‘Mayflies’ from Scotland, ‘Irrational’ in Court, A War on Disco, World Series Moves to Arizona
A tearjerker from Scotland explores the relationship between two friends as one faces a terminal illness. NBC’s The Irrational stages a courtroom showdown between two behavioral experts following a police-involved shooting. PBS’ American Experience revisits a culture clash between rock and disco in the 1970s that culminated in a riot at a baseball stadium. The World Series resumes with Game 3 in Arizona.
Mayflies
Series Premiere
“Old friendship is another kind of romance. It can make your life and break your heart.” This epigraph, which opens the second half of a moving two-hour drama from Scotland, strikes at the core of Mayflies’ emotional power. The film stars Line of Duty’s Martin Compston and Tony Curran (recently seen in Marvel’s Secret Invasion) as lifelong friends Jimmy and Tully, who reconnect when the larger-than-life Tully desperately requests a favor. He has received a terminal cancer diagnosis and needs Jimmy’s help to go to Switzerland for legalized assisted suicide—which goes against the wishes of his soon-to-be-wife Anna (the wonderful Ashley Jensen). Flashbacks reveal the depth of the men’s bond, including a memorable trip as youths to Manchester, and as Jimmy tries to figure out how to fulfill Tully’s request without betraying Anna, with Tully’s health declining, this unusual multifaceted love story builds to a sorrowful but life-affirming and uplifting conclusion.
The Irrational
The strongest episode to date of the unconventional crime drama pits behavioral scientist Alec Mercer (Jesse L. Martin) against a paid legal expert with the “morals of a jackal,” smartly played by Malcolm-Jamal Warner. They face off in a civil trial following a botched police raid in which a young building inspector is shot and killed in his own home, the result of apparent human error when a “Viper Squad” unit barges into the wrong house. “That raid was a disaster waiting to happen,” concludes Mercer on the stand, but as his outspoken sister Kylie (scene stealer Travina Springer) notes, “How do you persuade a jury whose minds are already made up?”
American Experience
Documentary Premiere
In The War on Disco, American Experience time-travels back to the 1970s, when disco music for a time dominated the airwaves, epitomized by the blockbuster hit Saturday Night Fever. Rock enthusiasts weren’t so thrilled, and a culture clash reached its most incendiary moment when a Chicago rock DJ organized a “Disco Demolition Night” at Comiskey Park, resulting in a riot involving tens of thousands. Some observers saw more than musical passion at play, suggesting racism and homophobia were underlying factors in the anti-disco revolution because of the genre’s roots in the Black and gay communities. Disco’s influence would soon decline, but try convincing true believers that Donna Summer’s Last Dance doesn’t still hold up.
The World Series
With the series tied 1-1, the Fall Classic moves to Chase Field in Phoenix for Game 3 between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers. The next three games could decide everything—or it could move back to Texas for the final games.
INSIDE MONDAY TV:
- Monday Night Football (8 pm/ET, ABC and ESPN): Sports fans can toggle between baseball and football, with a simulcast of a match between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Detroit Lions.
- Antiques Roadshow (8/7c, PBS): A special “Thrills and Chills” episode gets in the Halloween spirit, spotlighting items with eerie resonance, including a possibly haunted 18th-century portrait of a captain lost at sea, a Victorian mourning necklace holding human hair, a spooky chair and a creepy doll only Chucky could love.
- Fire Through Dry Grass (10/9c, PBS): An affecting installment of POV goes inside a nursing home on New York’s Roosevelt Island during the pandemic lockdown, with GoPro cameras on wheelchairs to depict the struggle of a group of Reality Poets (whose work is heard throughout) to be seen and heard. One of the residents, Andres “Jay” Molina, is the film’s co-director with Alexis Neophytides.
- Harry Wild (streaming on Acorn TV): In the penultimate episode of Season 2, Harry (Jane Seymour) gets busy when a hotel’s murder-mystery game turns all too real.
- Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor (streaming on Shudder): A stand-alone found-footage thriller joins the Hell House franchise, featuring amateur Internet sleuths who in 2021 stay overnight in a mansion in Rockland County, N.Y., where unspeakable horrors occurred in 1989. Yes, they should have known better.
