Gone are the times where we used to wait months, if not years, for a new TV show. When M-Net would bring their viewers the latest show, six months or a year after it had started in the US or the UK.
That was good enough then, but not anymore. In an era of instant gratification, a smaller world, thanks to the internet and social media, TV channels have had to make scheduling changes that will make the high price of the subscription fee, make sense.
And thanks to the high piracy rate of TV shows, which has seen the likes of Game of Thrones lose money, studios and channels have made the decisions to shorten the time between the US air date and when it airs around the world.
TV has become international and we are all the better for it.
This week and the upcoming weeks, a slew of new and old shows are starting. Empire returned with a bang this past Thursday and Dominion last Monday. The Fixer and Grey’s Anatomy return tomorrow
We already know about the old shows – and you can check our TV Guide for the details on those shows – but what about the new shows?
Since we are now in age of too much TV, where we can barely keep up or get into a show, without a friend telling us about a new one, being loyal to a TV show has become rather difficult.
But to give the new shows a fair chance, here is Hank Stuever’s list of this year’s shows and what they are about.
SCREAM QUEENS (Wednesdays, on FOX at 8.10pm)
Starring: Emma Roberts, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lea Michele
Plot: Robust but repetitive, Scream Queens is a send-up of horror flicks and sorority culture. It’s also the latest series from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck (this time with co-creator/co-writer Ian Brennan), whose other hits include Glee and American Horror Story.
That’s an endorsement for some and a warning label for others.
Scream Queens is almost prohibitively camp in tone, even for a Murphy show, scorching the campus of fictional Wallace University with any number of insults and derisive jokes aimed at every possible demographic, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and so on – all in the name of giddy fun and utter nonsense.
Curiously, though, the humour here is not all that sharp; in its better scenes, Scream Queens verges on social commentary about political correctness and then turns tail once it gets a look at its own reflection in the mirror. Such pretty teeth and no real bite.
MINORITY REPORT (Tuesdays, on FOX at 8.30pm)
Starring: Stark Sands, Meagan Good, Nick Zano
Plot: A watered-down and considerably less meaningful iteration of the 2002 Steven Spielberg science-fiction movie is set in Washington DC, circa 2065. The government’s “pre-crime” initiative – in which a trio of siblings with precognitive abilities could accurately predict a violent crime before it occurred – has been dormant for a decade, after the disastrous events seen in the movie.
But one of the pre-cogs, Dash (Stark Sands), has come out of hiding because he is still haunted by partial visions of murders, which he unsuccessfully tries to prevent. Hoping to assist an ambitious DC homicide detective, Lara Vega (Meagan Good), with a troubling case, Dash blows his cover; rather than out Dash to authorities, Lara begins to work with him because she’s nostalgic for the brief period when cops could jail murderers before they actually killed. “I’m tired of picking up the pieces,” Lara says. “Just once I need to stop [a murder] before it happens.”
The pilot episode indicates a case-of-the-week procedural pace ahead, but there’s still plenty to work with here, including the mystery of Dash’s siblings, Agatha (Laura Regan) and Arthur (Nick Zano), and whether or not they’ll reunite.
As a TV series, Minority Report retains some of the original movie’s prescient vision of the mid-21st century, with fleetingly fascinating glimpses into our highly surveilled, data-driven future.
BLINDSPOT (From Wednesday, October 14, M-Net at 8.30pm)
Starring: Kelly Williams, Sullivan Stapleton, Jaimie Alexander
Plot: Very much in keeping with what’s become a house style for thriller/espionage/conspiracy dramas, Blindspot is a textbook TV exercise in the preposterous.
The premise is about a mystery woman (Jaimie Alexander of the Thor movies) who wakes up in Times Square, nude and zipped up inside a lady-sized duffel bag with no clue of who she is or how she got there. She’s covered head to toe in fresh tattoos.
Rather than drop her off at some wayward home for amnesiac hipsters, the FBI notices one of her most prominent tattoos bears the name of their hunkiest, scruffiest field agent, Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton).
Before long, Weller and his fellow agents (including Marianne Jean-Baptiste as his boss) realise the tattoos are some kind of giant, encrypted message made up of several clues
HEROES REBORN (From Tuesday, September 29, Vuzu Amp at 8.30pm)
Starring: Jack Coleman, Gatlin Green, Ryan Guzman
Plot: This is a 13-episode continuation of creator Tim Kring’s Heroes, which went off the air in early 2010 after four seasons. I confess to being mostly in the dark: Heroes predates my tenure as TV critic, and all the people I know who watched it tend to tell guilt-ridden stories of abandoning the show after the second season.
I never went back to see what all the fuss was about, and the network hasn’t shared the two-hour premiere episode with critics yet – even though the airdate is just days away. Somehow I get this mental image of a sweatshop filled with visual-effects artists being whipped every 20 minutes, with orders to bring the episode in on deadline. In that case, someone could probably use the help of a superhero or two.
In any event, according to a network synopsis, the Heroes (some old, some new – and still looking like they just hit a sale at H&M) are in hiding, having been blamed for the destruction of Odessa, Texas. But once they learn of a big conspiracy, they start coming back to face the vigilantes who are hunting them.
SUPERGIRL (From Thursday, October 29 on Vuzu Amp at 7.30pm)
Starring: Melissa Benoist, Mehcad Brooks, David Harewood
Plot: As a tweenage Kryptonian, Kara Zor-El was sent in a follow-up rocket to babysit her infant cousin Kal-El. Her ship got waylaid in a time warp; by the time she lands on Earth, her cousin has surpassed her and grown into the world-revered Superman. He places her with a kindly adoptive pair of scientist parents.
Now a young woman, Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist) lives in National City and works as the awkward, put-upon assistant of a demanding media magnate, Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart). Like all 20-somethings, Kara wonders if she’s making the most of her potential. After she rescues a burning jetliner, it’s clear she should follow cousin Kal; soon she dons a red cape and encounters her first fearsome enemy.
Supergirl, is a cheerful and spot-on adaptation, skilfully accomplishing the difficult task of making a corny comic-book story seem not only believable but also welcoming to those who’ve tired (or never enjoyed) the genre.
Benoist couldn’t be more suited to the part, which, like Superman, requires as much (if not more) skill at playing the adorkable alter ego.
Washington Post