Rescue: HI-Surf, about the lifeguard life on Hawaii’s North Shore, premieres on Fox September 22. The drama comes from Matt Kester, executive producer and co-showrunner. He grew up in Hawaii, surfed a lot and saw how much more lifeguards do than sit and soak up sun. 

“We see lifeguards a little differently there, a little bit like a guardian angel,” he said. 

The show is shot entirely in Hawaii. Before shooting began, cast members were informed they’d be in for a real workout. “We were very upfront with everyone we considered, that this was going to be a physical job,” Kester said. “They knew they would be in for an immersive experience.”

Training began a couple of weeks before production and the cast “became very capable, competent water people,” Kester said. 

The cast includes Robbie Magasiva, Arielle Kebbel and Adam Demos.

Kester spent “a ton of time” observing and chatting with lifeguards to get the characters right. “You realize as you listen to them, the incredible experience they have with rescues,” he said. “They essentially have Ph.D.s in the ocean.”

John Wells is an executive producer. Kester and Wells worked together on Animal Kingdom. 

What about Rescue stands out? “It’s entertaining and fun and beautiful to look
at, and it’s about people doing good things, trying to save people,” Kester said. “There’s a positive message behind it. I’m done with the antihero.”

Matlock, a rethink of the Andy Griffith legal drama from days of yore, starts on CBS with a sneak peek September 22. Kathy Bates portrays Madeline “Matty” Matlock. 

Executive producer/showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman had Bates in mind for the title role from the start. She was sent Snyder Urman’s script, and they met. Bates loved the script, said don’t change a word of it, and adored the character as well. 

“She gave me a huge gift,” said Snyder Urman. 

Bates then pulled up her laptop and the two got to work. 

Snyder Urman described the show as a series with “layers.” 

“It’s not solely a procedural,” she said. “There’s a big overarching mystery. There’s a lot of comedy and drama and tone changes and Kathy bridges them all. She can make you cry one moment and laugh the next moment.”

The producers and writers “are very conscious of doing a different show,” Snyder Urman said, than the one that debuted in 1986. What plays out in the courtroom will reflect what one sees in real-life news. “All of our cases deal with things we are grappling with,” she said. “It definitely has current moments in its heart.” 

Season four of Trying, with Rafe Spall and Esther Smith as a married couple with two adopted children, has begun on Apple TV Plus. The season jumps ahead six years, and daughter Princess is focused on finding her birth mother. 

Spall said the six-year jump stops a show from getting set in its ways. “It’s a way of shaking things up a bit,” he said in an interview. “Pushing the envelope, moving the story forward in a way which is fresh and interesting.”

Nikki and Jason’s relationship has been redefined as they’ve evolved into parents. “Inevitably, because of their different roles to each other now in a household,” said Smith, “they’ve become less of just being each other’s partners.”

Nikki is a romantic, added Smith, and has to deal with “the loss of who they once were with each other.”

The actors said they hear from viewers who relate to the show, whether they have adopted, have been adopted, or have battled fertility challenges. Smith mentioned DMs she gets on Instagram. “People share really personal stories with how much they feel they’re represented by the show or feel less alone,” she said. “That’s such a lovely thing to read.”

The 1% Club, an offbeat game show with Patton Oswalt as host, starts on Fox June 3, following its premiere on Prime Video. The show is not so much about answering trivia questions, but how quickly the players can use logic to come up with an intelligent answer. 

“It has nothing to do with education or trivia or information,” Oswalt said. “It has to do with, how does your brain work in the moment? How fast are you on your feet with logic and intuition and, especially, listening and putting things into context?”

Oswalt had no game show host experience previously. He was sent episodes, loved the format and saw how much interacting the host does with the 100 contestants. “The fact that it dealt with so much crowd work, thinking on my feet,” he said, “I thought, ‘This could be energizing for me.’ ”

Asked about game show hosts he’s enjoyed, Oswalt mentioned a couple from Family Feud. Richard Dawson “brought a very distinct, almost un-game-show-like personality to a very structured show,” he said. 

Steve Harvey, meanwhile, “is having fun and making it his own thing,” he said. 

Oswalt also mentioned Drew Carey on The Price Is Right: “He’s so clearly having a ball.”

Did Oswalt ever see himself joining the host club? “It had never crossed my mind in a million years,” he said. “And I love it.” 

Apple TV Plus debuts Franklin, about Benjamin Franklin venturing to France to get help for the United States in the Revolutionary War, on April 12. Ben was 70 when he made the secret mission, staying a step ahead of British spies, French informers and hostile colleagues. 

Michael Douglas plays Franklin. 

Tim Van Patten, showrunner and executive producer, said the U.S. probably does not win the war if Franklin never makes the trip. “If we did not have the French jumping in, we were done,” he said. “It was really desperate. This whole notion of a republic designed by founding fathers would’ve been sunk.”

The series is based on the Stacy Schiff book A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America. Van Patten enjoyed the research. “The more you learn about Franklin, he’s probably the only one of the founding fathers who could’ve pulled this off,” he said. “You could not send John Adams to do this. He would’ve bollixed this up.”

The series was shot in France. Van Patten admitted he had a pretty basic knowledge of Franklin when producer Richard Plepler mentioned the idea. “I want to take myself someplace I’ve never been, and I also want to take the audience,” he said. “This presented itself as a story I didn’t know, a world I’ve never photographed.”

He added, “I really fell in love with the world, and the material and the man.”

The Express Way With Dulé Hill, which sees Hill trek across America to “explore the transformative power of the arts,” according to PBS, debuts April 23. The four-part series sees him in California, Appalachia, Chicago and Texas, as he connects with activists and changemakers putting their artistic passions to work. 

Speaking at the TCA Winter Press Tour, Danny Lee, executive producer and director, said the series’ mission is to show how art fixes society’s issues. “We all know that we’re living during extremely challenging times — a lot of noise and a lot of clutter,” he said. “We wanted to craft a show that just addresses how art can be the antidote to a lot of these ills.”

As the producers kicked around the locales, they focused on what the problem was in a specific community, and how art is part of the solution. 

Hill’s credits include The West Wing, Psych and Suits. He said The Express Way is the kind of show that never runs out of good stories to tell. “This is a vast country and it’s filled with so many diverse stories,” Hill said. “You can throw a stone and find a million stories to be able to be told. We all have a unique story.”

Cop-and-firefighter drama 9-1-1 debuts on ABC March 14. Produced by 20th Television in association with Ryan Murphy Television and Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision, it has Angela Bassett, Peter Krause and Jennifer Love Hewitt in the cast. 

9-1-1 had six seasons on Fox. Cast and producers spoke of the move at the TCA Winter Press Tour in Pasadena last month. Tim Minear, co-creator and showrunner, said the new network has given 9-1-1 new energy. “It feels like the first year of the show in a lot of ways,” he said. “The enthusiasm at the network is through the roof … They’re just really engaged, and they already love the show. I just think it’s a shot in the arm for all of us.”

9-1-1 reaches 100 episodes this season. Season seven offers the usual array of extravagant disasters, including a tsunami and a fighter jet that goes missing in the skies. 

Minear said 9-1-1 is more than a disaster show. “It can be a rom-com, it can be a soap, it can be satire, it can be a heartbreaking melodrama,” he said. “It can be all of those things in the same episode.”

Also premiering March 14 is limited series Apples Never Fall on Peacock. Based on a Liane Moriarty novel, the drama features the Delaney couple, played by Annette Bening and Sam Neill, who sell their tennis academy in Florida and plot their retirement. They get a knock on the door from a stranger — a woman who apparently just escaped from a violent partner. The young woman essentially moves in with the Delaneys, arousing the suspicions of their adult children. 

The suspicions multiply when Joy, played by Bening, disappears. 

There are seven episodes. 

Bening’s many, many films include American Beauty, Postcards From the Edge and The Kids Are All Right. She was intrigued to try a TV series. “I thought, wow, this is just such an opportunity,” she said at the TCA Press Tour. “It was really fun for me because I had never done something over so many episodes.”

There’s lots and lots of tennis in the series, and some of the court scenes get pretty hot. Showrunner/exec producer Melanie Marnich said all the tennis gives Apples Never Fall its edge. “What’s so powerful about it is when you’re a family of deeply competitive people raised by deeply competitive people, it’s in the blood, it’s in the DNA and, to me, that amps up all the mystery,” she said. “It amps up what could have been possible, what these people could do to each other in the name of competition, in the name of competing for love.” 

Tracker has Justin Hartley, last seen as Kevin on This Is Us, as lone-wolf survivalist Colter Shaw, who roams the country as a reward seeker while dealing with his own dysfunctional family. The CBS drama was on after the Super Bowl on February 11 and slid into its regular time period a week later. 

