TV Talk: Pitt student talks ‘Growing Up’ on Disney+; ‘Good Fight’ begins final season
Share this post:
While other high schoolers played sports or planned the yearbook, current University of Pittsburgh junior Isabel Lam and her best friend Clare Della Valle started a club devoted to menstrual equity.
The friends, who grew up in Clarks Summit, Pa., northwest of Scranton, founded a local chapter of national organization Period.The Menstrual Movement after Della Valle read about the need to eradicate period poverty and stigma in Teen Vogue.
Lam and Della Valle are featured in the 10-episode Disney+ docu-series “Growing Up,” now streaming, which seeks to tell 10 stories “about the courage to be yourself.”
Actress Brie Larson (“Captain Marvel”), executive producer of “Growing Up” and the director of episode two featuring Lam and Della Valle, said she came up with the idea for the series when she realized she was “living with shame about who I was” and concluded that if she felt that way, others might have similar feelings.
Lam, now 20, said the process of making “Growing Up” was delayed initially by the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. She and Della Valle were approached by a producer from the series via email prior to their 2020 high school graduation.
Originally the plan was to film teens in their hometowns, but due to the pandemic, Disney opted to shoot the series on a Brooklyn soundstage over two-and-a-half weeks in the summer of 2021. That included not only group chat scenes, but also dramatic recreations where Lam and Della Valle play themselves as high schoolers.
“I’m definitely not an actor,” Lam said. “It was a great learning experience to see how much work [film/TV production] takes.”
Their episode not only shows their work with Period, but also other challenges of growing up. For Lam, that included feeling like an outsider as she was often the only Asian-American in a predominantly white community.
Lam, who studies political science, economics and Chinese at Pitt, is vice president of operations of Pitt’s student government board. She’s trying to reactivate a dormant Period chapter at Pitt and she’s done work on the issue through her student government position, including making free menstrual products available in dispensaries in multiple bathrooms across campus.
Lam said she hopes teens who watch “Growing Up” will see they are not alone in feeling like they don’t fit in.
“A lot of people have negative feelings about growing up. You feel nervous, you feel like you don’t belong, you feel like you’re suffering by yourself. …. You’re not alone,” Lam said. “Your problems are more common than you think. … [While filming ‘Growing Up,’] one person would speak and I’d be like, ‘I had no idea you felt this way, I thought it was just me.’ I really hope people take the chance to realize that there’s always someone who feels the same way.”
‘The Good Fight’
Paramount+’s “The Good Fight” was sharper in the Trump era, but it’s weirder in the Biden era.
Season five, with its over-long fake judge (Mandy Patinkin) in a fake courtroom arc, proved a disappointment — but through its first five episodes, the show’s final, sixth season is stronger even as it gets stranger. Lawyer Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) smiles and laughs more than she ever has thanks to Psilocybin treatments from a handsome doctor (John Slattery, “Mad Men”).
While protesters take to the streets and threaten the show’s lawyers with fake grenades, Liz (Audra McDonald) is forced to take on a new partner, Ri’Chard Lane (Andre Braugher), when she’s not receiving phone calls from the supposed spouse of a Supreme Court justice.
Long-time fans of “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight” will appreciate references to past characters, including Peter and Alicia Florrick and a winking mention of former drug kingpin Lemond Bishop (actor Mike Colter now stars in “Evil” from “Good Fight” showrunners Michelle and Robert King), and guest appearances by returning characters Eli Gold (Alan Cumming), Charles Lester (Wallace Shawn), Democratic party honcho Frank Landau (Mike Pniewski) and brilliant-but-daffy lawyer Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston).
Now streaming with episodes releasing weekly on Thursdays, “The Good Fight” even offers a few local connections, including invocation of The Rooney Rule, which encourages diversity in the leadership of NFL teams, in episode four’s court case, which also features Pleasant Hills native Mark Deklin’s return as Judge Wick Stilton.
WQED digital doc
WQED will premiere a new digital documentary, “The Letters: A Plea for Help,” streaming Sept. 9 at www.wqed.org/theletters. The film tells the story of a family’s efforts to flee Nazi-occupied Austria with the help of a Squirrel Hill resident Abraham Sanford Levy.
The local production is timed to the PBS premiere of “The U.S. and the Holocaust” (8-10 p.m. Sept. 18-20, WQED-TV), executive produced by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein.
A free public screening and discussion of “The Letters” will take place at 6:30-8:30 p.m. Sept. 12 at Baldwin High School. Free registration for the screening is available on eventbrite.com.
Kept/canceled
HBO Max renewed adult-animated series “Harley Quinn” for a fourth season.
Peacock canceled “Rutherford Falls” after two seasons.
Channel surfing
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of “The Price is Right,” Buzzr (Channel 61.3 over the air or streaming at buzzrtv.com/watch) is airing old episodes of the game show hosted by Pittsburgh native Bill Cullen at 4 p.m. this week. … Showtime is now available within streaming service Paramount+ for a bundled initial price of $7.99 per month (with ads) or $12.99 (without ads) for both Showtime and Paramount+. After Oct. 2, the price rises to $11.99/$14.99 for the bundle. Showtime as a stand-alone will still be available for $10.99 per month. On its own, Paramount+ remains $4.99/$9.99. … Former “Face the Nation” and “CBS This Morning” anchor John Dickerson now anchors a one-hour national newscast, “CBS News Prime Time,” streaming at 7 p.m. Monday-Thursday on the CBS News Streaming Network. … Former CNN+ series “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” will resurface on HBO Max Sept. 23 with three episodes which will be cut down to a one-hour program airing on CNN at 7 p.m. Sept. 25. … What Netflix calls “Collection 10” of “The Great British Baking Show” will stream a new episode Fridays for 10 weeks beginning Sept. 16.