THE FIRST – Review by Susan Granger

While the Writers’ and Actors’ strikes persist, streaming networks are reaching back into their archives to show various series that ran for one season and were – perhaps inexplicably – cancelled and/or not renewed for a second season. Making his initial television-series venture, Sean Penn stars in The First, playing Capt. Tom Hagerty, a former Astronaut Mission Commander who is now training the first crew for a manned mission to Mars, circa 2030s.

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MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS – Review by MaryAnn Johanson

You don’t need a degree in British history to appreciate that what looks like pretty thrilling movie-movie internecine spycraft and occasionally outright warfare between the two thrones — Mary’s in Scotland and Elizabeth’s in England — is, in fact, the undermining of two reasonable women trying to unite their nations, their efforts thwarted by very angry, very misogynist men.

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