Waterfront

OVER a family dinner at home, I had a proposal for my teenage son. 

If I organised a road trip round north-west Norway, would he leave that ruddy mobile phone behind? 

A few months later and I’m driving our family of five on the Atlantic Ocean Road, ticking off Storseisundet Bridge from my bucket list. 

The name might not be familiar but you’ve probably seen the bizarre, twisty structure in photos — or perhaps in James Bond film No Time To Die. 

It is the longest of eight bridges on the five-mile highway, which connects a chain of tiny islands. 

Search for it on Google Maps and it looks like the road simply runs over water. 

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To soak it in, almost literally, we stopped to hike along a coastal path and then over a pedestrian bridge, with the fierce ocean lapping just a short distance below. 

“Ooh, this is a bit Top Gear!” said my wife as we then continued our drive, through a succession of dramatic bends. She wasn’t wrong. 

Norway’s north-west coast is a seriously fun place to drive. 

We’d borrowed an electric Polestar 4 car, which was very much at home in a country where electric vehicles now outnumber petrol motors. 

It’s much sportier and roomier than our own family car, and packed with 007-style features. 

At one point the display flashed “Front radar blocked”, prompting my ten-year-old to speculate that the weapons system had been disabled.

Less excitingly, it was just dirt on an external camera. Audible speeding alerts were welcome, given most roads had a modest 50mph limit. 

The drive from Alesund to mountaineering capital Andalsnes includes a long coastal stretch, some epic bridges, sweeping bends and extra-long tunnels.

But with late-afternoon darkness and driving rain, it was a relief to arrive at our accommodation — a snug and cosy wooden cabin at Andalsnes Hytteutleie. 

Deer stew 

Next morning, my wife and kids enthusiastically tackled indoor climbing walls at the Norwegian Mountaineering Centre. 

We’d borrowed an electric Polestar 4 car, which was very much at home in a country where electric vehicles now outnumber petrol motors

Just next door was the entrance for the Romsdalen Gondola, a cable car which took us up through the clouds to the Nesaksla Mountain, some 2322ft above sea level. 

Relaxing in the Eggen Restaurant at the top, we were treated to views of the valleys way, way below. 

We feasted on local produce including fish soup, deer stew, Angus meat burgers and delicious apple juice. 

From Andalsnes runs the Golden Train on the Rauma Line, described as “Europe’s most scenic train journey”.

Instead, we used our glossy white Polestar to follow the route. 

Parking at the base of Trollveggen (Troll Wall) we marvelled at the tallest vertical rock face in Europe, a mighty 3,600ft. 

Soon after, we passed by the Kylling Bridge — the majestic railway crossing featured in Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince. 

As we approached the village of Bjorli, we explored the banks of a fir tree-lined river, with a mountain backdrop and the ground beneath us covered by a sprinkling of snow. 

It was a scene so magical, I half expected an appearance from Father Christmas himself. Our onward journey to the city Molde, on the banks of a fjord, included a hassle-free ferry trip. 

When there, we based ourselves for a few days at the Kviltorp Camping site, staying in four-bedroom “sea house” overhanging the water’s edge. 

Over breakfast, fog peeled away to reveal spectacular mountains across the fjord. Just beautiful. 

At the Molde Salmon Centre we learned about the science behind large-scale fish-farming and then cooked a salmon dish in the large kitchen. For our MasterChef-loving kids, this was an unexpected highlight of our week.

Over breakfast, fog peeled away to reveal spectacular mountains across the fjord. Just beautiful

A trip to the Aker Stadium to watch local football side Molde FK — former home to Man City star Erling Haaland and once managed by Man United legend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, didn’t disappoint either. 

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We rounded off our trip back in Alesund, where an exhausting walk up 416 steps to Viewpoint Aksla is almost mandatory — and great for photos. 

I never did convince my son to leave his phone at home — but at least it’s now filled with hundreds of pictures of beautiful Norway. 

Kevin Williamson, whose previous screen creations include teen romantic drama (“Dawson’s Creek”), meta slasher horror (“Scream”) and teen supernatural gothic (“The Vampire Diaries”), has thrown his hat into the popular dysfunctional-family-doing-crimes ring with “The Waterfront,” premiering Thursday on Netflix. Set in North Carolina, like “Dawson’s Creek,” it’s a soap opera with drug smuggling.

