This is the sort of timing that no one could plan – we hope.
Showtime had set Sunday, March 15, as the season-opener of “Black Monday” (shown here). That’s a loose drama-comedy, centering on the 1987 stock market crash.
Then, on March 13, newspaper headlines proclaimed the worst Wall Street crash since 1987. Hey, all we know is that the fictional crash is a lot more fun than the real one.
Don Cheadle (shown center) produces “Black Monday” (with many others, including Seth Rogen) and stars as Mo Monroe, a slick-talking chap who started a brokerage with Dawn Towner (Regina Hall, left). He lured the naive Blair Pfaff (Andrew Rannells, right), who happened to be engaged to the heiress Tiffany (Casey Wilson). His schemes were often blocked by the odd Leighman Brothers (both played by Ken Marino).
Then everything crashed – stocks … and Mo’s dreams … and one of the Leighmans, who was pushed from his skyscraper office and crashing onto, ironically, Mo’s Lamborghini.
That’s where things start now, shortly after the crash(es). Mo is, apparently, penniless and carless and on the lam. Dawn runs the brokerage, which is now almost all-female. The surviving Leighman fumes.
And Blair has turned out to be calculating. Now he has money and publicity; he and Tiffany live in a hotel, but are looking for something hyper-expensive.
The season-opener – two half-hours, back-to-back – flashes back to the early Mo-and-Dawn days. It also sees them now – Dawn fighting an old-boy network, Mo in very different circumstances.
Like the movie “The Big Short” or the mini-series “Valley of the Boom,” this takes a whimsical view of people trying to get a quick fortune from stocks, schemes and tech.
An ongoing drama, with richly drawn characters, it’s also spiced with the humor of the ridiculous. Crashes – fictional versions, at least – can be a lot of fun.
– “Black Monday,” two half-hour episodes at 10 p.m. Sundays, Showtime
– Second season starts March 15 (rerunning at midnight), with the first season rerunning from 3-8 p.m.
– The season-opening episodes rerun often, including 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Monday; 10:10 p.m. Tuesday; 10 p.m.Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; and 5:45 and 10:45 p.m. Saturday, March 21.