If the multiplex has become a vast comic book wasteland, TV is flourishing, in part due to large and daring investments by streaming players including and Amazon and Netflix.
Several unexpected sequels to old favorites were a pleasant surprise. In “Deadwood: The Movie” (HBO), Ian McShane returned as the irresistibly, unscrupulous, and now terminally ill saloon and brothel keeper Al Swearengen. Timothy Oliphant’s Sheriff Bullock is still keeping the peace in a place a little less wild in a territory on the verge of achieving statehood.
Gerald McRaney as George Hearst, California claim jumper, investor and murderer, is now a Senator. He returns to town for the celebration of statehood, as busily conniving as ever, The slightly less evil townsfolk triumph over the really despicable evil of the city folk as the fallen angels protect their own.
In an even bigger surprise, “Tales of the City” (Netflix) returns 26 years after its first appearance and 18 after its last. Even more surprising, many of the original cast are still aboard. Having learned about a 90th birthday celebration for Olympia Dukakis’ Anna Madrigal, Laura Linney’s Mary Ann returns to Barbary Lane. which is about to be sold.
The adopted daughter of Mary Ann and Brian is played by Ellen Page in one of her best roles in years. The reunion is not happy and neither is Mary Ann’s marriage. Something is also amiss with Mrs. Madrigal who plans to sell Barbary Lane. Suspicion falls on a mysterious visitor played by Victor Garber. Eventually all is set right.
After a sophomore slump, “Stranger Things” (Netflix) returned to form with the kids growing up and Winona Ryder and David Barbour’s characters as neurotically comic as ever.
At first, “Years and Years” (HBO) looks like a British answer to “This Is Us” since it concerns a complicated multi-racial family complete with gay brother, Russell Tovey, unfaithful husband, Rory Kinnear, the waspish matriarch Anne Reed (familiar from “Last Tango in Halifax”), and troubled members of a new generation.
However, it is far more weird. For starters, it unfurls over 15 years during which markets crash, Emma Thompson as a a businesswoman turned fringe MP becomes an autocratic Prime Minister. Britain becomes an anti-immigrant police state and technological advances make the world ever more creepy. Some may find this odd combination of heartfelt family drama and dystopian future a bridge too far.
“City on a Hill” (Showtime) is set in a gritty 1990’s Boston. Kevin Bacon is a floridly corrupt FBI agent. Aldis Hodge as a politically ambitious DA warily teams up with Bacon to discover the perpetrators of an armored car robbery and murder.
A good cast also includes Jonathan Tucker as a villain, Jill Hennessy as Bacon’s unhappy wife, and Sarah Shahi as a wised-up investigator who trusts no one. I enjoyed its noir ambiance, but was annoyed by an inconclusive ending suggesting a season two will be forthcoming. Frankly, I felt as I did after the first season of “Big Little Lies.” Fine performances in an intermittently gripping narrative, but one season is enough to spend wth these people.
“Brexit: An Uncivil War” (HBO) couldn’t be more timely. First released on British TV, it tells the story of the Brexit referendum and is centered on Dominic Cummings, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Cummings is a British version of Steve Bannon, a clever campaign consultant whose abrasive arrogance has made him unemployable until the several Brexit-promoting MPs seek his help.
He is philosophically far more extreme than the Tory regulars he scorns as ancient fuddy duddies. They incorrectly think they can use his wiles without inviting anarchy. Among the cast are characters now in the news daily including clownish Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, extremist Nigel Farage, and billionaire data analytics expert and anti-government fanatic Robert Mercer who was also lurking behind the Trump campaign.
Another portrait of our era’s sleazy underbelly is the political drama “The Loudest Voice” (Showtime). It features a brilliant starring turn by Russell Crowe as Roger Ailes who created Fox News for Rupert Murdock and was undone by his own hubris and sexual predation. A fine supporting cast includes the always excellent Naomi Watts as whistleblower Gretchen Carlson, Seth MacFarlane as an Ailes toady, and Sienna Miller as the oblivious spouse who shares the Ailes ideology.
Speaking of Murdock, “Succession” (HBO) is back for season two. Brian Cox is the Machiavellian patriarch of a media empire, complete with right-wing TV network. He is surrounded by a family of buffoons and vulgarians conniving to come out on top if the torch ever passes. It is less a drama than a black comedy of the lifestyles of the rich and moronic and might as easily be seen as a Trump family roman a clef. Limos, helicopters, penthouses, drugs, incompetence, cluelessness.
Though only in the middle of its run, “Our Boys” (HBO) may be the best miniseries of the year. It is an Israeli-American production that concerns the brutal kidnap-murder of three young Jews by Hamas in 2014. That atrocity was followed by a young Palestinian boy’s incineration. In this police procedural, the powers that be at first refuse to believe Jews could be responsible for the young man’s death. Dogged investigative work by Simon, brilliantly played by Shlomi Elkabetz, discovers the truth.
The latest version of “Vanity Fair” (Amazon), is a miniseries and the best adaptation I’ve ever seen, largely owing to a fine cast headed by Olivia Cooke as Becky Sharp. She may be most familiar to American viewers as the endearing dying girl in “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.” Her Becky is a live wire, a nice combination of youthful irreverence and headlong ambition. The supporting cast includes some old pros like Simon Russell Beale, Frances de la Tour, Martin Clunes, and Michael Palin. Johnny Flynn manages to make the insufferably good-hearted Dobbin tolerable, but Claudia Jessie can do nothing to rescue Amelia from blandness.