Welcome to Havenport. As crime families go, the Buckleys are not the Corleones, although their involvement with the darker side of life is generational. (Legitimately they run fishing boats and a fancy restaurant and are sitting on a prize piece of undeveloped seafront property.) Grandpa (deceased) was some kind of troublemaker; father Harlan (Holt McCallany), who fondly remembers the cocaine trade of his younger days, when people dressed well and were polite, has checked out of all family affairs after a heart attack or two in favor of drinking and cheating on his unusually understanding wife, Belle (Maria Bello).

Meanwhile, without telling Harlan, Belle and son Cane (Jake Weary), a disappointed former high school hero, have been providing boats to idiot drug smugglers in order to pay off mortgages and loans that might cause them to lose their aboveboard businesses and cherished identity as the Buckleys of Havenport. When things go south, they get drawn in deeper — Cane, reluctantly, and Harlan, almost enthusiastically. It makes him feel like his old self again and gives him a reason to bully Cane — in order, he imagines, to toughen him up. But he’s basically a bully — imposing yet somehow bland.

Cane had a chance to play college football in Miami, but his father undercut his confidence; he is still waiting for it to return.

“I’m really good at almost,” he tells high school girlfriend Jenna (Humberly González), whose unexpected return to town has him emotionally unsettled, in spite of having a perfectly lovely wife, Peyton (Danielle Campbell), and a young daughter. “Almost good enough. Almost a good guy. I’m almost a good husband, father, son. Just not quite, you know.” (Jenna is nominally a journalist, working in Atlanta. “I read some of your articles online,” says Cade. “You’re a good writer!”)

Maria Bello stars as Belle Buckley in “The Waterfront.” (Dana Hawley/Netflix)

Holt McCallany plays patriarch Harlan Buckley. (Dana Hawley/Netflix)

The remaining Buckley, younger sister Bree (Melissa Benoist), is not currently doing any crimes, though she earlier burned her family’s house down and is now permitted to see her sulky teenage son, Diller (Brady Hepner), only in the presence of a court-appointed chaperon. Not that Diller wants to see her at all; she did burn his house down. (“No one was hurt,” Bree points out. “Physically,” Diller replies.) But manners are manners, whatever your mother’s done, and she was an addict, after all. Now she’s out of rehab, going to meetings and working in the family restaurant, though asking to get back into the front office. Perhaps she has an ulterior motive; so many of these characters do.

Also in the intertwined mix: Gerardo Celasco as too-buff-by-half Drug Enforcement Administration agent Marcus Sanchez; Michael Gaston as dangerous Sheriff Clyde Porter, an old frenemy of Harlan, seething with class resentment; and Rafael L. Silva as Shawn, the new bartender at the Buckleys’ restaurant, whose poor knowledge of mixology raises alarms. Topher Grace is on the cast list for a future appearance.

Given that Williamson grew up where the series is set and is the son of a fisherman, one might have hoped for more local color and a little insight into the fishing business, rather than concentrating on the criminal shenanigans and sexy stuff that could happen anywhere and does. (Yes, I have odd hopes.)

Instead, everything’s a little fuzzy, lacking in detail. Characters put on attitudes and get in and out of trouble — there are shootings and scrapes, surprising reveals and shocking events — but few are, or seem about to develop into, interesting people. (Only three episodes of eight were out for review, so something might well pop; still, that’s three hours of television down.) They’re a little bland, even, and what happens to any of them, though of idle interest, is never really a compelling question. Belle stands out by virtue of being played by Bello and given at least one scene in which she seems like a regular, empathetic person, and Bree can be sympathetic, given how much her son hates her. I would counsel Peyton, one of the few without an agenda — so far, anyway — to take her daughter and leave town, but I’m guessing that won’t happen.

If in some ways “The Waterfront” feels assembled off the shelf, there’s enough activity that some viewers, possibly a lot of them, will dig in just to see how this thing caroms into that. That’s the engine that runs no small amount of television. It’s easy enough to watch. And sometimes “just OK” equals “good enough.”

Already slated to be the first venue in the world to host events from three different Olympic Summer Games, the Coliseum will help break new ground for the Paralympics in 2028.

The iconic stadium is at the center of the first Paralympic Games in L.A. as it hosts the para track and field competition, LA28 announced Tuesday in an updated venue plan that placed 23 sports into their future Paralympic homes.

