‘Empire’ is in a state by itself
Fox’s hit drama is named critics’ program of the year
The Television Critics Association took time over the weekend to honor what it considers the best work on TV today. But before the organization’s annual awards ceremony in Beverly Hills, FX took center stage with some news about what it has in store for viewers. On Sunday, Hulu took the spotlight.
Here are highlights:
BIG NIGHT FOR ‘EMPIRE’
Empire, the biggest new hit of last season, was a hit with TV critics, too
Fox’s sudsy musical drama won the program of the year award at the TCA’s 31st awards ceremony Saturday night, hosted by James Corden.
Lead actress Taraji P. Henson (up for an Emmy for her Empire role) was asked at a TCA session late last week how much of the character Cookie Lyon is her, and how much comes from show creator Lee Daniels. “Probably 80% is Cookie and 20% is Taraji. … I’m not as bold as she is. She can fly off the handle and say whatever she wants. I, however, can not.”
AMC’s Better Call Saul, a spinoff of the acclaimed five-time-winner Breaking Bad, won for outstanding new program.
Other winners include Amy Schumer, whose Comedy Central sketch series Inside Amy Schumer won for oustanding achievement in comedy; she won the award for individual achievement in comedy. And Jon Hamm won his second award for individual achievement in drama award for the final season of AMC’s Mad
Men. FX’s Cold War-era spy series
The Americans won the TCA drama award, and producer James L. Brooks ( The Mary Tyler Moore
Show, The Simpsons) won the career achievement award. The TCA’s Heritage Award, honoring “cultural and social impact,” went to David Letterman’s series Late
Night on NBC and Late Show on
CBS. Other winners:
HBO’s The Jinx: The Life and Times of Robert Durst for movies, miniseries and specials.
HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver for news and information.
Starz’s filmmaking competition series The Chair for reality programming.
ABC Family’s The Fosters with its second consecutive win for youth programming.
The awards are selected by the 220 members of the organization of TV critics, writers and editors.
— Gary Levin and Robert Bianco
‘FARGO’ ITINERARY
Another true ( but not really) crime will turn a quiet Minnesota town on its head in the second season of FX’s Emmy-winning
Fargo (Oct. 12, 10 p.m. ET/PT). The 10-episode second edition of the TV anthology series, which pays homage to Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 film of the same name, is set in Luverne, Minn., in 1979 and focuses on a younger Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson), father of heroic police investigator Molly from Season 1.
In the new cycle, Vietnam veteran Lou, a state patrol officer and father of youngster Molly, and Hank Larsson (Ted Danson), a sheriff who also happens to be Lou’s father-in-law, investigate a bloody killing in a diner.
The Fargo template has a moral spectrum, creator Noah Hawley says. “Usually, you have the character who’s a purely good person (Marge Gunderson and Molly Solverson). Usually, you have some level of monstrosity (Gaear Grimsrud and Lorne Malvo). Then you have the in-themiddle character who could go one way or the other (Jerry Lundegaard and Lester Nygaard).”
The new season’s killing ties into a local crime family that faces challenges with a syndicate that wants its territory. By coincidence, Peggy and Ed Blomquist (Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons) find their lives intersecting with the criminal activity.
Peggy is a go-getter whose hopes go beyond Ed’s dreams of owning the butcher shop. “She has set goals for herself, and nothing is going to stop her,” Dunst says.
— Bill Keveney
LADY GAGA’S ‘HOTEL’
Lady Gaga will play “a very wealthy social doyenne who is consumed with art and fashion” in American Horror Story: Hotel (Oct. 7, 10 p.m. ET/PT), the fifth edition of the FX horror anthology series, co-creator Ryan Murphy says.
Hotel, set in downtown Los Angeles, connects to the series’ first season, which took place in an L.A. house, in being rooted in “primal fears,” Murphy says.
Those two editions, along with Season 2, Asylum, share the concept of being trapped, adds cocreator Brad Falchuk. The new season is “a little less claustrophobic than the first one” and has a noirish, moody feel. Horror “is dripping ” out of the hotel.
— Keveney
‘LOUIE’ TAKES A BREAK
Louis CK will take another long break from his acclaimed FX comedy series Louie, network chief John Landgraf says.
The comedian is producing two other FX series — Baskets, starring Zach Galifianakis, and
Better Things, starring his Louie collaborator Pamela Adlon — and may take off six months to two years, Landgraf said.
The fifth season of Louie aired last spring, but there was a twoyear gap between Seasons 3 and 4, which aired in 2012 and 2014.
— Levin
HULU’S DATE WITH ‘MINDY’
Hulu has set a Sept. 15 premiere for The Mindy Project. The streaming service picked up a 26-episode fourth season last May after Fox canceled the lowrated cult comedy.
Hulu content chief Craig Erwich made the announcement Sunday, outlining a fall slate that includes the return of Seth Meyers’ animated superhero series
The Awesomes (Sept. 8) and Casual (Oct. 7), a new 10-epsiode comedy produced by Jason Reitman about a newly divorced woman (Michaela Watkins) who moves in with her bachelor brother, and they coach each other through the treacherous world of dating.
— Levin