Hartley and executive producer Ken Olin both worked on This Is Us. Summing up Hartley’s goals after playing Kevin, Olin quipped at a CBS press event, “Justin wanted to carry a gun and get in fights.”

The show is based on the Jeffrey Deaver novel The Never Game and initially had that title. The name change was so that the show would not be confused with video games. “I didn’t want people to watch and see the guy rescue someone,” Olin said, “and wonder when the game would start.”

A difficult childhood has influenced Shaw and his odd career pursuits. “He grew up with a very fractured family,” Hartley said. “There are secrets.”

TV’s Colter Shaw is a bit more animated than his novel counterpart. “Justin is so good with humor,” Olin said. “The character in the book was much more of a silent kind of character.”

The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin premieres on Apple TV Plus March 1. Noel Fielding portrays Turpin, a legendary British highway robber from the 18th century. 

Executive producer Kenton Allen said Turpin was made into something of a romantic hero in British novels, but that was not the true dude. “Dick Turpin was a pretty awful individual,” he said, “basically a cutthroat murderer and horse thief.”

In the show, Turpin leads a band of outlaws and battles with corrupt lawman Jonathan Wilde, who bears the ominous title Thief Taker. Hugh Bonneville, who played the Earl of Grantham in Downton Abbey, portrays Wilde. “He’s very skillful, very subtle, with great timing,” Fielding said. 

Turpin is well known in the United Kingdom, Allen said, thanks to those novels and the Adam and the Ants song “Stand and Deliver.” “He’s definitely in the popular culture here,” he said from London. “Globally, we’re about to find out.”

Allen and Fielding cited Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Princess Bride and Blackadder as influences. “The Holy Grail has quite a good atmosphere,” Fielding said. “It’s got that spooky British thing about it. We tried to get a little of that.”

The Completely Made-Up Adventures is set almost 300 years ago, but Allen believes it is timely today. “The world is a challenging place at the moment, with lots of very, very grim things,” he said. “Going on adventures with Dick Turpin and his gang is a great escape.” 

Edgy crime drama Criminal Record debuts on Apple TV Plus January 10. Set in London, it is the story of two detectives — an older white man near the end of his career and a Black woman just starting on hers. Peter Capaldi plays Daniel Hegarty and Cush Jumbo is June Lenker. 

An anonymous phone call offers a tip on an old murder case. Lenker suspects the wrong man may be in prison and Hegarty is keen to keep his legacy intact — and leave the case alone. 

“The story lends itself to looking at the world of London from two very different lenses,” executive producer Paul Rutman said. “Their different world views drew us into drilling into issues and questions about gender and institutional racism. We hold a magnifying glass up to what it feels like to be in those moments.”

Executive producer Elaine Collins said Capaldi injects Hegarty with a sense of mystery. “He brings a lot of intelligence to the role — the intellect is clear when you watch him play the part,” she said. 

Rutman said Jumbo, who played Lucca in The Good Wife and The Good Fight, shines as the underdog. “There’s something very, very honest and real and unguarded about the way she acts,” he said. “She’s very good for those small moments.”

True Detective: Night Country premieres on HBO Sunday, January 14. Jodie Foster and Kali Reis play a couple of detectives trying to figure out why eight men at a research station in Alaska have disappeared. They confront the darkness of winter in Alaska and the darkness within themselves. 

Issa Lopez is the showrunner, writer and director of all the episodes, and executive produces as well. From Mexico City, Lopez has a background in horror, including directing the 2017 film Tigers Are Not Afraid. She described the new season as a “modern Western” and said it pushed her way out of her comfort zone. 

“Why not make the thing that scares you the most?” López said at an HBO event in New York that saw her interviewed by Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO, HBO & Max Content.

An anthology crime series, True Detective debuted in 2014. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson were the detectives in the first season, set in Louisiana. Season two, in 2015, had Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams and Vince Vaughn in the cast and was set in California. Season three, from 2019, featured Mahershala Ali, Carmen Ejogo and Stephen Dorff and was set in the Ozarks. 

True Detective: Night Country has plenty of scares. López hinted at “something incredibly sinister hiding in the shadows that goes deeper than human understanding.” 

America Outdoors With Baratunde Thurston starts season two on PBS September 6. Thurston, an author, comedian and podcaster, hosts. 

Thurston has added executive producer to his role. It means “seeing more of the operation, which helps me do the job in the field when I understand how we got to choose this spot,” he said at a press event. 

Season two will examine the link between human wellness and time spent outside.
The host ventures to Georgia to check out the Suwanee, to Arkansas to see why so
many residents spend so much time outside, to Utah to examine what draws the modern pilgrims and to the forests of Oregon, among other locales. He made a point of finding spots other travel shows and reporters may have overlooked. 

“You can’t call the show America Outdoors and just be in the Northeast or the Southeast or just out West,” he said. “You have to get around.” 

What Not To Watch Before Heading to the Ocean 

Scripted shows are hard to come by, but The CW has The Swarm, about a mysterious life force causing havoc in our oceans. It premieres September 12. 

Like most any scripted show debuting in the U.S., The Swarm has aired in other nations. It is a coproduction involving broadcasters in Germany, Italy, France, Scandinavia and Japan. Based on the novel by Frank Schätzing, The Swarm is created by Frank Doelger, Eric Welbers, Marc Huffam and Ute Leonhardt. 

Doelger, who was an executive producer on Game of Thrones, said the project had a “troubled history” with filmmakers. “It would be difficult to make as a feature, as a disaster movie,” he said. “That would cheat the audience out of some of the things that are extraordinary about the book, such as the scale of it. I thought, if we make it, we have to make a monster movie, not a disaster movie.” 

He ended up making a monster series. Asked about his influences, Doelger mentioned Jaws, Chernobyl and Game of Thrones. From Jaws, he learned to hold off on revealing the monster as long as possible. From Chernobyl, he learned how good sound effects make the bad guy’s presence felt even when he is not seen. From Game of Thrones, he learned to balance reality with fantasy. 

Despite its international roots, The Swarm’s primary language is English. Doelger said that is the default language of the global scientific community. 

The show sends a message about environ­mental crises. It also shows some clever people who are addressing them. “It’s really important that people don’t lose hope,” he said. “As dire as the situation is, there are people who can do something about it.” 

Not Dead Yet, about an obituary writer trying to sort out her life, premieres on ABC February 8. Gina Rodriguez plays the reporter. Broke and newly single, she goes back to the newspaper she’d departed years before. The only position she can land is writing obits. 

The show is inspired by the book Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up, by Alexandra Potter. “I loved the title instantly,” said Casey Johnson, who created Not Dead Yet with David Windsor. “And I really fell in love with the main character.”

Windsor called the protagonist very relatable. “I really related to how she felt she was far behind and not living up to everyone’s expectations,” he said. 

The show has a wrinkle that may call to mind Ghosts: Rodriguez’s Nell takes on a different obituary each episode, and is visited by the ghost of that person, which only she can see. “We purposely have not watched Ghosts,” Johnson said. 

Johnson and Windsor both worked on This Is Us. That program was “a drama-heavy show with really good moments of comedy,” said Windsor. “We thought, maybe we could bring some of that dramatic element into this comedy we’re making.”

Johnson said the cast, which includes Hannah Simone as Sam, “can do the really hard funny, and can also do really heartfelt moments.”

Windsor noted an episode that sees Nell and Sam break down why Nell’s engagement fell through. “You don’t get big, emotional scenes like this in broadcast comedies all that often,” he said. 

Corralling Critters To Yield Titters on Fox

Animal Control, a Joel McHale comedy, starts on Fox February 16. The series follows a group of Animal Control workers. McHale plays Frank, a former cop who tried to expose corruption on the job, and ended up
getting fired. 

“He’s brilliant at dealing with animals,” executive producer Bob Fisher said. “Not so much other humans.”

McHale’s comedy credits include Community and The Great Indoors. Fisher called him “hilarious,” and said he brings “a lot of humanity” to the Frank role. “There’s a lot of feeling underneath the guy,” he said. 

Animal Control is a workplace comedy. Fisher listed The Office, Parks and Recreation and Taxi as influences. 

The animals the folks chase down include dogs and cats, of course, and some other species. Those include a python, cougar, weasel, and “some killer rabbits who got into some recreational drugs,” Fisher said. There’s also a bear in a hot tub and a cow in a fraternity house. 

What stands out about Animal Control? A top-notch ensemble cast, Fisher said, including Vella Lovell and Ravi Patel. Lots of physical comedy. And the critters. 

