April is the coolest month when it comes to TV
It wasn’t all that long ago that spring marked the tail end of TV series’ seasonal lifespans.
In the network system, most shows wrapped up their annual runs of episodes in April and May, took the summer off, and premièred again in the fall to help people shake off the blunt force trauma of the end of vacation and a return to work and school.
But in the modern age, when producers are relentlessly trying to draw in viewers, there’s no set schedule for everyone to agree on. That’s to the benefit of consumers. With a constant stream of new and quality content, no longer do we have to sit through a wasteland of reruns and “Battles of the Network Stars” until autumn rolls around.
And right now, April is for many reasons the very best month TV has to offer.
If you’re a sports fan — and, in particular, a Toronto fan — this month of TV is shaping up quite beautifully in a way it hasn’t in years.
The Maple Leafs are — hopefully — steaming toward a playoff berth for the first time since 2013. The Raptors have already secured a playoff spot. And both the Blue Jays and soccer’s Toronto Football Club are kicking off their seasons after successful campaigns last year.
However, the behemoth April TV has become is about much more than sports. Viewers have first-rate dramas premièring every week this month and there’s something for just about everyone:
For starters, there are three criticallyacclaimed series whose fans are cuticle-less after gnawing them off in anticipation of the returns.
The first, “Better Call Saul” (April 10, AMC) begins its third season and promises the sad-but-inevitable moral disintegration of Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill character into “Breaking Bad’s” infamously wormy Saul Goodman.
The first two seasons of the show did terrific work at building Jimmy/Saul’s backstory and humanizing him, but producers Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould are using these next 10 episodes to illustrate his downfall and slick-slide into villainous territory.
Oh, and the iconic monster known as Gus Fring — last seen (spoiler alert!) blowing up real good in a nursing home in “Breaking Bad’s” fourth season — will make an appearance.
Between Fring, Saul and Jonathan Banks’ astonishing performance as henchman Mike Ehrmantraut, “Better Call Saul” is a fantastic companion story to the masterful one Gilligan and Gould first told, and it’s more than worth catching up on the first 20 episodes to see how this season unfolds.
Nine days later, another phenomenal series returns for its third season: the made-in-Canada “Fargo” (April 19, FX), which won a slew of prime-time Emmy Awards and Golden Globes in its first season, and received more rave reviews with an entirely different cast last year.
Filmed in Calgary, the anthology — based on the Coen Bros.’ legendary 1996 movie — will feature Ewan McGregor in two roles this season, and includes co-stars Carrie Coon (“Gone Girl”), David Thewlis (“Naked,” “Harry Potter”) and comedian Jim Gaffigan.
Showrunner Noah Hawley has been rightfully praised for taking the aura of the Coens’ movie and using it to create something entirely new and fascinating, and this season should be equally compelling.
The outstanding Coon also has a starring role in another April première: “The Leftovers” (April 16, HBO Canada), returning for a third and final season.
Produced by Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, “The Leftovers” is as mysterious and bleak as TV gets, and its cast (including Justin Theroux, Amy Brenneman, Liv Tyler and Christopher Eccleston) makes the plot — ostensibly, an examination of how we’d survive if the world ended in a piecemeal fashion — a continuing revelation.
Finally, the gripping police procedural “Bosch” premières its third season on CraveTV April 22. It may be the least recognized of the April returns, but you won’t go wrong catching up on the first two seasons.
Series star Titus Welliver (“Deadwood,” “Sons of Anarchy”) isn’t a household name, but he ought to be based on his performance as a troubled L.A. police detective.
If that isn’t enough, April is also the launching point for the eighth season of the hilarious animated “Archer” (April 5, FXX); the sixth season of “Veep” (HBO, April 16); the rebooted “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” (April 14, Netflix); another edition of “Doctor Who” (April 15, Space) — Peter Capaldi’s final season as the Doctor — and premières of much anticipated new series including Idris Elba vehicle “Guerrilla” (April 16, CraveTV).
TV fans will likely have to set aside much of May and June just to get caught up.