A few TV dramas that are worth the work
At some point, watching television crossed over from being a nightly diversion to a nagging requirement. It’s not TV, it’s Pilates.
Just keeping up with a few favorites requires constant attention; miss a few episodes and you’re hopelessly behind. And at that point, TV seems like one more item on a neverending to-do list.
Still, a few of the returning and debuting shows this fall TV season make the homework worthwhile.
For example, it’s worth revisiting some old episodes of “House of Cards” before tuning in to its new season on Netflix (Nov. 2). Yes, the last season faltered, but who doesn’t want to see Robin Wright, and the show, happily move on without Kevin Spacey?
It also wouldn’t have been a bad idea to rewatch an hour or two of last season’s “This Is Us” before the NBC show debuted its latest episode on Tuesday, Sept. 25. The third season promises more tears, with a focus on Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) in Vietnam and Toby’s (Chris Sullivan) struggle with depression. Other details are under wraps, but Chrissy Metz, who plays Kate,
revealed that when she read the script for the season opener she started sobbing.
But if you’re feeling hopelessly out of touch with serial dramas, don’t worry. There’s a batch of new ones, and some are the comfort food of TV.
Chief among them is “The Rookie” (ABC, Oct. 16) starring perennial TV favorite Nathan Fillion (“Firefly” and “Castle”). It opens with his character John Nolan’s divorce being finalized and, when his day couldn’t get worse, he enters a bank and seconds later there’s a holdup with triggerhappy robbers. Yet Fillion’s character changes his life and becomes a proud member of the Los Angeles Police Department — though at 40, he’s the crotchety member of the class. Alyssa Diaz (“Ray Donovan”) and Titus Makin Jr. (“Glee”) are particularly good, too, in this straightforward procedural.
Other new shows may remind viewers of old ones. “All American” (The CW, Oct. 10) will undoubtedly trigger thoughts of “Friday Night Lights” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” as a football player from Crenshaw gets the chance to play and learn in Beverly Hills. Taye Diggs and Daniel Ezra co-star as the wise coach and the player who’s in for culture shock.
“Manifest,” which premiered on NBC on Monday, Sept. 24, meanwhile, immediately draws comparisons to “Lost,” and other shows that liked to mess with the time-space continuum. In this series, a plane that disappeared in 2013, and was presumed missing, lands five years later. But no one knows why, or why none of the passengers has aged a day. Yet despite the familiar parallels, this show has its own vibe.
Keeping track of a bunch of different characters and their connection to their friend, who commits suicide, is needed for anyone trying to follow “A Million Little Things” (ABC, Wednesday, Sept. 26). Unfortunately this drama, a naked attempt to cash in on “This Is Us,” feels aggressively manipulative.
Ron Livingston (“Office Space,” AT&T Audience Network’s “Loudermilk”) plays a man who seems to have it all — a great family, a successful business and a tight-knit group of friends. Within the first few minutes of the pilot, however, he launches himself off a terrace from a high floor of a building. The mystery as to why, and how his death affects everyone, is the premise.
The debut of “A Million Little Things” after the recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain may strike some viewers as bad taste, others as a sign of its relevance. Given how long it takes for shows to go from concept to on-air, it’s more likely coincidental. Some will also tune in to see Grace Park, who left “Hawaii Five-O,” now playing an exasperated attorney in a frayed marriage.
Other recognizable actors showing up in service-oriented dramas this season include Jennifer Love Hewitt (“Party of Five”) who has replaced Connie Britton on “9-1-1,” a show about first responders whose second season began Sunday, Sept. 23, on Fox. On NBC, “New Amsterdam,” which aired Tuesday, Sept. 25, Ryan Eggold (“Blacklist”) stars as a physician who has way too many obstacles facing him yet manages to fly over every hurdle.
Both of these dramas tackle fraught moments — people in mortal danger. But “God Friended Me” (CBS, Sunday, Sept. 30; it debuted earlier on CBS All Access) examines an existential crisis.
Brandon Michael Hall (“The Mayor”) is Miles, an atheist, and not one given to bouts of silence. His estranged father is a preacher ( Joe Morton, “Scandal”), and Miles was raised to believe. At the moment, what he can’t believe is that God is trying to friend him on Facebook. No matter how often or quickly Miles deletes the requests, God is rather persistent and Miles is tested. When a man tries to commit suicide by stepping in front of an incoming subway, Miles saves him. Far too many coincidences happen in his life, and Miles is forced to think about his beliefs.
Many viewers will be reminded of “Touched by an Angel” and wonder if the network is trying for a higher message. But Executive Producer Steven Lilien explained, “For our show, it’s very much our feet are on the ground, and our characters, they’re not angels. They’re not heavenly, they’re just real people.”
In the end, it will all come down to just how well these dramas can draw us in. And if the new shows do catch on, they’ll eventually require our constant attention; miss an episode or two, and you may fall behind.
But the truth is, if a show is truly good, that never feels like work.