“Emotional stories involving animals,” Fisher added. ■▪️

Season three of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is on Amazon Prime Video December 21. Ryan is a CIA case officer in Rome who gets tipped off about a secret plan to restore the Soviet Empire. Ryan sets out to confirm the tip and gets wrongly implicated in a larger conspiracy. Accused of treason, he’s on the run from the CIA. 

“He’s doing what Jack Ryan does so well — believe in himself, believe in what he’s uncovered and discovered,” executive producer Vaun Wilmott said. “Bad guys are carrying out a plot. He believes in [the tip] and goes after it.”

John Krasinski plays Ryan and is an executive producer, too. Wilmott singled out Krasinski, formerly Jim on The Office, for helping “shape the world, the storyline and  the episodes.” 

That, and he inhabits Ryan quite nicely. “He brings a real humanity, a likeability, a believability to the character,” said Wilmott.

The show shot all over Europe, including Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria. 

Wendell Pierce plays CIA officer James Greer and Michael Kelly portrays former CIA officer Mike November. There’s plenty of intense action, but Wilmott likes the quiet scenes, too. Asked about a season three highlight, he mentioned “when things slow down and there’s a fun moment between friends.” 

PBS Kids premieres City Island, a series of animated shorts for early elementary-
school children, on December 26. The title shares its name with a waterfront neighborhood in the Bronx, but creator Aaron Augenblick says City Island is its own burg. 

That’s not to say New York has not been an influence. “I have great, great love for New York City,” said Augenblick, who runs Augenblick Studios in Brooklyn. “As I created the idea for City Island, it bloomed into a love letter for this city.”

Augenblick stressed that City Island’s influences don’t come from New York alone. “New York is definitely a big inspiration,” he said, “but the whole country is an inspiration.”

The shorts star Watt, a little lightbulb with big ideas. Watt meets members of the community and learns about how they make the city run, exploring locations such as the library, airport and museum.  

Augenblick cited Sesame Street, The Muppets and Peanuts as influences. He mentioned how Sesame taught kids valuable lessons without them necessarily realizing they were learning. “When I watched Sesame as a kid, I just thought I was watching an awesome show,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking I’d turned on the show to learn my ABCs and learn how to count.”

Viewers may see some New York architecture, geography and attitude in City Island. Said Augenblick, “The show is New York City on its very, very best day.” ▪️

American Gigolo, an update of the 1980 film with Jon Bernthal in the lead role, premieres on Showtime Sept. 9. Bernthal plays Julian, who spends 15 years in prison following a wrongful conviction, gets sprung, and aims to fix tattered relationships with his former lover, played by Gretchen Mol, his mother and those who betrayed him. 

Jerry Bruckheimer produced the film, which had Richard Gere in the title role. He’s an executive producer on the series. “He was very eager to see if we could infuse a modern take into his iconic film,” Jessie Dicovitsky, Showtime senior VP of original programming, said. 

Dicovitsky raves about Bernthal’s performance. “We really wanted to find someone who has raw sex appeal, and can give that emotional intimacy,” she said, “and give the character rich nuance.”

The series offers a certain relevance four-plus decades after the film that inspired it. COVID-19 pushed many to rethink their job, their relationship or their life, and Julian is similarly reassessing his purpose on Earth. “A lot of people are looking for happiness, looking for hope, looking for themselves,” Dicovitsky said. “That’s a powerful message today.”

Rosie O’Donnell portrays the detective who put Julian in prison. Her other Showtime series include The L Word and SMILF. “She’s been a longtime friend of the network,” Dicovitsky said. “We love her over here.”

Season two of La Brea, about a massive sinkhole in Los Angeles that tears apart a family, premieres on NBC Sept. 27. The second season begins the day after season one ended. Teen Josh has gone through a portal to 1988, Gavin and daughter Izzy jumped into a sinkhole that kicks them back to 10,000 B.C., and mother Eve is trying to get everyone back to L.A. 

The producers took considerable pains to deliver a convincing prehistoric world. “We track their quest to navigate the dangers of 10,000 B.C.,” said creator, showrunner and executive producer David Appelbaum, “including new animals.”

Asked about influences, Appelbaum offered up Jurassic Park. “The Spielberg-esque idea of storytelling with a big backdrop,” he explained, “but at the heart of it is a family story.”

There are a number of big sci-fi shows out there, said Appelbaum, but they’re mostly on pay TV. “The blend of a big adventure-action show set against an intimate family drama with deeply emotional stories,” he said, “is something that’s unique in the landscape.”

Natalie Zea, Eoin Macken, Jon Seda and Nicholas Gonzalez are in the cast. 

Appelbaum feels La Brea can stick around. “We think the show has a lot of legs,” he said. “It’s a big ensemble cast and they all have their own unique stories.” ￭

Pistol, an FX limited series from Danny Boyle about the Sex Pistols, premieres on Hulu May 31. The series is based on Steve Jones’s 2017 memoir, Lonely Boy. Jones played guitar in the punk band, alongside Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious. 

Boyle seeks to capture “how incredibly dull” England was in the ’70s, he said during a press event. “I can remember trying to explain, because your lives are so full now, there’s so many opportunities … there’s so much in the world, and there was so little then.”

Boyle added, “You felt like you were young and then you were old, and there was nothing in between.”

Anson Boon plays Johnny Rotten, Toby Wallace portrays Steve Jones, and Louis Partridge is Sid Vicious. Malcolm McLaren, Chrissie Hynde and Nancy Spungen are also characters in the series. 

All six episodes drop on premiere day. 

Boyle said the Pistols, in true punk fashion, shook up dismal England to its core. “They were the fountainhead that changed it for so many other people coming after them,” he said. Working-class kids no longer felt they had to follow their father into the factory. “You could do whatever the f--k you want,” Boyle noted. 

Wallace spent time with Steve Jones to get the right context into his character. “At the heart of him and at the heart of our story was this traumatic experience that he had gone through that birthed that type of anger that I think he shares with Malcolm,” Wallace said, “and out of the anger was birthed the Pistols.”

Also premiering May 31 is Tom Swift on The CW. Played by Tian Richards, Swift is a wealthy inventor with boundless charm. His father disappears, and Swift is thrust “into a breathtaking adventure full of mysterious conspiracies and unexplained phenomena,” according to The CW. 

The character was introduced in season two of Nancy Drew. Like Nancy Drew — and The Hardy Boys, for that matter — Tom Swift is a vintage book series from Stratemeyer Syndicate. 

The show was co-created by Melinda Hsu Taylor, Noga Landau and Cameron Johnson. Johnson likens the main character to “a Black, gay Iron Man,” and mentioned how infrequently a gay, Black male is the main character on broadcast TV.  

“He’s funny, he’s smart, he’s acerbic — a lovely SAT word for kind of bitchy,” Johnson said. “He’s incredibly fashionable.”

Ashleigh Murray and Marquise Vilsón are also in the cast, and LeVar Burton is the voice of Barclay, Tom’s AI.

Taylor described the show as “relentlessly optimistic.” 

“After 42 minutes, you feel better about humanity,” she said. “Ya know what, we could pull together and save the world.” ▪️

A new season of American Idol is on ABC. The season introduces platinum tickets, where one singer in each audition city is awarded the grand prize. They get a trip to Hollywood and to observe auditions from box seats in the theater, which lets them rest their voice and pick out a duet partner. 

“Some people just walk out and they are stars,” judge Lionel Richie said during a TCA Winter Press Tour session. “They have all the boxes ticked. Stage presence, delivery, their sound, what’s their style, they have it all there. So when they open their mouths, you know exactly who they are.”

Executive producer Megan Wolflick said the goal is to have fans in the studio amidst pandemic challenges. “Having had this be our third year in the pandemic, we are ready to pivot on a dime at a moment’s notice,” she added. “We are ready to be innovative, to push the envelope, to do anything we can to make this show move forward into 2022.”

Added host Ryan Seacrest, “Nothing can replace being up close and personal with an artist in a moment when they’ve gone through a tough break or when they’ve gone through a big break.” 

Season six of Outlander is on Starz March 6, with Claire and Jamie navigating life in North Carolina as the nation divides between crown loyalists and rebels. “We’re gonna turn the world upside down a little bit,” teased Matthew B. Roberts, executive producer. “Season six is revolution time.”

The show is shot in Scotland, which stands in for North Carolina in the new season. “We consider [Scotland] a character,” executive producer Maril Davis said. “She now plays the part of North Carolina and she does a fabulous job.”

Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan play Claire and Jamie. The show is built on their chemistry as they travel through time. Balfe and Heughan hit it off from the beginning, Davis said. “There’s a trust and respect there, and a great friendship,” she said. 

The series is based on the book franchise by Diana Gabaldon. The new season comes from A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Davis called it “the book that keeps on giving,” with some of its stories extending into season seven. 

