Motherland, a dark, suspenseful new crime-drama series from KAN, began running on Monday nights after the news and can be viewed on kan.org.il.
Set in the early ’90s, it tells a story about a serial killer, a plot device that was very popular 30 years ago, after the success of The Silence of the Lambs. This killer operates in Jerusalem in an era before cell phones and the Internet, when police work required a lot more legwork and street smarts, and during the time of mass immigration to Israel from the former Soviet Union.
Yehuda (Yaakov Zada-Daniel) is a lonely police detective who recently became religious, and whose ex-wife, also in the police force, is happily remarried. Their daughter is recovering from cancer and doesn’t respect her father’s choice to pray and observe the Sabbath, which is what he believes saved her life.
When a recent Russian immigrant, a young mother, is found dead on a Jerusalem street, with the number 37 etched into her forehead, Yehuda realizes immediately that this isn’t just another case. He resists the efforts of his by-the-book supervisor (Alon Newman) to pin the murder on the easiest suspect – the woman’s husband.
In a parallel story that soon converges, Andrey (Anatoliy Belyy), a distraught father in Leningrad, has filed an appeal to get his son, who he is convinced was wrongly accused of being a serial killer, exonerated.
When he learns of the murder in Jerusalem, he is on the next flight to Israel, certain that the man responsible for the killings his son is accused of must have moved to Jerusalem and is hiding among the hundreds of thousands of new Russian immigrants. Heading to the police station at the Russian Compound, where Yehuda works, he tells the Israeli detective what he knows and they forge a grudging partnership.
Both men are driven to find the truth, for different reasons, and although they do not have a common language, they somehow find a way to communicate in the days before Google Translate.
It’s a violent story, to be sure, with graphic images of the victims. The early episodes take place in a dark, gloomy, rainy Jerusalem winter, and the series has the vibe of a gritty ’70s movie.
The Hebrew title is Migrash HaRussim, which translates as “Russian Compound,” the name of a main center of the Jerusalem Police, where those just arrested are held, located next to a historic Russian church.
The Russian Compound is one of the areas in Jerusalem that has changed the least in the past three decades. It’s a fitting backdrop for the story, which plays like a snapshot of Israel 30 years ago. Back in 1991, there were few Russians in the police force and one of the running jokes is about how hard it is to find anyone in the Russian Compound who speaks Russian.
The series has a dream cast. Zada-Daniel is an actor who is so good in every role that people tend to underestimate him. He is best known for Fauda but he was also excellent as the disgraced president in Unsilenced and as a haredi man who falls in love with an immigrant mother in More Than I Deserve. I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers had him in mind when they created the role of this dogged but pessimistic detective.
The actor playing Andrey, Anatoliy Belyy, is no less impressive. He is a huge star in Russia, with over 100 credits there in movies and television, and just started working in Israel. He appears in the new movie, Halisa, by Sophie Artus, in a key role as a contractor.
Although he sounds perfectly convincing in Halisa as a recent immigrant who speaks Russian-accented Hebrew, he reportedly had not yet mastered Hebrew when he made that film. Here, he speaks all in Russian and brings intensity and star quality to his role as a desperate father.
Lena Fraifeld, who starred in Valeria is Getting Married, is one of Israel’s rising stars and she appears in this series as a woman who knows more than she’s saying. Newman, who played Tel Aviv’s chief of police in the movie
The City, is still in law enforcement in Motherland, only this time, he’s the head of Jerusalem’s homicide squad.
The series was created by Yevgeny Ruman, who made the delightful movie Golden Voices, about an older Russian couple moving to Israel, and Dmitry Malinsky, who wrote My Neighbor Adolf. It was produced for KAN 11 by Endemol Shine Israel in collaboration with WestEnd Films and United King Films.
Motherland is more interesting as a character study of two men in search of redemption than as a police procedural. Quite a few unlikely coincidences help the heroes get on the right track very quickly in the early episodes, but you will likely be so interested in the characters that you won’t be too bothered by them.
I was looking forward to Pixar’s first original TV series, Win or Lose, which was just released on Disney+, since films from this studio, especially the Toy Story franchise, have meant so much to me and my family. I’m sorry to say that Win or Lose, while not terrible, doesn’t live up to Pixar’s legendary films, which include Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and the Inside Out movies.
Each episode in Win or Lose is about the events leading up to a Little League baseball championship, and the game itself, and is told from the point of view of a different character. So far, so good.
The first episode focuses on Laurie, the coach’s daughter, who chokes under pressure during the games, and feels confused by her father’s mixed messages about just having fun and the importance of winning. She has a mean imaginary friend, a big lump called Sweaty, who drags her down whenever she feels stressed.
It’s all OK, but no more than that. It doesn’t have the constant surprises, moments of inventiveness, or wit that are the reasons why generations of children love movies from this studio.
Subsequent episodes deal with adult characters, so right there, the series loses its focus on kids. Episode two is about the sad-sack umpire and classroom teacher who pines for his old girlfriend and goes on a dating app, while episode three is about an overwhelmed single mother of one of the players.
They all have moments where you get a glimpse of how they could have been more interesting, but only moments.
Wicked available to watch at home
WICKED JUST became available to rent and own on Apple TV+. While it loses some of its impact on the small screen, it still features beautiful singing and the imaginative production design and staging that made it one of the biggest hits of 2024.
It’s a Wizard of Oz prequel dominated by two wonderful performances: Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch, back when she was just a green girl talented at magic; and Ariana Grande as Galinda, who eventually develops into the Good Witch.
It’s kind of like Mean Girls meets Carrie meets The Wizard of Oz, and features a supporting cast that includes Jeff Goldblum (as the Wizard, naturally) and Michelle Yeoh as the girls’ teacher. It suffers from some of the preachy messaging that mars so much entertainment, such as the fact that everyone hates Elphaba because she’s green – can you imagine what this could be a metaphor for?
There is also a major subplot about how humans feel threatened by brainy, talking animals, and plot to cage and silence them. The creatures are so cute and realistic-looking that you can forgive how obvious it all is. Another major problem is that the producers decided to stretch the show into two movies, so you’ll have to wait another year to find out how it all turns out.