‘Clique’ joins TV’s season of the witch
Something wicked this way comes. Even before Macbeth ran into those witches around their cauldron, stories have treated the gathering of women as a frightful yet powerful force, something to be prevented, controlled or manipulated.
Over the past two seasons, this theme has been explored in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” in which women are seen as so powerful they’ve been reduced to breeding stock. “Dietland” conjured a feminist terrorist uprising. “Charmed” was rebooted replete with “woke” jargon, and “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” reimagined the “Archie”-related comic as a dark tale of a spunky girl grappling with her fate, wondering if she’ll lose her power and identity if she submits to Satan.
Now Pop imports “Clique” (10 p.m., TV-14). Like Macbeth, it’s a British take on a Scottish tale of covens and conspiracies. And a pretty obscure one at that. It was seen in the U.K. on BBC3’s online service.
Best friends since childhood, Georgia (Aisling Franciosi, “Game of Thrones”) and Holly (Synnove Karlsen, “Medici: The Magnificent”) navigate their freshman year at an Edinburgh university with the usual mix of hijinx and heartaches. Holly sleeps with a guy in a band and “He just won’t text me back!”
Then Georgia catches the eyes of the Clique, a gaggle of gorgeous students who get invited to lavish parties held by the city’s elite and work as cultlike “interns” for a professor, Jude (Louise Brealey, “Sherlock”), who’s well-connected to Edinburgh’s rich and powerful.
But with this glamour comes a very dark side and the realization that, as in “Sabrina,” their powerful sisterhood might be serving a very dark male master.
Following tonight’s debut broadcast of episodes one and two, all six episodes of “Clique” will launch on the “Pop Now” app for Apple, Android and Roku.
› Anticipating Veterans Day on Sunday, “NOVA” (9 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) presents “The Last B-24.”
It documents the hunt for the remains of three crewmen lost when a B-24 bomber crashed in the sea off the coast of an obscure Croatian island in late 1944. The plane, known as The Tulsamerican, was the last bomber off the assembly line in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was paid for out of the pockets of its construction team. Adopted by the city and chronicled in its newspapers, its loss was acutely felt.
Now, more than 70 years later, teams of divers hope to end the mystery of three missing airmen, remove them from their watery bier and lay the servicemen to rest.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› A toxic situation on “Chicago Med” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
› A competitive star search on “Empire” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14).
› Cheetahs, lions and lynx take center stage on a “Nature” (8 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) devoted to big cats.
› Smithsonian invites viewers to explore “The Wild Andes” (8 p.m.)
Contact Kevin McDonough at kevin .tvguy@gmail.com.