The books provide “a ton of source material,” Davis added. “You get amazing characters, and at the heart of it, an amazing couple. It’s a great love story for the ages.” 

They will keep the Outlander gang busy for the foreseeable future. “As long as there is story to be told, ostensibly, we could keep going,” Roberts said. “We’re working on season seven and, knock on wood, it keeps going from there.” ■

Season two of Go-Big Show premieres on TBS Jan. 6. T-Pain joins the judges, and Bert Kreischer is back as host. 

Conrad Green, showrunner and executive producer, promises a bolder, louder show in season two. “We set the task of trying to go bigger,” he said. “Can we stretch the boundaries of what we can achieve?”

Go-Big Show shoots at a hockey rink in Macon, Georgia. Macon feels like the right home for the series, said Green, describing it as “a heartland show full of Americana acts.”

The new acts include a man who jumps over angry bulls, a guy whose talent is taking hard shots to the groin, and Professor Splash, a 62-year-old diver who leaps into the water from a high perch while on fire. 

NBC stunt show AGT Extreme had a severe injury on the set earlier this year. Green said nothing keeps the producers awake at 3 a.m. more than the thought of an injury on Go-Big Show. “We want to push the boundaries as much as we can,” he said, “but we want everyone to get out of here safely.”

T-Pain is in for DJ Khaled, who was announced as Snoop’s replacement at the judges’ table, but could not do the show. Comedian Kreischer, Green said, is “very much the heart and soul of the whole experience.”

Season two of Call Me Kat is on Fox Jan. 9. Mayim Bialik plays a single woman who spends her life savings to open a cat cafe in Louisville. Swoosie Kurtz portrays her mother and Leslie Jordan her employee. 

Season one left off with Kat facing a tough decision. She’s in a relationship with Oscar and then Max, who she’s dug since high school, expresses his feelings for her. 

Alissa Neubauer, executive producer and showrunner, is pleased with how season one landed. What worked? Cool characters and a funky setting, she said. “The dynamic between friends, co-workers and family,” Neubauer added. “We really build on that solid foundation in season two.”

Bialik has of course been sharing hosting duties on Jeopardy! with Ken Jennings. That could mean a few Jeopardy! fans give Kat a look. “It’s been great for more people to get exposure to how wonderful she is,” Neubauer said. 

Also good for sampling is Call Me Kat and rookie comedy Pivoting premiering out of a Sunday football doubleheader, before the pair shifts to Thursday nights. 

Kat is based on the British series Miranda. Asked about other influences, Neubauer said, “Anything where the lead character is a powerful, strong, optimistic, independent woman. That’s what we got in this.” ■ 

ABC starts season four of The Conners on Sept. 22 with a bang, with live episodes for both the East and West Coast. John Goodman, Sara Gilbert, Laurie Metcalf and Lecy Goranson are in the cast. 

And you could be too. The show is holding a contest for fans, which will see lucky winners appear on the show — contacted on the phone by a cast member as the live episode rolls, and carrying on a convo as America watches. 

Executive producer Bruce Helford called the live episode “a love letter to the fans,” and a celebration as the nation slowly climbs out of pandemic purgatory. Each of the two live broadcasts plan to feature four surprise guests. “I have no idea what we’re going to talk to them about,” Helford said. “That’s the kind of live TV that I like the most.”

Interested parties can go to BeAConner.com for more information. 

Why does so much of America connect with the Conner clan? “There’s a certain trust the audience has with the actors,” Helford said. “They see their own families in the Conners.”

The Ghost and Molly McGee premieres on Disney Channel Oct. 1. The animated show depicts Molly, a tween optimist, and Scratch, a grouchy ghost. A Scratch curse backfires, and he finds himself bound forever to Molly. She’s psyched. He is not. 

Bill Motz and Bob Roth created the series, and executive produce. Motz saw his upbeat personality emerge as the Molly character came to life. A pessimist, Roth saw the same thing happen with Scratch. 

“Molly is an extrovert and Scratch is an introvert. She’s an optimist, he’s a pessimist,” Roth said. “She’s happy-go-lucky, he’s just happy to go anywhere else but here.”

Motz and Roth have been working together for over 30 years. Their work includes Lego Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures and The Penguins of Madagascar. 

The Ghost and Molly McGee has been in the works for 14 years. “We never found the right moment, the right circumstance where it just clicked,” said Motz. 

That finally happened. “There’s a sense of optimism and hope, and it felt like the right time for a show that leans into this kind of positivity,” Motz said. 

Ashly Burch voices Molly and Dana Snyder handles Scratch. “As soon as [Burch] came into the room, it was, that is Molly,” Roth said. 

Motz called Snyder “hilariously funny” and a deft improvisationalist. The chemistry between the ghost and Molly had to work for the show to work. “Dana and Ashly felt like best friends,” said Motz. “They had this camaraderie and chemistry.” λ

Season two of Modern Love premieres on Amazon Prime Video Aug. 13. There are eight episodes in this anthology series, inspired by the New York Times column of the same name. Minnie Driver, Kit Harington and Anna Paquin are in the cast. 

The season was shot in Albany, Schenectady and Troy, New York, and internationally in London and Dublin. COVID prevented the producers from shooting in New York City, so they headed upstate. 

“We couldn’t get a big enough soundstage to keep the air flowing and do all the COVID protocol,” said John Carney, executive producer. 

COVID caused some headaches, but Carney is not complaining. “I wasn’t driving a bus in Manhattan in March or April of 2020,” he said, “or having [to do] a real job.”

Speaking of COVID, episodes include one where Lucy Boynton and Harington play characters who meet on a train in Ireland, and promise to meet again on the train two weeks later, without exchanging numbers. Then a pandemic hits. 

“I love things on trains,” Carney said, mentioning Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and Linklater’s Before Sunset.

Carney loves that all the episodes, and the column they’re inspired by, are based on real events. “Sometimes the make-y up-y nature of a TV show — enough already,” he said. “We have an extra magic in this. This all comes back to, these things happened.”

Epix premieres drama Chapelwaite Aug. 22. Based on the Stephen King short story Jerusalem’s Lot, it is about a sea captain who relocates his three children to a seemingly sleepy town in Maine after the death of his wife. The town is not so sleepy. 

Exec producer Donald De Line met with King agent Rand Holston about adapting a King yarn, and the agent suggested Jerusalem’s Lot. “It had all the basic elements I was looking for,” De Line said, including a “great setup” and “hostile terrain.”

“The classic elements of a great Stephen King story,” he added. 

Adrien Brody, also an executive producer, plays Captain Charles Boone and Emily Hampshire portrays family governess Rebecca. De Line noted how Brody can say a lot without speaking. “He doesn’t have to say many words to do a lot of storytelling,” said the producer. 

The 10-episode series was shot in Nova Scotia, which stands in nicely for Maine. “Someone said, let’s go scout Nova Scotia, and I thought everyone had lost their minds,” De Line said. “But physically, they’re extremely similar. The countryside is beautiful and works so well for Maine.”

That region of the world was successful in managing COVID outbreaks. The cast and crew spent quarantine time in their hotel rooms, then got to work. “It was like being in a magic  bubble,” De Line said. 

Dark comedy The End premieres on Showtime July 18. Frances O’Connor plays a doctor in Australia, and Harriet Walter (pictured) portrays her mother, who arrives from England after a scary incident to be closer to family. She’s put up in a village for old folks, and does not want to be there. 

Creator Samantha Strauss describes The End as “three generations of people who are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be.” 

At its core, it’s a “mother and daughter story.”

Euthanasia is a major theme of the series. “All of us deal with death in private and behind closed doors, and we don’t often find the space to talk about it with other people,” Strauss said. “Hopefully there’s a spirit underneath the series that is life-affirming.”

The End is listed as a comedy, but features just as much drama, whether between Kate and her mother Edie, or Kate and her children, Oberon, who is trans, and Persephone. Asked whether The End is a comedy or drama, Strauss said, “It’s hard for me to make that distinction. Hopefully it does both.”

Ultra City Smiths premieres on AMC Plus July 22. It comes from Steve Conrad, creator of short-lived but super-fun Patriot on Amazon Prime, and reunites much of the cast from that quirky drama. 

AMC calls Ultra City Smiths a “stop-motion, animated baby doll series.” Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard and John C. Reilly are in the voice cast, along with Patriot alums Chris Conrad, Kurtwood Smith, Terry O’Quinn and Debra Winger. 

Ultra City has giant crime and corruption issues. The series centers on the disappearance of its biggest magnate. A pair of detectives hustles to track down the guilty party. 

A funky mix of stop motion and film noir, Ultra City Smiths was “eight years in the offing,” according to Conrad. “It took a while but we sure wound up in the right place.”

