Probably nothing on Israeli television says the war is over more than a light-hearted black comedy/thriller, and that describes a new series, Murder at the Dead Sea, from Keshet, which is showing on Channel 12 and can be seen on mako.co.il. It’s a kind of Israeli take on The White Lotus, where beautiful, quirky people in an equally beautiful setting deal with a murder.
It’s a showcase for the charm of Niv Sultan, best known internationally as daredevil Mossad agent Tamar Rabinyan in Tehran, and it lets her show off her lighter side and play a character with relatable human weaknesses. At times, she’s almost ditzy, and she looks great in bikinis and a fetching wardrobe of resort wear.
The series is long on atmosphere and is filmed in a dreamlike way. Set at a huge but almost empty hotel during the COVID pandemic, it tells the story of Revi (Sultan), who at first seems to be an MDA volunteer who has tested positive for the virus, but is a rookie police officer from Arad.
Many people who were sent to hotels during the pandemic have described the eerie quality of being in a setting meant to be luxurious but which deteriorated rapidly when the government was tasked with housing people there on short notice, but this hasn’t been dramatized before. Revi’s room has a nice view, but there’s no water. A hotel staffer suggests using alco-gel instead.
Revi, who is coping with a recent breakup with her co-worker boyfriend (Henry David), ventures outside and meets Sara (Anna Zak, getting to play a part that is a little more substantial than the usual eye-candy roles she usually gets), a famous pop singer, who turns out to be the most sympathetic character.
She is there with an entourage, which includes a slightly histrionic young woman, played by Lia Elalouf, who was in Come Closer; a doctor (Roy Nik, who starred in Home and Normal), and a stylist (Ben Yosipovich), along with various other residents and staff, played by Anat Atzmon, Rotem Shefi, and Avihu Pinhasof.
It’s all meant to be escapist fun, and while there are enjoyable moments, the tone wobbles a little, as it often does in murder mysteries that are meant to be light entertainment. I could have done without an extended autopsy that Revi has to perform, in which the corpse is shown in closeup, and during which her squeamishness is played for laughs.
I suspect many viewers may have turned the show off there. But after that, it shifted back to the more light-hearted vibe. While all the eccentric guests and staff have their moments, Revi is far and away the most compelling character, and I hope future episodes will focus on how she develops as a policewoman as she is forced to carry out a serious murder investigation.
Thriller about the UK phone hacking scandal
THE HACK is a new series running on Hot VOD and Next TV and which will begin showing on Hot 3 on January 14, that demands the viewer’s full attention, and earns it. It’s an engaging journalistic thriller based on the phone-hacking scandal that rocked the British press more than a decade ago.
Even if you followed that news story closely, you might want to read an article or two to refresh your memory, because a lot of information and characters are introduced rapidly. The always engaging David Tennant of Broadchurch and Doctor Who plays Nick Davies, a dogged reporter from The Guardian who isn’t too great at running his own life but who is a brilliant investigative journalist.
Davies meets an informant who reveals that although an earlier hacking scandal at News of the World, a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, seemingly was resolved by the prosecution of a couple of staff members, the practice of phone hacking was far more widespread than was previously believed and is still being used. The informant alleges that thousands of phones have been hacked, including those of politicians and entertainment figures.
Digging deeper, he learns that News Corporation has made settlements with phone-hacking victims in exchange for their silence, that the company had used private investigators to carry out the hacking, and that some politicians and police officials knew about this but have been covering this up.
The second episode focuses on the story of David Cook, played by Robert Carlyle (best known for Trainspotting and The Full Monty), a police investigator asked to reopen the cold case of a private detective who was murdered in connection with the scandal. Tennant has the showier role, but both are good, and there is a supporting cast of other British stars, including Toby Young, Dougray Scott, and Rose Leslie.
TWO OF the greatest television series of all time are coming back to Israel’s small screens: Mad Men and The Americans. Interestingly, the creators of these two series, Matthew Weiner of Mad Men and Joel Fields, who made The Americans with Joe Weisberg, recently took part in a conference in Jerusalem to show their support for Israeli creators during this time of rising antisemitism.
Mad Men has just become available on Disney+. The story of the dashing, amoral advertising executive Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and his coworkers and family in the 1960s, Mad Men is one of the most fascinating and best-written series ever created.
Alone among all the great series created in the 21st century, such as The Sopranos, it is set in an office, albeit a glamorous one, rather than in the world of crime, which means that it’s especially easy to relate to it.
The Americans is also available on Disney+ and can now be seen on Hot. It tells the complex story of Philip and Elizabeth, two Russian spies posing as American travel agents in Washington in the 1980s, who are played by Matthew Rhys (currently appearing in Netflix’s The Beast in Me) and Keri Russell (the star of Netflix’s The Diplomat).
Their often-deadly espionage activity is riveting, but what makes the series great is the psychological complexity of the portrait of these true believers who find themselves struggling with growing disillusionment over Soviet ideology. It’s suspenseful, surprisingly moving, and endlessly inventive: At one point, Philip starts going to EST self-help seminars.
IF YOU’RE just looking for a little fun to start the new year, the first two Ghostbusters movies have become available on Disney+. There’s no question that these movies, starring Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, and Annie Potts, are the best in the series.
The first one is still the most memorable, and the special effects, while dated, still work well. But if you’ve never seen the sequel, it’s worth checking out. It features a great villain (Wilhelm von Homburg), a 17th-century warlord from Carpathia (or something along those lines), and there is a scene where a toaster dances to Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher.”