AMC’s ‘Dispatches’ worth writing home about

Exhausted by reboots? Think there’s nothing original on TV anymore? Then allow yourself to be initially challenged and eventually charmed by AMC’s strange, surreal “Dispatches From Elsewhere” (10 p.m. Sunday).

With a pilot episode written, directed by and starring series creator Jason Segel (“How I Met Your Mother”), “Dispatches” comes with a hint of a “Twin Peaks” vibe but it’s more whimsical as it follows the “Wizard of Oz”-like trajectory of four Philadelphia strangers brought together by a real-world alternate reality game.

Segel stars as Peter, a well-meaning, workaday guy who tears off a tab from a flier on a lamppost and soon finds he’s been recruited into an experience — maybe a game, perhaps not — where he’s paired with three others. Each of the first four (of 10) “Dispatches” episodes made available for review are titled after one of the characters.

The premiere is devoted to Peter and then in its final moments previews that episode two will be about Simone (an excellent Eve Lindley, whose chemistry with Segel’s Peter is palpable), a trans woman seeking happiness and security. Retiree Janice (Sally Field) comes into greater focus in episode three and obsessive Fredwynn (Andre Benjamin) begins to make more sense in episode four.

The series begins, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, with Jejune Institute founder Octavio Coleman, Esq. (Richard E. Grant) directly addressing viewers with a promise to avoid TV conventions and “return to you 20 minutes of your life by reducing this standard introduction to a mere two minutes.” He then offers some background on Peter, culminating with the observation that Peter’s life is “tragedy in its most quietly devastating costume: A life without risk.”

In a therapy session — which Peter attends because it’s the first time he’s ever had health insurance so why not use it — Peter says he feels mostly nothing and is settling into the idea “this is all life has.”

But once he gets involved with his new friends on their scavenger huntstyle quests promulgated by the Elsewhere Society, rivals of the Jejune Institute, Peter begins to feel some happiness.

Each of the “Dispatches” characters shares a longing for connection, making them all sympathetic. In the Peak TV era, where likability often gets sacrificed, “Dispatches” goes against the grain.

The show becomes less original when viewed alongside the 2013 film “The Institute” (a 99-cent rental at Amazon Prime Video) upon which “Dispatches” is based. “The Institute” purports to be a documentary but seems more like a hybrid between an actual account of a real-world alternate reality game and a “Blair Witch”-style faux documentary. Much of what’s in “The Institute” plays out beat-for-beat in “Dispatches” and the Fredwynn character seems largely based on a paranoid “ex-participant” featured in “The Institute.”

No doubt “Dispatches” will seem like it’s trying too hard for some viewers while seeming too oddball for others. As Simone notes, the series flirts with magical realism and Illuminati datamining as it “floats in and out of levels of bizzaritude, most of which I dig, but there’s an undercurrent of creepy I can’t quite put my finger on.”

“Dispatches,” which airs its second episode at 10 p.m. Monday in its regular time slot, is daring and different, but not dark. It’s a rare feel-good contemporary series that’s not dumbeddown.

‘Devs’

Last year FX shuttered its FX Now streaming service in favor of FX on Hulu, a subcategory included with a Hulu streaming subscription. FX on Hulu, launching Monday, will serve as the next-day streaming home for FX linear series and FX on Hulu will also offer original series not found on the cable channel, including 1970s women’s rights miniseries “Mrs. America” (April 15) and the eight-episode sci-fi-ish headscratcher “Devs” (March 5).

Limited series “Devs,” from writer/director Alex Garland (“Annihilation,” “Ex Machina”), debuts its first two episodes next week and will then release a new episode every Thursday.

Watching the first two episodes of “Devs” one can surmise why the show was shifted to FX on Hulu: It’s a niche series that can be visually stunning but chilly and dark.

The slow-moving premiere is particularly humorless, ponderous, eat-your-vegetables TV as viewers enter the world of Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno) and boyfriend Sergei (Karl Glusman), workers at San Francisco-area tech company Amaya, run by mysterious, grief-stricken Forest (Nick Offerman) and his chief of security henchman Kenton (Zach Grenier, “The Good Wife”).

Long swaths of dialogue define and debate free will versus determinism. Screechy violins get a workout on the soundtrack. Stillness pervades the show, which moves at a glacial pace.

Subsequent episodes prove much more palatable as “Devs” better explains what Amaya is developing (“This changes everything,” says Segei opaquely in the pilot, failing to explain what “this” is). The show also becomes more of a straightahead thriller as Lily begins to uncover a conspiracy.

After one episode, I had no interest in watching more “Devs”; after four, the series has me quite intrigued.

Kept/canceled/etc.

NBC gave “The Blacklist” an early eighth season renewal.

Netflix renewed “Atypical” for a fourth and final season.

Paramount Networks brings back “Yellowstone” for its third season this summer and already renewed it for a fourth season.

The cast of “Friends” will appear in an unscripted cast reunion special (e.g., like an old “Oprah” episode; they’re not playing their “Friends” characters) on HBO Max, which launches in May.

After a 14-year absence, Jesse James’ “Monster Garage” will return on Discovery.

“RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” shifts from VH1 to Showtime for a new season premiering at 8 p.m. June 5.

Nickelodeon’s preschool hit “Paw Patrol” will spin off into a movie that’s due in theaters in 2021.

Channel surfing

Prolific producer Tyler Perry moves into the tween space with Nickelodeon’s “Tyler Perry’s Young Dylan” (8:30 p.m. Saturday) featuring a kid rapper who moves in with his aunt and uncle, similar to the plot of “The Fresh Prince of BelAir.” … OWN will make old episodes of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” (1986-2011) available as podcasts Tuesday at http://ApplePodcasts.com/ TheOprahWinfreyShow.