It will air on AMC linear in the fall. 

Singer Tom Waits sent an encouraging note to Conrad years ago about Patriot, which “meant a great, great deal to me,” he related. 

Conrad reached out to see if Waits wanted to be a part of Ultra City Smiths. Waits is the narrator, an “omniscient guide to Ultra City and its many dark corners and alleyways and dead-end streets,” said Conrad. 

PBS premieres documentary Billy Graham, about the life of the influential religious leader, May 17. “From modest beginnings on a North Carolina farm, Graham rose to prominence with a fiery preaching style, movie-star good looks and effortless charm,” said PBS. “His early fundamentalist sermons harnessed the apocalyptic anxieties of a post-atomic world, exhorting audiences to adopt the only possible solution: devoting one’s life to Christ.”

Director Sarah Colt has previously tackled documentaries on Henry Ford and Walt Disney. A film about religion, she said, is a tricky proposition. “It was a combination of excitement and, ‘Oh God, how are we gonna do this?’ ” she said. 

There is tons of publicly available resource material on Graham, according to Colt. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Charlotte, she added, is “a treasure trove.”

Some viewers of Billy Graham will be people of deep faith. Others will be atheists. The challenge for the project, Colt said, was finding the middle ground in the storytelling. 

Billy Graham runs for a little less than two hours. Graham died in 2018, but evangelism continues to have substantial sway in American society. Said Colt, “It’s a great story for understanding the role of religion in 20th-century politics.”

The Chicken Squad has begun on Disney Junior, a show about a trio of chicken siblings, Coop, Sweetie and Boo, fixing problems and solving mysteries in their backyard. The Chicken Squad is inspired by Doreen Cronin’s children’s books. 

Tom Rogers is executive producer and showrunner. He read the Cronin books and “fell in love with them instantly,” he said. “They took me back to stories I used to love when I was a kid.”

The voice cast includes Yvette Nicole Brown, Ramone Hamilton, Gabriella Graves, Maxwell Simkins, Tony Hale and Jane Lynch. The Chicken Squad targets kids 2-7 — and their parents as well. “We don’t write down to our audience,” Rogers said. “We try to write up to the parents.”

The show offers a funky soundtrack that touches on pop, R&B, country and electronica. Rogers mentioned a Devo-inspired song later in the season called “Practically Paleontologists.”

The Chicken Squad reminds kids, and their parents, for that matter, to be kind. “Maybe even more than ever, we need to remember to see beyond the things that separate us,” said Rogers, “and find the things that connect us.” 

Big Shot, with John Stamos as Marvyn Korn, a hotshot college hoops coach who ends up coaching a girls high school team, premieres on Disney Plus April 16. Stamos said he was pumped to play a bit of a jerk. “It was the first character that I’ve been offered that everybody is talking about him like how unlikable he is and what a crab he is,” he said during the TCA Press Tour. “So I dug into that.”

ABC bought the show years ago, but it never got made. Fittingly enough, Big Shot is about second chances, said executive producer/showrunner Dean Lorey. “Marvyn was a guy who was enormously successful in college ball and saw players as X’s and O’s,” he said. “We wanted to put him in a situation where, in order to be successful, he was going to have to start getting personally involved in the lives of the players.”

Mare of Easttown, a drama with Kate Winslet as a detective in a small Pennsylvania town investigating a murder and sorting out her own life, begins on HBO April 18. It’s “an exploration into the dark side of a close community,” HBO says. 

Brad Ingelsby, creator and executive producer, said Easttown is an amalgam of various Philly exurbs working through various problems. “It’s a working-class community, a community that is dedicated to each other,” he said. 

It’s also a community where the people who grew up there don’t typically leave, he added. “There’s a lot of shared history,” Ingelsby said. “That is what the show is speaking to.”

Early on, someone had suggested Winslet to play Mare. Ingelsby’s reaction? “Yeah, right,” he said. “Never in our wildest dreams.”

Winslet signed up. “She was looking to do something different, take on a part she never played before,” Ingelsby said. “She was looking to take on a role that is nothing like her.”

For her part, Winslet had other motivations to get on board with Mare. “Wawa was a big part of my life for well over a year,” she said during the TCA Press Tour of shooting in Pennsylvania. 

Ingelsby called it “a game-changer” when your series picks up a Kate Winslet. 

He said Mare of Easttown was shaped during what he called a dark time, in 2018. “It’s a show that I wanted to speak to mercy and compassion and empathy, things I felt you were not seeing a lot of in the country,” Ingelsby said. 

He mentioned more optimism around these days: “We’re out of a dark time, in a way, but the themes of the show still resonate.”

The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers is on Disney Plus March 26. Emilio Estevez reprises his role as coach Gordon Bombay from the ’90s film franchise. 

Set in Minnesota, a player on a fearsome youth hockey team is cut and he and his mother, played by Lauren Graham, set out to build their own team of misfits, with an assist from coach Gordon. 

Creator Steve Brill approached Estevez a couple years ago about bringing back Mighty Ducks. “I said, ‘Well, sure, if we can capture the magic of the first films, the magic of the franchise,’ ” Estevez said at last month’s TCA Winter Press Tour. “ ‘If we can create a cinematic experience and not just try to sort of cash in on the nostalgia aspect of it.’ And I think that's ultimately what we’ve done.”

Brill is an executive producer. 

Graham said the series reminds parents to chill out at their kids’ games. “What the series is looking at is how important is winning, how wrapped up have we gotten in achievement?” she said. “I have cousins who are in this world with their kids, who saw the trailer and said that the parents didn’t look bad enough.”

The Mighty Ducks also reminds kids to just have fun on the field, court or rink. “Kids these days, they have trainers,” executive producer and showrunner Josh Goldsmith said. “They specialize. They eat salads. They get flexor injuries very early in their sports careers.” 

Added exec producer/showrunner Cathy Yuspa, “They’re mini-pros.”

Season two of Boston drama City on a Hill starts on Showtime March 28. Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge star. The season centers on a federal housing project in Roxbury plagued with drug violence and a distrust in law enforcement. 

Bacon directs the premiere. “When you get through a whole season, you really learn these characters pretty intimately and also the tone of the show, the look of the show, the back story of everything,” Bacon said at the TCA Press Tour. “So a lot of your homework is already done.”

Bacon acknowledged directing and starring is “a lot of work.”

“I like to think that if I really understand a character, you can kind of throw anything at me, and I can just live in that moment as that guy,” he added. “And, so, going back and forth between being behind the camera, in front of the camera, was pretty seamless for me.”

Executive producer Tom Fontana shared his thoughts on plotting out a new season. “What we are trying to do is find a story that really happened in Boston in this period,” he said, “and then fictionalize it so that we can incorporate our regular characters into the story.”

New Disney Plus Superhero Series Is Marvel-ous

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, a Marvel Studios project with Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, aka the Falcon, and Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes and The Winter Soldier, premieres March 19 on Disney Plus. 

Those characters, and actors, are well-known in the Marvel movie universe, appearing in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Endgame. (What they weren’t in — 1985 espionage movie The Falcon and the Snowman.) 

“Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan are spectacular actors and we felt like we hadn’t explored their stories or their backstories or their personal stories enough as Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes,” said Kevin Feige, president, Marvel Studios and chief creative officer, Marvel. “So it was always the thought that we wanted to learn more about both of them.”

The characters “team up on a global adventure that tests their abilities,” said Disney Plus, “and their patience.”

Feige has long sought to put the characters center stage. “We thought if we ever had that opportunity, we’d watch a whole show with the two of them,” he said. “And Disney Plus finally gives us that opportunity.”

Nat Geo Remembers the Queen of Soul 

On March 21, National Geographic begins Genius: Aretha. It is the third installment of Genius, after series dedicated to Einstein and Picasso, and Nat Geo was eager to showcase a woman. “This felt the most exciting to us,” said Carolyn Bernstein, executive VP of global scripted content at Nat Geo. “Aretha [Franklin] embodies all the different elements of what we look for in a show.”

That includes a body of work that any reasonable person would consider genius, and an array of “obstacles and pressures and conflict,” said Bernstein. 

There are eight episodes. The series explores “Franklin’s musical genius and incomparable career, as well as the immeasurable impact and lasting influence she has had on music and culture around the world in the first-ever, definitive and only authorized scripted limited series on the life of the universally acclaimed Queen of Soul,” according to Nat Geo. 

Suzan-Lori Parks is the showrunner, and executive produces alongside Anthony Hemingway. Fittingly, Parks has received a MacArthur grant, known as a “Genius” grant. Brian Grazer and Ron Howard of Imagine Entertainment exec produce as well. 

Cynthia Erivo plays Franklin, who died in 2018. Courtney B. Vance plays her father, C.L. 

