‘Trust’ is most addictive new series
The search for the most addictive new series of 2018 is over. Executive-produced and directed by Danny Boyle, the 10-episode anthology series “Trust” (10 p.m. Sunday, FX, TV-MA) is a gorgeous fantasy evocation of a bygone era of political and social chaos and youthful excess set against the opulent decline of one of the world’s great fortunes.
The cast features some familiar faces at the top of their game as well as the introduction of an instantly charming unknown who arrives with an unforgettable performance. Released on a broadcast cable network into the headwinds of a streaming TV revolution, “Trust” succeeds as only a show can in the binge era. It’s so good and so dazzling to behold, you’ll want to watch every episode at least twice.
Set in the early 1970s, “Trust” stars Donald Sutherland as oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, one of the world’s richest individuals. In his palatial British estate, he keeps a kind of harem of women on retainer, quickly showing viewers that the hippies of the era had no monopoly on exotic hedonism. Look for Anna Chancellor (“Four Weddings and Funeral,” “Downton Abbey”) as the first among equals of Getty’s women.
Getty doesn’t reserve his weird behavior for women alone. He treats his offspring with chilly contempt. The series opens with the suicide of his son, George, the presumed heir. Look for Hilary Swank as the mother of grandson J. Paul Getty III (newcomer Harris Dickinson), the angelic wild child at the center of this series.
Estranged from his father and repulsed by the burden of his name, Getty III has decamped for Rome and surrounded himself with a coterie of “friends” all too willing to trade on his fame and presumed wealth.
This sordid tale has been well-documented and was the basis of the film “All the Money in the World,” released just last December.
Boyle lends a Baroque flourish to this latest iteration. It makes the absolute most of ancient Roman ruins and the dark recesses of Getty’s gloomy hideaway. “Trust” often unfolds like a Caravaggio painting come to life. It’s no exaggeration to call it a masterpiece.
MLK FLASHBACK
As we approach the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, NBC airs the twohour special “Hope & Fury: MLK, the Movement and the Media” (8 p.m. today). Rich in period footage and filled with interviews with survivors of the civil-rights movement, “Fury” draws parallels between contemporary events and those that occurred from 1955 to 1965.
These civil-rights protests were hardly the first efforts to challenge segregation. But they were the first to be covered by the national medium of television news. Until then, events taking place in Mississippi were relegated to local newspapers and radio stations. Televised coverage of police dogs being set upon protesting students was beamed into the homes of Americans in every state. It was difficult to ignore obvious injustice when it seemed to be taking place in your living room.
It’s curious that “Fury” bounces back between the King era and the present. That allows it to ignore the role national, local and cable television has played in orchestrating and reflecting white indifference, resentment and resistance to the achievements of the civil-rights era over the past half-century.
› Bill Hader stars in the title role of the high-concept new comedy “Barry” (10:32 p.m. Sunday, HBO, TV-MA). Barry is a depressed hit man and war veteran sent to Los Angeles to dispatch a gym instructor who had been philandering with the wife of a Chechen gangster.
Barry follows his target to a nondescript mall, where he’s attending an acting workshop run by a pompous instructor (Henry Winkler). To maintain his cover, Barry pretends to be his victim’s scene partner and gets hooked on acting and its potential for improvisation and reinvention.
It’s a clever conceit, but why must Barry be a hit man? Can’t a perfectly ordinary depressed guy discover a way forward? Or do the writers assume that audiences are so bored that they can’t follow a comedy that isn’t about a professional murderer, complete with gratuitous gore?
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
› The Elite Eight round of the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament action (6 and 8:30 p.m., TBS).
› The voices of Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling and Steve Carell animate the 2006 comedy “Over the Hedge” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-G), inspired by a newspaper comic strip.
› While trying to clear herself of her husband’s murder, a woman discovers his dark side in the 2016 thriller “Marriage of Lies” (8 p.m., Lifetime).
› A king hires a professional to find his son a special someone in the 2018 romance “Royal Matchmaker” (9 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
› “Christiane Amanpour: Sex & Love Around the World” (10 p.m., CNN) visits India.
Kevin McDonough can be reached at kevin.tvguy@gmail.com.