TV in summer offers more than it used to, but these really stand out
The Killing
AMC, Sunday, 8 ET/PT
There are compromises you have to make to keep your DVR whirring come summer; one is a willingness to forgive and forget. With this oncepromising series, that means letting go of your anger at its failure to keep what many saw as a promise to solve the first season’s murder at the end of its first season, or your disappointment at its sloppy plotting and languid pacing. But Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman, whose Seattle cops reunite to catch a killer, are still two of TV’s best actors playing two of the TV’s more intriguing crime-solvers.
Ray Donovan
Showtime, June 30, 10 ET/PT
If Under the Dome is the hottest new broadcast project, cable honors go to this Showtime drama starring Liev Schreiber as a man who makes his Los Angeles living fixing the problems of the rich, famous and powerful. As you’ve probably already guessed, the show is built around the one problem he can’t fix: his own, as personified by his ex-con father, played by Jon Voight. It’s another dark drama, a genre that’s increasingly overcrowded, but it looks like it could be one of the better ones.
The Newsroom
HBO, July 14, 10 ET/PT
Take a strong cast, led by Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, Sam Waterston and Olivia Munn. Turn them over to one of America’s best writers, Aaron Sorkin. Give them all the production heft HBO can manage. What do you get? Less in the disjointed first season than you might have wished, as serious issues kept colliding with silly stories. But as long as you have Sorkin, you have reason to expect better — assuming, of course, you enjoy his West Wing walk-and-talk style. He may be a writer with just one voice, but what a fabulous voice it is.