What to watch on TV this week: Israeli election satire and a Hersh Goldberg-Polin tribute

It isn’t only the political parties that are fighting for your vote; the election-night comedy shows are also engaging in a battle. Checkout (Kupa Rashit) on KAN 11 and Keshet’s Eretz Nehederet (Wonderful Country) on Channel 12 are both broadcasting after the news on the evening of October 27. 

The polls will still be open, and at that point nobody will know the results, so KAN and Keshet are betting Israelis would rather take some time to laugh a little.

The Checkout episode was planned about a year ago, and it will focus more on the staff and customers of the forlorn Shefa Issachar supermarket than on any politician or party.

Some of the Checkout writers recently gave an interview to The Jerusalem Post, and Daniel Salganik said of the election episode: “It was a challenge.... We had to make an episode that would somehow feel topical a year into the future. But if, from the outset, your ideology isn’t Left or Right and your only ideology is ‘Is it funny?’ then it’s much easier to get laughs out of everybody.”

The writers wouldn’t say too much about it – at first, all they would tell me was that it takes place at the supermarket – but then revealed a couple of details.

Cameo by Yaakov Zada Daniel of Fauda

Amnon (Dov Navon), the world’s fussiest customer, somehow becomes a darling of the Left, and the wealthy life coach, Shuni Stretiner (played by Dorit Lev-Ari), another customer, is running for the Knesset.

They also said Yaakov Zada Daniel of Fauda would make a cameo.

Eretz Nehederet is a sketch comedy show that makes fun of current events, so its Tuesday night content will depend on all the egregious behavior by desperate politicians in the final days of the campaign. The episodes will be posted on the networks’ websites following the broadcasts, so you can watch one live and then stream the other.

While the election results may or may not be a surprise, one genuinely unexpected moment on television recently came with a reference to Hersh Goldberg-Polin on the Netflix series The Diplomat. 

Goldberg-Polin was a young man from Jerusalem who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival and killed by Hamas after nearly a year in captivity. He was shot in a tunnel along with his fellow hostages Ori Danino, Alexander Lobanov, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, and Eden Yerushalmi, a group Goldberg-Polin’s mother, Rachel, has dubbed “the beautiful six.”

The scene where Goldberg-Polin is given a tribute comes when the character Frances Munning (Penny Downie), the manager of the residence of the US ambassador to Britain, Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), explains to Stuart Heyford (Ato Essandoh), Wyler’s right-hand man, why she likes Americans.

Her father was a soldier in World War II, she says, and his unit was attached to the US 9th Armored Division. “A gentleman by the name of Hershel Pollen from Richmond, Virginia, watched a live grenade roll right to my father’s feet,” she tells him. “Mr. Pollen snatched it up, tossed it away. It exploded, inches from his hand. He lost the limb. He saved my father’s life.... I am fond of Americans.”

This story references what actually happened to Goldberg-Polin and his friend, Aner Shapiro. Both fled into a bomb shelter crowded with others escaping the music festival, and once they were inside, Hamas terrorists threw grenades at them. Shapiro tossed seven grenades back at the terrorists before he was killed. One exploded near Goldberg-Polin, and his arm was blown off from the elbow down.

Another fact about Goldberg-Polin: He lived in Richmond, Virginia, as a child, before moving to Israel with his parents. Goldberg-Polin’s father, Jon Polin, told Ynet: “Although we have no connection to the writers or the team behind Netflix’s The Diplomat, we appreciate the clear reference to our late son, Hersh, and his childhood in Richmond, Virginia, as well as to the late Aner Shapiro, one of the true heroes of that terrible day, October 7. 

“At a time when some are trying to rewrite history or whitewash the October 7 massacre, it is heartwarming to know that so many others refuse to stop talking about Hersh, Aner, and the other victims, and continue to remember them, even through subtle references.”

Not surprisingly, screenwriter/producer Debora Cahn, who created The Diplomat, is a descendant of Holocaust survivors.

The Emmy-winning series is a suitable follow-up for Russell, following her work on the outstanding series The Americans, and features The West Wing alums Bradley Whitford and Allison Janney in key supporting roles.

Netflix series Below features a terrifying sea creature

For those looking for escapist fare to distract from all the political turmoil, there are options. Netflix is offering a series called Below, which may interest those who just saw Whalefall, the new feature film about a latter-day Jonah swallowed by a whale. Below is about a small community in Newfoundland that is menaced by a mysterious giant squid.

It’s kind of like Widow’s Bay meets Jaws, but mostly without the jokes.

Josh Hartnett, who once seemed like the next Brad Pitt and is now having a kind of comeback, has the lead role as Calvin, a widowed father who grew up in a small village. It was once a fishing village, but its inhabitants are now prevented from fishing to protect the environment. He makes a living finding ice chunks for a bespoke vodka company and renting out a small bed-and-breakfast apartment.

The residents are being encouraged to take a government payout to leave, and most think it’s the sensible thing to do, but not Calvin.

Although he has suppressed the memory, he knows that there is something strange and threatening in the local waters, because his father was killed by a sea creature in a strange incident that he witnessed as a child.

When it rears its ugly head again, he is the first one to recognize what is really going on, and he teams up with the prettiest marine biologist since Charlotte Rampling in Orca (one of the best bad movies of all time), played by Mackenzie Davis of the series Halt and Catch Fire and Station Eleven, to catch it.

Below starts off slow, but the atmosphere is compelling, and the suspense builds.

If even Below sounds too serious, try War, a new series running on Hot VOD, Hot Drama, and Next TV. It is a British legal drama, along the lines of The Good Wife, with a lot of sexual scandal and backstabbing.

It stars Dominic West (The Wire) as a tech billionaire and Sienna Miller (Anatomy of a Scandal) as his movie star wife, who are headed for a divorce that, according to one of their lawyers, could be the highest-profile such case in British history.

Their armies of lawyers and spin doctors also have major roles, and it’s fun from start to finish.