. The Bell Media sports channels also aired the previous edition of the tournament in 2021.
   
• Hollywood Suite has been gradually moving more into the first-run programming space, and it will continue doing so in early 2024 with what the service describes as the "Canadian broadcast premieres" of three domestic films: dramas Adult Adoption (2022) and A Girl, a Boy, a Penny and a Very, Very, Very Long Road (2019), and indigenous sci-fi thriller The Beehive (2023). All will be available on demand on January 1, with linear premieres on Tuesdays starting January 9.

Other notes

• Corus' StackTV now has yet another distributor: the Bell Fibe TV app, for $10 per month. As with its distribution on Rogers Ignite TV, it's not exactly clear how useful this will be for customers that already have Corus' specialty channels in their packages, but it may be useful for those on a basic tier.

Mailbag

Here's some of the reader questions we've received recently by email (hello@wherecaniwatch.ca). We welcome questions of general interest, and publish a few of them (and our answers) from time to time; messages may be edited for brevity and clarity.

Jim: Are there any future plans to allow fee-based streaming access to channels like FX (and its streaming app FXNow) for those of us who have cut cable? 

WCIW: The FX and FXX linear channels in Canada and their programming are already included in Citytv+, the add-on channel option that Rogers currently offers through Prime Video, and conceivably could offer through other venues as well.

It seems unlikely to us that Rogers would consider a direct-to-consumer option more subdivided than that, especially as it's unclear how much longer Disney will allow the FX / FXX Canada linear channels to exist in their current form.

At this point, just about the only major group of Canadian channels that don't have some sort of direct-to-consumer option is Bell Media's CTV / Discovery channels. Ultimately it's be Bell's call if and when they make some version of that available, or if they'll be happy to continuing to focus on Crave.

Jim (also): I’ve read recently that Disney+ has bought out Hulu and is combining the two into a fuller streaming service. Is the same in store for Canada? 

WCIW: What's happened is that The Walt Disney Company has now acquired full control of Hulu – subject to financial adjustments that may be made to Comcast at a later date – and has launched a beta version of Hulu as a tile / hub within the U.S. version of the Disney+ app, for those that are subscribed to both. This appears to us to be a first step towards eventually integrating the two apps – at least in terms of the streaming part of Hulu, maybe not the vMVPD part – much as how the Star tile has existed for some time in the Disney+ app in Canada and much of the rest of the world. But the two subscriptions themselves will likely remain available separately.

So will any of this affect Disney+ in Canada? In terms of programming, we don't think it'll affect much – Disney+ / Star has already been carrying the majority of new Hulu original programming since Star’s launch. Most of what hasn't been available on Star originated at other studios and distributors, and it's unlikely this deal will directly affect anything in that regard.

What may happen, however, is that Disney could revisit the branding of the Star tile in Canada, which we've noticed is already being downplayed in many of the promotions for Disney+'s "adult" programming. Recall that Disney originally said it would expand Hulu internationally, before saying it thought the Star brand would resonate better globally – though Comcast has argued there were financial motives for that decision.

The Hulu transaction and changes in progress to the U.S. service might give Disney motivation to look at the Canadian market with fresh eyes and realize that Hulu is likely much better known here, at least, than Star was.

Again, simply renaming the Star tile to Hulu wouldn't affect any programming rights Disney doesn't already have in Canada – and indeed the potential confusion that might result could be sufficient reason not to do it.

But considering what we suspect are common misunderstandings of what exactly Disney+'s programming mix is in Canada – a certain prominent federal politician not long ago seemed to suggest she thought it was merely a kids' service (putting aside the other issues with her comments) – perhaps rebranding in Canada to something like "Disney+ with Hulu" would be a better way to communicate to Canadians the breadth of what the service actually offers.

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