Bernstein feels Erivo nailed the challenging role. “She delivers both incredible musicianship and first rate acting chops,” she said. “She brings a tremendous amount of soul to the project.”

Vance wasn’t bad either. “He’s just spectacular,” Bernstein said.

Season two of Rock the Block is on HGTV March 8. Ty Pennington hosts the home-makeover show, which sees design experts work on identical houses, seeing which one can most maximize the value. The winner gets bragging rights and a street named for them. 

Two-person teams are a new wrinkle. “Two people work together, trying to create one cohesive design,” Pennington said. “That works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Contestants include Mike Holmes (Holmes on Homes), Alison Victoria (Windy City Rehab) and Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent (Nate and Jeremiah: Save My House). “It’s great to see how these artists go through their process of design,” said Pennington. 

Most every contestant is “in over their heads” at some point, according to the host. He added that the “chaos” sometimes gets cut out of design shows. Not so much on this one. “On Rock the Block, you see the good, the bad, the ugly,” Pennington said. 

Pennington previously hosted Trading Spaces and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. He doesn’t mind adding a little chaos to the Rock the Block mix. Said Pennington, “I love throwing wrenches and surprises into their plans.”

Genera+ion begins on HBO Max March 11. The dramedy comes from 19-year-old Zelda Barnz and her father, Daniel, who executive produce along with her father, Frank and funny, the series is about a group of high schoolers exploring modern sexuality. 

Zelda took to writing as a small child. She was obsessed with fairies as a young child, her fathers said, and would fill large notebooks with what they called “fairy narratives.” 

One can’t help but wonder if there was some awkwardness when Zelda shared her more risque Genera+ion scripts. “It was strange discussing some of the topics in our show at first,” she said, “but it got to the point where it was, if I want this show to be everything I envision, I really need to be honest.”

Added Daniel Barnz, “Sometimes I’m still blushing really hard.”

Zelda considers Freaks and Geeks, and the way “it captures teen angst but also joy,” an influence. She also mentions Fleabag, while her fathers toss in Friday Night Lights. 

The trio aims for authentic queer representation in the show. “Their queerness is a big part of who they are, but that’s not all of who they are,” Zelda said of her characters. “They have personalities beside their queerness.”

Lena Dunham, a fan of Daniel and Ben’s film Cake, is an executive producer. Zelda called her “an amazing mentor.” 

Added Ben: “We started developing this and it felt very much in her wheelhouse. So we approached her [Dunham] and it all took off from there.” 

Superman & Lois debuts on The CW Tuesday (Feb. 23). It starts with the 90-minute series premiere, with Tyler Hoechlin as Superman and Elizabeth Tulloch as Lois Lane, then it’s special Superman & Lois: Legacy of Hope.

Clark Kent and Lois Lane face down their most imposing foes ever — their sons. 

Hoechlin gets a kick out of playing both Superman and Clark. He said there’s more “leeway” with Clark. “You can find those little subtleties, those things that are a little bit more human about him,” he said at a press event. “And it's a little bit more flexibility to kind of have some fun with it, because in a way he's putting on a show when he's Clark.”

Tulloch is pumped not only to play Lois, but to portray a journalist in 2021. “She has really represented someone who's incredibly dogged and determined and uncompromising,” said Tulloch. “And at a time right now when the profession of journalism has been under siege, as we have seen it for the last few years, it's especially important and timely and I take it very seriously.”

Superman & Lois is written and executive produced by Todd Helbing and executive-produced by Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Geoff Johns. Helbing cited Everwood and Friday Night Lights as influences, along with feature films. “We approached this as much as we could like a feature, from the aspect ratio, to the cinematography, to the look, everything,” he said. “We're competing with these shows on streamers and cable networks, and we want to offer the audience something of equal quality.”

Punky Brewster, a redo of the ’80s sitcom about a young girl raised by a foster father, premieres on Peacock on Thursday (Feb. 25). Soleil Moon Frye reprises her Punky role. 

The new one sees grown-up Punky meet a girl named Izzy who’s in the foster system, who reminds Punky of a kid she used to know. “When she sees Izzy, she can’t resist bringing her into her family,” said Jim Armogida, executive producer, who added that Izzy is Punky “for the next generation.”

Cherie Johnson plays Punky’s pal Cherie and Freddie Prinze Jr. plays her ex-husband, Travis. Jim and Steve Armogida executive produce alongside Frye, Jimmy Fox and original creator David Duclon. 

The Armogidas mentioned how Frye still hears from fans who share how Punky Brewster helped them deal with tough stuff. They mentioned Frye saying that, if people still call her Punky when she’s 80, she’ll be thrilled. Jim called her “a real cheerleader” for the reboot. 

What makes the new Punky right for 2021? The way it addresses serious situations with warm humor, said the Armogidas. 

“I think America could use a bit of comedy with heart,” Steve Armogida said. 

Aliens in Alaska begins Monday, Feb. 15, on Discovery Plus. Our 49th state is a “hotbed” for UFO sightings, abductions and extraterrestrial encounters, according to Discovery Plus. The series checks in with “dog mushers, trappers and bush pilots,” according to executive producer Christine Shuler, as well as plenty of regular folks, and gets everyone’s accounts of alien encounters. 

The hardy nature inherent to Alaskans gives their stories extra oomph, Shuler said. “Seeing their testimony, you realize you’re hearing from very stoic individuals who are not easily startled,” she said. 

People are typically interviewed outside, giving Alaska something of a starring role in the series. Viewers will see “how vast and open and alienating the environment is,” Shuler said. 

There are eight hour-long episodes. UFO believers and skeptics alike are welcome to tune in. “Forcing someone to become a convert is not fun,” said Shuler, who added that Aliens in Alaska is more about “giving viewers enough information to make their own decision.”

The Pentagon’s UFO unit is releasing a giant trove of information on alien encounters. That may give a bit of credence to those sharing their testimonies on Aliens in Alaska. 

“It helps people who have had these oddball experiences feel less alone,” said Shuler. 

On Tuesday, Feb. 16, Young Rock premieres on NBC. The comedy comes from Dwayne Johnson, and is about the different chapters in the life of the man once known as The Rock. The son of wrestler Rocky Johnson, Dwayne had pro wrestlers — Junkyard Dog, Andre the Giant —- in his life at an early age. 

Young Rock has the family moving around to follow wrestling jobs, including to Hawaii and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Dwayne playing football at the University of Miami. 

“He’s had so many different experiences,” said executive producer Jeff Chiang, who describes Johnson as “larger than life when he enters a room. He has a special energy to him.”

Johnson went to high school in Bethlehem. The pilot covers Johnson at 15, standing 6’ 2” and rocking a moustache. “His classmates thought he was a narc,” Chiang said, describing a “21 Jump Street scenario.”

Besides his teenage ’stache, viewers will see the extraordinary perseverance of Johnson as a child, Chiang shared. “The amount of times life throws him a curveball,” he said. “His life has been a series of highs and lows. You see where he is now, and you see how he got there.”

Young Rock shoots in Australia. Joseph Lee Anderson, Stacey Leilua and Adrian Groulx are in the cast alongside Johnson. Nahnatchka Khan executive produces. 

“The story is deeply relatable,” Chiang said. “It’s about perseverance, it’s about love, it’s about finding the joys in life.”

Clarice starts on CBS Feb. 11. It’s a deep dive into the story of FBI agent Clarice Starling, one year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs. 

Rebecca Breeds plays Clarice. 

“In The Silence of the Lambs, she was somehow able to go down into the dark and find the human and the monsters and then pull out the light,” executive producer Jenny Lumet said.  “And I thought, as I watched her, ‘This is a woman with a lot of secrets. I like that.’ ”

Breeds spoke of the challenges Starling sees in the workplace. “She’s come into this new job and this guy will just not take her seriously,” she said. “She’s worked so hard to be here and she just wants to be given her shot.”

Executive producer Alex Kurtzman described himself as a “crazy, rabid fan” of the film, directed by Jonathan Demme. “As we were writing it, the tagline for the show, which we had in our minds, kept pushing itself to the foreground: ‘The Silence Is Over.’ ”

Season four of ABC’s American Idol is on Feb. 14. This season’s talent came to be after virtual auditions amidst the pandemic.

Zoom “custom created” a platform for the singing hopefuls, said Trish Kinane, executive producer and showrunner. Auditions happened in all 50 states, and everyone got time in front of a producer. Former contestants, including David Cook and Justin Guarini, offered the singers audition tips as they waited to perform. 

“You really were getting your voice heard,” Kinane said. “We got to see a much greater diversity of talent.”

The at-home auditions also offered a unique glimpse at the singers. “We also got to see houses and dogs and moms,” Kinane said. 