“This is a momentous occasion for the city of Los Angeles,” para swimmer and Inglewood native Jamal Hill said in an interview with The Times. “Being a native Los Angeleno, you always hear about this melting pot of Los Angeles and many times, that melting pot, the default is to really thinking like, ethnic or racial or even cultural based. … I think it’s really, really beautiful and inclusive now that that melting pot is really starting to cover ability.”

The venue plan approved by the International Paralympic Committee places the majority of the Paralympic events in L.A., with additional sites in Long Beach, Carson and Arcadia. With all competition venues within a 35-mile radius, competitors have the opportunity to be housed in one Paralympic village for the first time since Rio in 2016.

The unified Paralympic village on UCLA’s campus differs from Paris, which had a decentralized plan with Paralympians staying at satellite villages. The 2024 Games, which were the first post-pandemic Olympics and Paralympics, marked the first true Games experience for Hill, who won a bronze medal in the 50-meter freestyle in Tokyo.

An artist’s rendering of the swimming venue in Long Beach for the 2028 Paralympic Games.

(LA28)

After dozens of friends and family made the trip to Europe last year, Hill, who finished fifth in Paris, will be saving more seats for his hometown Games in 2028.

“We had 30 people that I know who are going to fly [to Paris],” Hill said. “There’s going to be like 300 people that I know at that swim venue.”

Para swimming will take place in the Long Beach Convention Center lot alongside para climbing, which will make its Paralympic debut in 2028. Long Beach will also host shooting para sport in the convention center, sitting volleyball in the Long Beach Arena and para canoe sprint and para rowing at Marine Stadium.

An artist’s rendering of the Galen Center hosting badminton during the 2028 Paralympic Games.

(LA28)

Long Beach, which also is hosting 11 Olympic sports, will use the Olympic beach volleyball venue at Alamitos Beach to stage blind football in the Paralympics in a dual-use venue that mirrors the setup in Paris under the Eiffel Tower.

The Coliseum, which will also host the Paralympic closing ceremony, anchors an Exposition Park sports zone that includes wheelchair rugby and para badminton at USC’s Galen Center.

In downtown L.A., the Convention Center will host boccia, para judo, para table tennis, para taekwondo and wheelchair fencing. Across the street, wheelchair basketball will take place in Crypto.com Arena while goalball will be in the Peacock Theater.

Venice Beach will have the starting lines for the para triathlon and para marathon.

An artist’s rendering of the Los Angeles Convention Center playing host to boccia competition at the 2028 Paralympic Games.

(LA28)

Carson will host para archery at the fields at Dignity Health Sports Park, wheelchair tennis at the tennis center and para cycling track in the Velodrome. Para equestrian will take place at Santa Anita Park.

“The Paralympic Games showcases the highest level of athleticism, skill and endurance and it is important for LA28 to deliver a plan that not only elevates Paralympic sport, but brings it to the next level,” LA28 Chief Executive officer Reynold Hoover said in a statement.

Venues for para weightlifting, para cycling road and the course and finish line of the para marathon have yet to be announced. The 2028 Paralympics will run from Aug. 15-27, opening at SoFi Stadium. They follow the 2028 Olympics, which will run from July 14-30.

While the Olympics will be in L.A. for a third time, 2028 will mark the city’s first Paralympic Games. The international sporting event for athletes with physical disabilities is coming off record viewership numbers in Paris, where the overall live audience grew by 40% compared to Tokyo and by 117% compared to Rio, according to a Nielsen Sports study conducted on behalf of the IPC.

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1. An artist’s rendering of the Paralympic wheelchair tennis venue next to Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson. 2. An artist’s rendering of wheelchair rugby at the Galen Center. 3. An artist’s rendering of the wheelchair basketball at Crypto.com Arena. 4. An artist’s rendering of the judo competition at the Los Angeles Convention Center. (LA28)

NBC reported a record 15.4 million total viewers across its TV and streaming platforms for the Paralympic Games, which followed a similar boost in interest to the Olympics last summer.

“The Olympics and the Paralympics are truly becoming this concurrent and congruent movement which reflects the times that we’re in,” Hill said. “People aren’t afraid anymore. They’re not ashamed of who they are. They’re not ashamed of their disability. They’re not afraid to speak out and be seen as different because it’s more accepted than ever for us to say, you know what, we’re all different.”