USA FBI series is familiar
Having conquered Chicago fire and police, not to mention “Chicago Med” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-14) and every Windy City jurisdiction outside of the DMV, prolific producer Dick Wolf presents “Inside the FBI: New York” (10 p.m., USA, TV-14). The reality series will spend each episode with a different division of the New York office, from counterterrorism, gang crime and computer crime to human trafficking. “Inside” has been co-produced with Marc Levin (“Brick City”) and Marc Benjamin. “Inside” arrives at a time when the bureau is facing bipartisan criticism. Some feel FBI director James Comey scuttled Hillary Clinton’s chances with an 11th-hour announcement. Others have criticized it for investigating the current president’s campaign ties to Russian interests.
Comey has been quoted as saying that the agency approved the series as an effort to rebuild trust with the American people. But the show was produced and the cameras were rolling between 2015 and 2016, before either of these controversies came to light.
This would hardly be the first time the FBI has used entertainment to burnish its image or deflect criticism. For decades, director J. Edgar Hoover was the public face of the agency, appearing in newsreels, on radio and even in comic books as the FBI took on gangsters, Nazis and communists from the Depression through the Cold War.
We know now that director Hoover was deeply hostile to civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and that the director had contentious relations with many members of Congress and several presidents. But the aging Hoover was not necessarily the public image of the FBI during the tumultuous 1960s. For millions of TV viewers, that face belonged to actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr., star of “The FBI,” a hit show on ABC from 1965 to 1974.
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› A glance back at the season on “MasterChef” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
› Couples counseling on “Grey’s Anatomy” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-14).
› A cancer patient’s mother unravels on “Chicago Med” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
› Winners emerge on “Kicking and Screaming” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-14).
› A new threat to the White House on “Scandal” (9 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
› U-turns ahead on “The Amazing Race” (10 p.m., CBS, TV-PG).
Contact Kevin McDonough at kevin. tvguy@gmail.com.