Watching This Week #97

Hi! This is the January 23, 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.

It's been a light week for Canada-specific programming news (though there have been various items for U.S.-based services like Apple TV+ coming out of the ongoing TCA press tour), but we do have a bit on Crave's new partnership with Viaplay, the likely Canadian home of an upcoming Outlander spin-off, and we answer a question about when the most recent Jurassic World movie will hit Canadian streaming. That's after this week's listings.

What's new this week – January 23–29

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). Particularly notable premieres (in our rough estimation) are bolded. *An asterisk denotes programming added in past weeks that we've learned about (or has been rescheduled) since our last newsletter.

• Netflix: Daniel Spellbound (season 2 – Thursday); Record of Ragnarok (season 2, part 1 – Thursday); Kings of Jo'burg (season 2 – Friday); Lockwood & Co. (mystery series – Friday); The Snow Girl (Spanish series – Friday); You People (rom-com film – Friday)
• Disney+: Commander Fort (Argentinian miniseries – Wednesday); Darby and the Dead (supernatural comedy film – Wednesday); Extraordinary (British series – Wednesdays)
• Crave: Various Nordic series and films distributed by Viaplay (Tuesday, Jan. 18* – more details below); Grind Now, Shine Later: The Chris Boucher Story (Uninterrupted Canada doc – Wednesday); CTV News Reporter's Notebook: "Escaping the Taliban" (Friday) [delayed until Feb. 3]; Eiffel (French film – Friday); Hands That Bind (Canadian film – Friday); Official Competition (Spanish-Argentinian film – Friday); Pfffirates (children's series – Saturday) [note: documentary The Devil's Confession was scheduled to premiere Monday but has been removed from the schedule]
• Prime Video: Alan Partridge: Stratagem (comedy special – Friday); Good Rivals (soccer doc – Friday); Lupin III vs Cat's Eye (anime film – Friday); Shotgun Wedding (rom-com film – Friday)
• CBC Gem: Chateau DIY (season 5, part 1 – Monday); Casual (season 4 – Wednesdays); Finding Aicha (British-French short doc – Wednesday); Crisis (Canadian film – Friday); How to Lose Everything (animated shorts – Friday); Paraíso (season 2 – Fridays)
• Paramount+ (also available as a channel on Prime Video and Apple TV): Teen Wolf: The Movie (MTV series continuation – Thursday); Wolf Pack (drama series – Thursdays) [additional listings have been posted by MobileSyrup but we cannot independently verify them]
• Apple TV+: Shrinking (comedy series – Fridays)
• Citytv+ (programs also available on Citytv on Demand through some TV providers): Poker Face (mystery series – Thursdays)
• CTV: The Spencer Sisters ("light-hearted" mystery series – preview broadcast of premiere episode Sunday; Fridays starting Feb. 10)
• Citytv (also on Citytv+): American Auto (season 2 – Tuesdays)

Programming news

• Bell Media announced this past week that it has partnered with Nordic media company Viaplay Group (previously known as NENT), resulting in Crave adding a selection of the company's films and TV series under the Viaplay Select banner. The selection is described as having a focus on "Nordic noir" crime dramas; all titles are available in their original audio with English subtitles.
   
  Viaplay has made similar partnerships with local services in countries like Latin America and Australia, but the Crave partnership is a bit of a surprising move considering that the company had previously announced plans to launch as a direct-to-consumer operator in both the U.S. and Canada this year – and as of now, the company says it still plans to launch its own service in Canada by the end of March.
   
• In other Crave news, we've seen linear channel listings and/or promos indicating that 2022 Universal theatrical releases Firestarter and Downton Abbey: A New Era will arrive on the service in February.
   
• Alongside the announcement of an eighth and final season of long-running fantasy drama Outlander, Starz said it had ordered a prequel series, Outlander: Blood of My Blood.
   
  While producers Sony sold international broadcast rights to the original series to a various international broadcasters including Showcase (later moved to W Network) in Canada, Starz is keeping the prequel series in-house as much as it can, saying it will air on Starz and Lionsgate+ platforms internationally, including in Canada (though Sony will presumably distribute the series in countries without either brand). Broadcast timing for the spin-off series has yet to be announced.
   
  Meanwhile, we expect the original Outlander series to continue on W Network until its conclusion – the channel had previously confirmed it would air the seventh season alongside Starz U.S. this fall.

Mailbag

Here's a reader question we've received recently by email (hello@wherecaniwatch.ca) or social media. 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.

James: Why is Jurassic World Dominion not streaming on Prime Video in Canada? Who’s got the rights for Canada?

WCIW: The third Jurassic World film, like the others in the wider Jurassic Park franchise, is distributed by Universal Pictures, which still has a deal in Canada with Crave for "pay-1" rights, or the first window to stream each of its films on a subscription TV or streaming service.

In the U.S., Universal announced a new pay-1 structure starting with its 2022 releases. Films first become available on Peacock on an accelerated schedule and remain available there for four months, then the streaming rights move to either Prime Video (for live-action films) or Netflix (for films from Universal's animated labels like DreamWorks or Illumination) for ten months.

For example, the 2022 Universal film The Bad Guys was released in North American theatres on April 22, became available on Peacock about two months later on July 1, then moved to Netflix in the U.S. on November 1.

However, as far as we can tell, Universal's deal with Crave remains in effect, and is based on traditional (i.e., pre-pandemic) timing for the pay-1 window, where films become available about eight to ten months after their theatrical releases. So, again using The Bad Guys as an example, that film didn't become available on Crave in Canada until January 1.

Extrapolating from the timelines above, we would expect Jurassic World Dominion to become available to stream in Canada on Crave in March or possibly April. It might stream on Prime Video in Canada eventually, but not within the next year (not counting separate digital rentals and purchases that are already possible through the Prime Video Store).

Recent updates on WCIW

We've added a new post to explain what will be happening with Peacock series Poker Face, which as noted above will debut this week on Citytv+ in Canada.

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