Murphy delves into world of 911
9-1-1
SKY WITNESS, TONIGHT, 9PM
FORMERLY known as Sky Living, the rebranded and newly monikered Sky Witness is now a channel dedicated almost entirely to new American crime dramas.
Last week launched with a new drama, ‘For the People’, from the current queen of American criminal procedurals, Shonda Rhimes, and now another Titan of telly, Ryan Murphy, brings us 9-1-1 (tonight, 9pm).
TV fans will be well versed with Murphy’s eclectic and remarkably impressive track record
– for Glee (the first couple of seasons anyway) he will always have a place in people’s hearts, and when you throw in the likes of American Crime Story and the frequently brilliant, occasionally dumb American Horror Story, you know that you’re dealing with one of the most innovative minds in network television.
9-1-1 is certainly a more conventional concept to what we’re used to seeing from Murphy, but it also boasts a truly stand-out cast.
It deals with a team of ‘first-responders’, ranging from the 911 operator (Connie Britton) who takes the calls to the local fire chief Peter Krause and Angela Bassett as a sergeant with the LAPD who has to deal with both the usual local crime and the fact that her husband has just announced that he’s gay.
There are shades of the woefully underrated Third Watch here, as it takes a multi faceted look at the various different strands of the emergency services, but this being a Ryan Murphy production, there’s also a healthy dose of dark humour.
In tonight’s pilot, the first responders have to deal with a woman being strangled by her pet snake, which in fairness isn’t something you see every day...
Loosely (very loosely, it has to be said) based on Lisa Kudrow’s short-lived comedy Web Therapy, Hang Ups (Channel 4, tonight, 10pm) features Stephen Mangan as a shrink who conducts his sessions via Skype.
The first episode took some time to find its feet but viewers who stuck with it will have been rewarded and the cast of eccentric patients is a who’s who of celebrity cameos – Charles Dance, Richard E Grant and Celia Imrie are just some of those who turn up and the whole thing is improvised.
The problem with improv in comedy is that it often seems as if the performers enjoy it more than the audience, but so far it has stayed on the right side of the smart / smart arse divide.
Any show which deals with a shrink who is every bit as mad as his clients has to live under the shadow of the peerless and still brilliant Frasier, but taken on its own merits, Hang Ups is well worth a gander...