CW adds another unlikely import
Proof that COVID affects even superheroes arrives on the CW. With the production of its shows set in the DC Comics Universe on hold, it has been importing a number of series that have begun to transform the network’s “brand.”
The recently acquired Canadian series “Coroner” (9 p.m., TV-PG) enters its second season. Serinda Swan stars as Jenny Cooper, a 30-ish recently widowed medical examiner with a sensible haircut in this adaptation of a series of the “Jenny Cooper” novels by M.R. Hall. That makes Cooper nearly twice as old as the average female CW character.
Even further afield from “Riverdale” and “Supergirl,” Patrick Dempsey offers a familiar face and name to the Italian-French co-production “Devils” (8 p.m., TV-14).
Don’t go looking for some “Supernatural” malarky. This slick financial thriller involves dynastic struggles for a megacorporation, including sex, adultery, media scandals and international currency speculation.
Given its subject, style and provenance, “Devils” looks like a series that might end up randomly on Netflix or Amazon. But given the scramble to fill programming holes, it appears on the CW.
› Some figures are more interesting for what they represent than for who they are.
“Wild Card: Downfall of a Radio Loudmouth” (9 p.m., HBO, TV-MA) recalls radio personality Craig Carton. Teamed up with former quarterback Boomer Esiason, Carton became a major force in New York-area “drive-time” sports radio. With Esiason providing sports knowledge and grounding the show with older-brother or dad attitude, Carton played the abrasive fool, trading in trash talk and tasteless fart jokes. If that were his whole story, there would be nothing to distinguish him in a medium sadly reduced to legions of Howard Stern imitators.
Unfortunately for Carton, celebrity and a skill for card games soon turned into a full-blown gambling addiction. Experts here chime in on the similarity of gambling
to other vices, like cocaine. Carton would not only gamble, but brag about it on his show, even daring the sober Esiason to give him large sums that he would easily win back. His need for massive amounts of money got Carton into illicit ticket-scalping schemes that would land him in federal prison.
Much of “Wild Card” consists of interviews with Carton in his 7-by-7foot cell, as he offers messages of contrition mixed with explanations of his inner demons, many stemming from
childhood traumas.
A product of the HBO Sports division, “Wild Card” illuminates sports’ serious gambling problem.
Leagues used to be publicly allergic to any association with betting. Baseball legends Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, both retired, were banished from association with the MLB in 1980 and 1983, respectively, because they had briefly worked as greeters at an Atlantic City casino. That was then.