Singers invited to Hollywood will connect with friends and family via a 180-degree video screen, since loved ones could not accompany them.  

Asked what has enabled Idol to stick around for 19 seasons, Kinane mentioned its uplifting vibe, viewer votes and basic format. She called American Idol “a simple Cinderella story.”

It may stick around for a bit longer. “Kids are turning 15 every day,” Kinane said. “So there’s always new talent coming up.”

Fox Visits the Last Frontier 

The Great North rolls on Fox Feb. 14. An animated comedy about a family dealing with the elements, and each other, in Alaska, it has Nick Offerman, Will Forte, Megan Mullally and Alanis Morissette in the voice cast. Morissette is an imaginary friend to daughter Judy. Teen girls “want someone in their life to speak about their dreams to,” said Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin, who runs the show with sister Wendy. 

Morissette was in right away. “She’s a musical icon,” Molyneux-Logelin said. “But she’s also a really funny person.” 

Season two of Snowpiercer is on TNT Jan. 25. About a train whizzing around the world carrying the world’s last survivors, Snowpiercer has Daveed Diggs, Jennifer Connelly and Sean Bean in the cast.

The series premiered in May. With so many people stuck at home due to the pandemic, a yarn about people trapped on a train offered a unique take on escapism. Showrunner/executive producer Graeme Manson mentioned “an all around sense of watching something close to home,” and said he was pleased with how Snowpiercer landed. 

“It made it feel of the zeitgeist,” he added. “There were political parallels going on at the time, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I like to squirm.”

Season two offers some hardy head-to-head battles, including Connelly’s Melanie and Bean’s Mr. Wilford. 

Snowpiercer shoots in Vancouver. Manson doesn’t ride trains much in his “walkable” nabe, he said, but mentioned having crossed Canada twice on trains and digging the experience. “I love train lore and I love train songs — a Western song with a train in it,” he said. 

Dark as it may be, Snowpiercer also shows the decency of humankind. “Season two develops a theme of hope,” said Manson, “and the strength it takes to have hope.”

Resident Alien starts on Syfy Jan. 27. A mix of comedy and drama, the series follows Harry, an alien that crash-lands on Earth and passes himself off as a doctor in a small Colorado town. 

Chris Sheridan, longtime Family Guy writer, is showrunner and exec producer. The folks at Amblin sent him the graphic novel to gauge his interest in adapting it. “I loved the story, I loved the character, and I could see it as a show,” he said. 

Alan Tudyk plays Harry. Sara Tomko, Corey Reynolds and Alice Wetterlund  are also in the cast. 

Sheridan notes “slight similarities” between Resident Alien and Family Guy, but “very different worlds.” Producers can get away with stuff on Family Guy because the characters are animated, he said, and on Resident Alien because the main character is an alien. 

The series begins with Harry trying to kill a boy who knows he’s an alien. “That’s not a likeable trait, wanting to kill a kid,” said Sheridan. “But you forgive him, and the horrible things he might do, because he’s an alien.”

While Harry is on Earth, he’s searching for a device he lost when he crash-landed. He needs the thing to complete his mission, according to Sheridan. 

He called Fargo an influence. “We go for a similar tone,” he said. “Resident Alien has dramatic things in it and it’s also got some dark comedy. And the setting is specific to the show.” 

Mr. Mayor, with Ted Danson playing the feckless mayor of Los Angeles, premiered on NBC. Vella Lovell plays chief of staff Mikaela, who ends up in that role by virtue of her Instagram expertise. Holly Hunter portrays the deputy mayor. 

Lovell described the gig as “my dream job. To be in this cast, with this caliber of people, it’s insane.”

She discovered Cheers on Netflix and is a fan of The Good Place, and so was pumped to work with Danson. His kindness helps the younger cast members forget they’re working with a legend, she said. “He’s so effortless and confident and easeful with his comedy,” said Lovell.

Tina Fey and Robert Carlock produce. Lovell likens Mr. Mayor to “30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt meet Veep.” Like 30 Rock, “it’s so many jokes that you can’t keep up. Some lines you only have time to smile at.”

Season two of Straight Up Steve Austin begins on USA Network  Jan. 11. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin visits different locales with his guests and swaps stories. “A talk show without couches,” he put it. 

Austin visits Hattiesburg with Brett Favre and Nashville with Luke Combs. Comedian Bert Kreischer, WWE Superstar Charlotte Flair and actress Tiffany Haddish also turn up. “Each episode, something happens that’s a little off the wall,” said Austin. “Each guest brings a different vibe and a different ‘holy smoke’ moment.”

Austin said he was “the biggest Johnny Carson fan in the world” growing up, and digs Ellen DeGeneres (“Super-super quick on her feet, hilarious”). But he sets his own tone on Straight Up. “I enjoy talking to people and I’m naturally curious,” he said. 

Austin is pumped to share the new episodes. “I hope viewers enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it,” he said.

Serialized ‘Secrets of Sulphur Springs’ Has Soapy Background 

Something new and different gets under way on Disney Channel Jan. 15: a live-action mystery with thriller elements. Secrets of Sulphur Springs follows 12-year-old Griffin, who moves into an abandoned hotel with his family, and learns the place is haunted. 

It comes from Tracey Thomson and Charles Pratt Jr., who both wrote for soap operas. Disney Channel was looking for serialized storytelling, and wanted a series that would appeal to boys who otherwise may age out. Thomson had what she watched at age 12 — Goonies, Indiana Jones — in mind when she started writing. 

“Movies and TV shows that kept you guessing and made you think,” she said. Pratt tossed in Stand By Me and Stranger Things. There’s a serialized vibe throughout. Pratt said his soap background “is an influence in everything I do.” 

Promised Thomson, “It’s a show filled with cliffhangers.”

Dr. Pimple Popper: Season’s Squeezings is on TLC Dec. 21. The holiday special offers truly unique dermatological cases, and leads into a new season. 

The special features a beloved man in a red suit. “We all know Santa can’t get COVID, but he can get a pimple,” Dr. Sandra Lee said. 

She plays ukulele and there are holiday cookies, including one of Rudolph with a case of rosacea on, yes, his nose. “We all need a good squeeze right now,” said Dr. Lee. “It’s hokey and it’s punny but it’s all in good fun. 

Speaking of punny, Lee will host This Is Zit on Discovery Plus Jan. 4. 

Getting the season together amidst the pandemic was challenging. Dr. Lee saw patients outside, and learned to deal with all the noises, such as landscapers, involved with al fresco production. 

So what keeps people tuning in to Dr. Pimple Popper? Some simply get off on the explosion of a tumescent zit. Others like to see patients taking a step toward getting their normal lives back. “It’s like a movie — there’s conflict and resolution, and everybody walks away happy,” Dr. Lee said.

The Masked Dancer debuts on Fox Sunday Dec. 27. Featuring incognito celebrities showing off their moves, the spinoff is hosted by Craig Robinson. Ken Jeong, Paula Abdul, Brian Austin Green and Ashley Tisdale make up the panel. 

They may have a tougher time figuring out who’s behind the mask than the panel does on The Masked Singer. “You have to pay a lot of attention to the clues, because we don't have a voice to base it on,” Abdul said at a press event. “The clues came everywhere, from within the costume, lots of clues in the package, even in the stage setting and choreography.”

The costumes have to be constructed in a way that allows the contestants to fully strut their stuff. Said exec producer James Breen, “Our costume people worked really hard with the celebrities, knowing the range of movement they have, whether they could flip or whether they were going to bounce around, to make sure they could perform to the best of their ability.”    

Austin Green got a feel for singing, and dancing, in a costume when he was on The Masked Singer. “It was hard because there was such a limited range of motion within those costumes, and I think they've solved that on this show,” he said. “The costumes seem a lot more streamlined.”

Robinson hinted at some of the banter the show will feature. “When Brian dances,” he said, “there's usually a limited range of motion.”

The Stand begins on CBS All Access Dec. 17. Adapted from the Stephen King novel, the series looks at a world decimated by plague and a struggle between good and evil. 

Whoopi Goldberg plays Mother Abagail, Alexander Skarsgård plays Randall Flagg and James Marsden portrays Stu Redman. 

“We had a lot of updating to do to make a 42-year-old book feel relevant to our modern day,” Benjamin Cavell, showrunner and executive producer, said at a press event. “Little did we know how relevant it would come to feel.”

Cavell came on board three years ago, with no idea how relevant The Stand would become. But he sees it as more than a plague yarn. “Frankly, I’ve never regarded The Stand as really a book about a pandemic,” he said. “The pandemic in the book exists as a mechanism to empty out the world so that there can be this really elemental struggle between good and evil.”

