‘Fires,’ other shows warm your winter
TV is starting off its new decade with “Little Fires,” prime-time karaoke and the one-and-only Al Pacino.
❚ Broadcast networks, cable channels and streaming services are premiering TV shows to try to start the year off right, and in the glut of content, 10 rose to the top right away. Some have A-list stars (Pacino, Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington, Daniel Radcliffe), while others feature young kids you’ve never heard of. Some are comedies with elaborate musical numbers, and another focuses on the trauma incurred by the Holocaust.
❚ Their common theme: Even remakes or adaptations feel like something we haven’t seen before. And considering that the new decade will bring us more TV than ever, it’s always refreshing to find something that genuinely surprises.
‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’
NBC, preview Jan. 7 (10 EST/PST), premiere Feb. 16 (Sundays, 9 EST/ PST)
This sweet musical comedy has a slightly out-there premise that somehow works. Zoey (Jane Levy, “Suburgatory”) weathers an earthquake in an MRI machine and comes out the other end with the ability to hear other people’s thoughts through song. Someone who needs help? He or she sings The Beatles’ “Help,” complete with coordinating dance moves and instrumentals that only Zoey can see and hear. Levy’s charm – with help from an angelically-voiced supporting cast including Skylar Astin, Mary Steenburgen, Lauren Graham and Peter Gallagher – helps sell the concept, and there’s plenty of potential for the series to grow.
‘Sanditon’
PBS, Jan. 12 (Sundays, 9 EST/ PST)
Jane Austen’s final, unfinished novel is brought to life in this miniseries,
created by Andrew Davies, who brought us Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in the 1995 TV version of “Pride and Prejudice.” Based on just a few dozen pages of the author’s writing, “Sanditon” introduces a new Austen heroine, Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams). Miss Heywood learns her own naïveté after arriving at the burgeoning seaside resort of Sanditon, a place full of capitalist intrigue and romantic scheming. As usual in an Austen story,