TV Talk: Homewood native Antoine Fuqua directs Netflix’s taut thriller ‘The Guilty’

Homewood native Antoine Fuqua reteams with his filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Southpaw” star Jake Gyllenhaal for Netflix’s “The Guilty,” a taut, claustrophobic thriller that at root is about the danger of making assumptions.

Streaming Friday, the R-rated (for language) film is basically a one-man show as it covers an overnight shift at a Los Angeles 911 call center. Gyllenhaal’s call operator, Joe Baylor, seems like an anxiety-filled hothead who chastises 911 callers (“It’s your own fault, isn’t it?” Baylor tells a drunk caller), barks orders at colleagues he is not the boss of and generally fails to remember it costs nothing to be kind.

Over the course of the film, viewers get a better sense of why Baylor is this way: He’s estranged from his wife, who has filed for divorce; misses his daughter and is set to appear in court the next day for a line-of-duty shooting (evidently the 911 center stint is his desk duty).

At a svelte 90 minutes, “The Guilty” easily holds viewers’ attention thanks to Fuqua’s dexterity in building tension (often through close-ups, like Joe squeezing a stress ball) and Gyllenhaal’s constricted-ball-of-energy performance.

Written by Nic Pizzolatto (“True Detective”), this remake of a 2018 Danish thriller will bring to mind Fox’s “9-1-1” with its setting. But where “9-1-1” leaves its call center to go out with cops, firefighters and EMTs, “The Guilty,” filmed in 11 days mid-pandemic, never leaves the call center, a hallway and a bathroom.

While “The Guilty” starts strong, it weakens somewhat along the way with easy-to-predict twists and a late-in-the-film theme around the deadly mix of abuse-of-power and anger that isn’t fully developed.

Streaming ratings

In the delayed streaming ratings from last month, Netflix’s filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Sweet Girl” ranked No. 2 among streaming video on demand movies the week of Aug. 23-29 while filmed-in-Pittsburgh Netflix series “The Chair” ranked No. 5 among original streaming series. By the week of Aug. 30 both titles dropped out of the Top 10 of their respective lists.

Kept/canceled/spun off

Netflix renewed “Virgin River” for an additional two seasons, renewed “Sex Education” for season four, “Sex/Life” for season two and “The Witcher” for season three.

“When Hope Calls,” which has been in limbo since its first season streamed on Hallmark Movies Now in 2019, has been picked up by GAC Family (formerly Great American Country), now run by Bill Abbott, who used to be CEO of Hallmark Channel’s parent company. Lori Loughlin will reprise her “When Calls the Heart” character, written off when Loughlin got ensnared in a college admissions cheating scandal, in a two-part “When Hopes Calls” season premiere Dec. 18.

Disney+ renewed “The Mysterious Benedict Society” for a second season.

FX’s “Archer” will be back for a 13th season in 2022.

Paramount+’s “Rugrats” revival has been renewed for a 13-episode second season ahead of eight new episodes debuting on Oct. 7.

The CW canceled “The Outpost” after four seasons with the series finale set for Oct. 7.

NBC ordered a revival of “Night Court” starring Melissa Rauch (“The Big Bang Theory”) with John Larroquette reprising his role as prosecutor Dan Fielding.

Peacock ordered a “Pitch Perfect” series starring Adam Devine from the “Pitch” movies.

A movie revival of MTV’s “Teen Wolf” is in development at Paramount+.

The CW is developing a “from the ground up” reboot of “Babylon 5,” per Variety, with original writer J. Michael Straczynski on board to write and executive produce.

Netflix ordered an “On My Block” spin-off titled “Freeridge.”

Amazon ordered a spin-off of “The Boys” set at a superhero college.

NBC ordered a reboot of the original “Law & Order” 11 years after it ended.

Premiere dates

“Star Wars” series “The Book of Boba Fett,” executive produced by Mt. Lebanon native Dave Filoni and starring fellow Mt. Lebanon High School grad Ming-Na Wen, debuts Dec, 29 on Disney+. … Former Fox series “The Orville,” which hasn’t aired an original episode since April 2019, will finally return for its third season on Hulu March 10, 2022. … NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” returns for its 47th season at 11:30 p.m. Saturday – Beck Bennett and Lauren Holt departed but the rest of the cast remains intact; Pittsburgh native and frequent Emmy-winning director Don Roy King has retired from “SNL” – with guest host Owen Wilson and musical guest Kacey Musgraves, followed by Kim Kardashian West hosting with Halsey Oct. 9, Rami Malek hosting Oct. 16 with Young Thug and Jason Sudeikis hosting Oct. 23 with Brandi Carlile. … “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is back for its 11th season at 10:30 p.m. Oct. 24 on HBO. … “Tiger King 2” comes to Netflix Nov. 17. … “Emily in Paris” season two drops on Netflix Dec. 22. … TNT’s “Claws” returns for its fourth and final season at 9 p.m. Dec. 26. … Season four of Netflix’s “Cobra Kai” debuts Dec. 31. … A new season of Netflix’s “The Crown” won’t arrive until November 2022.

Channel Pittsburgh

Nonprofit, indie streamer Channel Pittsburgh, available on Roku or via ChannelPittsburgh.org, launches its fall season next week with an episode of history series “Moments in Time” (9 p.m. Oct. 6) devoted to Westinghouse and “TV That Time Forgot” (8 p.m. Oct. 9), featuring a 1961 revue starring Broadway legend Carol Channing.

Channel surfing

NBC News named Churchill native Megan Rafferty, an Oakland Catholic High School grad, executive producer of “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt.” … Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award winners were announced Saturday and as often is the case WQED-TV won the most trophies at six (including overall excellence). KDKA-TV got four (including news excellence). WPXI-TV (investigative) and WTAE-TV (best evening newscast) had two each. See a full list of winners at natasmid-atlantic.org/2021-award-recipients. … Russell T. Davies (“Queer as Folk”), who revived the then-moribund “Doctor Who” in 2005, will return as showrunner for “Doctor Who” in 2023. … Listen to the Pittsburgh Pop podcast on Trib Extra and via iTunes where Tim Benz and I talk pop culture, including the Pittsburgh angle, weekly.