TV Week: Calling all 'Shtisel' fans: A new prequel, 'Kugel,' debuts

Calling all Shtisel fans: There is a new spin-off series, Kugel, running Thursday nights on Yes Drama, and available on YesVOD and Sting+, and you can think of it as Better Call Saul to Shtisel’s Breaking Bad.

It’s a prequel, starring Sasson Gabai as Nukhem Shtisel, Shulem’s brother, and Hadas Yaron as Nukhem’s daughter, Libbi, who was sorely missed in Shtisel’s third season. It’s set in Antwerp, before they moved to Jerusalem.

As it opens, Nukhem and his wife, Vidas (Mili Avital), are having problems, and she decides to move out. This throws Nukhem into turmoil, but not that much. Nukhem, always a likable schnook, quickly adapts and starts falling for Pnina (Rotem Abuhav), a baker whose specialty is – what else? – the kugel that Nukhem loves so much.

But in the tight-knit Antwerp ultra-Orthodox community, a failed marriage is something to be ashamed of, and Vidas and Nukhem agree to keep their marital problems a secret until after Libbi is married. Nothing has worked out with any of the matches they have tried to arrange for her, and she is already at the advanced age of 22.

She is working as a teacher and has started to write fiction, and as she helps her mother, who makes bridal gowns, in her workshop, you can see how much she is longing for a groom. When she sees a handsome haredi stranger (Roy Nik) on the tram one day and they get into a soul-baring conversation, she is sure he is the guy for her, although her parents, of course, don’t approve of her meeting men on public transportation.

Kugel is more lighthearted than Shtisel, at least in the first four episodes released to the press. While Shtisel seemed to want to educate the secular public about the ultra-Orthodox, Kugel assumes you know all about them already – and if you’ve seen Shtisel, you do – and that you enjoy their company.

Moments in the series reminded me of certain movies, such as when Libbi has the courage to bring her stories to a haredi magazine and insist on being paid what she’s worth, which was reminiscent of Jo’s story in all the Little Women movies.

When Pnina’s kugel suddenly loses its zing and Nukhem has to help her spice it up again, it was like the Japanese movie Tampopo, Juzo Itami’s so-called “noodle Western,” where a truck driver helps a young woman running a noodle stand get her cooking up to speed.

One of the Shtisel creators, Yehonatan Indursky, made Kugel, and it really brings back the charm of the first (and best) season of the original series. The cast is a who’s who of Israel’s finest actors, who share at least six Ophir Awards among them.

Gabai is one of Israel’s most versatile and acclaimed actors, and even when he is somewhat hidden behind a full beard and a black hat, he has great presence and appeal.

Yaron’s breakout role was as an ultra-Orthodox woman whose sister dies suddenly in Rama Burshtein’s Fill the Void, for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival, and she was recently seen in the miniseries We Were the Lucky Ones, as a young mother going through the Holocaust with her child.

Roy Nik recently starred in Benny Fredman’s Home, as an ultra-Orthodox man whose electronics store is the target of thugs. Rivka Michaeli, who is currently starring in the movie The Property, turns up as a wealthy woman with whom Nukhem tries to do business. All of these actors seem to be having a great time, and watching them have fun qualifies Kugel as perfect escapism in these troubled times.

They keep talking about remaking Shtisel in New York, although that hasn’t happened yet, but another Israeli series, Johnny and the Knights of the Galilee, a comedy about a guy who returns to his small-town home and starts a male escort service, will be remade in England as Honey Boys.

What else is on this week?

A NEW documentary, Are You Autistic?, was shown on December 3 on Hot 8 to mark International Day of Persons with Disabilities and is still available on Hot VOD.

According to the film, the number of people in the UK seeking an autism diagnosis, especially among people who live independently and are able to work, exploded during the pandemic, and there are long waits for a diagnosis. Once the diagnosis is made, these people often feel a sense of relief. A content creator and illustrator says, “I actually celebrated my diagnosis, I got a cake and I celebrated it like it was a birthday.”

Claire Taylor, the doctor narrating the documentary, says that when she was in medical school, her textbook described autism as a “severely disabling condition, with huge deficits, which is sometimes the case, but often not.” She says she has “gathered together a diverse group of autistic people to help me understand their lived experience.”

Several interviewees, who speak about their difficulties in social situations and expressing themselves, say that prior to their diagnosis, they had a stereotype about people with autism as not being able to speak or care for themselves.

But it’s not a stereotype. Saying blondes are dumb is a stereotype, but saying millions of people on the autism spectrum around the world struggle to communicate in even the most basic way and need 24/7 care is a fact.

My 28-year-old son is one of these people on the spectrum who need constant care and supervision to stay safe and healthy. While he can fortunately talk, he faces many challenges. For example, he cannot cross the street alone because he is too impulsive to look at traffic lights.

According to a study by the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, the average age at death for people on the autism spectrum is 36, in large part due to fatal accidents in childhood, such as drowning and being hit by cars.

No one in the “diverse group” Taylor interviews is anything like my son, or the dozens of people he has gone to school with and worked with since his diagnosis 25 years ago.

For me and the millions of families around the world who have a loved one with what is generally called profound autism, watching a documentary like this is like asking a homeless person to listen to someone who lives in a Manhattan penthouse complaining about not having a summer home.

RECENTLY, IN search of comfort viewing, the television equivalent of comfort food, I ended up rewatching GLOW, the Netflix series about a women’s wrestling television show on local-access cable in the 19Often, when you try to rewatch a series you once loved, you find out it’s no longer as good as you initially thought, but the opposite happened when I took a second look at this show, the title of which is an acronym for “gorgeous ladies of wrestling.”

The two lead actresses, Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin (who has gone on to star in many other movies and series, including Gaslit), sparkle as they portray a deep friendship gone terribly wrong, and the rest of the cast, including Marc Maron as the show’s director, are equally good.

It’s fun, smart, entertaining, and surprising, and the only caveat I have is that the first season takes a while to build up steam. But if you are getting sick of the saccharine rom-coms and undistinguished true-crime series on Netflix, watch GLOW before you decide to cancel your subscription.