DAVID WIEGAND
On TV
Although this is pretty much a dead week for TV, there is a new show hitting the air Wednesday, July 5, “Snowfall,” a drama cocreated by John Singleton and premiering at 10 p.m. on FX.
The show is set in Los Angeles in 1983, at the moment when the crack cocaine epidemic exploded in the city’s South Central district. Damson Idris stars as a young man named Franklin Saint who moves from the small time, selling pot when it was still illegal (how quaint), to moving kilos of cocaine for an Israeli gangster.
That’s one of three stories told concurrently in the series. The other is about a young woman named Lucia Villanueva
(Emily Rios), the daughter of a Mexican American crime boss, who wants to make her own mark in the drug trade by getting in on the bottom floor of the coke business. We also meet Teddy McDonald
(Carter Hudson), a CIA agent who’s involved with trading U.S. arms for cocaine to support the Contras in their fight against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
The show has its flaws, but it feels authentic, and Idris and Rios stand out among the very solid cast. “Big Star Little Star” wraps up its season at 9 p.m. on USA ,and“Little
Women” closes season six at 9 as well on Lifetime. “The Auto Firm With Alex Vega” premieres at 10 p.m. on Velocity Channel (info at www.velocity. com). Vega is a respected Miami car designer who creates luxury vehicles for major celebrities. This season, he’ll fix up sets of wheels for baseball players Carlos Santana, Pablo Sandoval, Gary Sanchez and Alexei Ramirez, among others.
The debut season of “Outrageous Acts of Danger” closes shop on the Science Channel at 10:30 p.m.