Goldberg’s Mother Abagail represents the good. She drew on another one of her TV roles to inform her character. “It’s a person who is trying to get a whole bunch of people to do some things that maybe they don't believe in, they’re not sure,” Goldberg said. “Basically, I’m doing The View.”

Docuseries On Pointe is on Disney Plus Dec. 18. It’s a look at a season in New York’s renowned School of American Ballet. Students ages 8 to 18 from a wide range of economic and ethnic backgrounds chase their dreams as everyone rehearses for a production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center. 

One does not have to be a fan of ballet to dig On Pointe. “The themes of the series are universal,” said Sara Bernstein, executive producer. “It’s about excellence and true dedication and young people chasing their dreams.”

Bernstein calls On Pointe “intimate and immersive.” The series is produced by Imagine Documentaries and DCTV, with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard among the exec producers. They didn’t set out to make a reality series, Bernstein said, but one “about watching the students’ lives unfold.”

Bernstein said Disney Plus was a perfect home for On Pointe. “They are looking for new and exciting documentary-type programing to appeal to the co-viewing audience they cultivate,” she said. 

The series is also a look at the parent-child relationships among these standout kids. “The parents are willing to commit themselves,” said Bernstein. “They are inspired by what they see in their children.”

For her, viewing the students in their dress rehearsals emerged as something of a highlight. “It’s magical to watch their excitement and their anticipation and their nervousness,” Bernstein said. “And also their professionalism.”

Battlebots is back! Production was held up due to COVID, but a new season is under way on Discovery. Tombstone, End Game, Whiplash, SawBlaze, Captain Shrederator, Lock-Jaw and Bloodsport are among the heavy metal in the competition. 

The season had been scheduled to start in May. A total of 60 bots did battle, down from the usual 100 or so. Bouts went on without the usual studio audience in Long Beach, but “builder boxes” were constructed, according to executive producer Chris Cowan, so the half-dozen team members for each bot could watch together, and cheer. 

“There’s a large amount of stress and worry producing a normal year,” Cowan said. Shooting in 2020? Way worse. 

But it all came together. 

Chris Rose and Kenny Florian return to do commentary, Jenny Taft reports from the pits and Faruq Tauheed is ring announcer. A new expert joins as Bot Whisperer: Battlebots veteran Peter Abrahamson.

Battlebots is just what some viewers desire as this nightmarish year winds down. “It’s such fantastic family escapism,” Cowan said. “It’s a sport that’s incredibly violent, but no one gets hurt.”

Cowan noted the “primal need” for violent collisions on Battlebots, not to mention the sight of busted bot pieces flying around the venue. But Battlebots also offers “the intellectualism of chess,”
he added. 

The Great Christmas Light Fight begins on ABC Dec. 9. It is season eight, and the lights displays are bigger and brighter than ever. Carter Oosterhouse and Taniya Nayak are the celeb judges. 

Brady Connell, executive producer, said viewers have asked for years if Great Christmas Light Fight would showcase a Christmas parade. This season, it does, visiting a memorable parade in East Peoria, Illinois, for the “Heavyweights” special. “It’s a small town, but they put on an amazing parade,” he said. 

Other memorable sights include a family in Utah who turned their garden into a light display, down to stalks of corn that light up. “Their garden is gorgeous,” Connell said. 

One can’t help but wonder about Connell’s
light display at home. He admitted he’s more of a Halloween decorations guy: “We definitely have the best Halloween display on the street.” A couple months later, when Christmas rolls around, “we do a little,” Connell said. 

Before coming on board at The Great Christmas Light Fight, Oosterhouse was on Trading Spaces and Million Dollar Rooms. Nayak’s TV work includes Billion Dollar Block and Restaurant: Impossible. They bring “a complete and utter love of Christmas” to Light Fight, Connell said. “We selected them because we know they enjoy every minute of the show, the way that we do.”

Black Narcissus, a three-part series set in the Himalayas in the ’30s, premieres Nov. 23 on FX. Set at a remote cliff-top palace, Black Narcissus is based on a novel by Rumer Godden. When the young nuns of St. Faith attempt to establish a mission there, the palace’s mysteries awaken forbidden desires that seem destined to repeat a terrible tragedy. 

The series shot in Nepal. Cast members got a kick out of rocking the nun habits. “The costume really helped,” Gemma Arterton, who plays Sister Clodagh, said at a press event. “We were completely constricted, our ears covered. There was nothing you could really do with your body. I found that to be a real anchor.”

The cast bonded in Nepal. It was a long trip to “the middle of nowhere,” said Arterton, with no phone signal once they arrived. Cast members connected over games, food and drink. 

“It was just magic,” she added. “I’m so pleased we got to experience that.”

Executive producer Amanda Coe, who wrote the project, said the lives of nuns is rich material for a series. “The notion of repression is always extremely interesting,” she said. “The idea that you follow rules and have to repress your individuality — that’s always an interesting premise for a drama, because drama is about conflict.”

Think your home feels a bit tight during the holidays? Wait until you see what’s going on at HGTV. 

Biggest Little Christmas Showdown begins on HGTV Nov. 27. The four-part competition series assembles top miniaturists as they build amazing tiny homes in the spirit of the holidays, the houses full of festive little trimmings. 

HGTV features plenty of unique homes on its air, but the miniature abodes are kind of a new thing for the network. “It’s an area we’ve actually never played in before,” said Loren Ruch, group senior VP, programming and development, HGTV. 

For the first three weeks, the builders, doing their thing in a studio that looks like Santa’s workshop, face off in competitions that include a Hawaiian Christmas and a Dickensian one. Each week’s champ comes together for the final episode. The winner gets their miniature home replicated into a full-size vacation hideaway. 

“They see their super-size dreams come true,” Ruch said. 

The judges are designer Genevieve Gorder and miniatures experts June Clinkscales and Dave Asling. James Monroe Iglehart, who played Genie in the Broadway production of Aladdin and Jefferson in Hamilton, hosts. Ruch called him “a larger-than-life character.”

Biggest Little Christmas Showdown is a unique
take on holiday programming. “It makes every adult feel a little bit of that Christmas morning joy,” promised Ruch.

Bob Still Hearts Abishola on CBS 

Season two of Bob Hearts Abishola is on CBS Nov. 16. Billy Gardell plays Bob and Folake Olowofoyeku portrays Abishola in this Chuck Lorre comedy, about a compression sock guy who falls for his Nigerian nurse. 

Exec producer and showrunner Al Higgins was pleased with how season one landed. “People who watch our show truly love our show,” he said. “They fell in love with these characters and this world.” 

Season two sees Bob looking at engagement rings. The producers wondered about working COVID into the show, especially with Abishola working in a hospital, then decided not to. “It would overtake everything else in the story,” said Higgins. “I’d rather not have it in my face.” 

Producing in the COVID age was challenging, but the producers were pumped to have cast and crew back on the job, and psyched to offer America a bit of entertainment. Higgins said it’s encouraging when crew members laugh during shooting. “It’s always nice when the crew responds in the way you want the audience to respond,” he said. 

The season goes deeper on a wider array of characters, including Bob’s family and the warehouse guys. “We have a great ensemble,” said Higgins, “and we’re gonna use them to the utmost.” 

ABC Shoots For the ‘Sky’ With David E. Kelley Thriller 

Big Sky begins on ABC Nov. 17. It’s a David E. Kelley drama about two sisters who are kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. Searching for them are a pair of private detectives, and the estranged wife of one of them. They learn the sisters are not the only ones missing. 

The series comes from the C.J. Box novel The Mountain. “It’s cliché to say that I couldn’t put it down, but really, I couldn’t put it down,” Kelley said during a press event. 

It was a challenging novel to adapt. “The biggest challenge for me was to be able to deliver what the book did, and that is the tension, the thrill, the drama, the relational equations of the characters, which were rich and profound at times, and then the sense of escapism,” Kelley said. 

The cast includes Katheryn Winnick, Kylie Bunbury and Brian Geraghty. Showrunner Kelley’s recent work includes Big Little Lies and The Undoing on HBO. He admitted he was not all that pumped to get back to broadcast TV, where his past hits include Chicago Hope and Ally McBeal. 

“When we set forth with ABC, they were really frisky to break their own mold and to present storytelling to the audience that would be more in line with cable or streaming,” he said. “I think this show lends itself to be a great bingeing show.”

HBO Takes ‘Industry’ to the Bank 

Industry premieres on HBO Nov. 9. The drama follows a group of young staffers at a massive international banking firm in London. It is inspired by the first job out of Oxford for creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay. (See The Five Spot, page 32.). 

Neither one was suited for finance. “We were equally bad for different reasons,” said Kay. 

They reconnected and decided to give screenwriting a shot. “We like being in a room together all the time,” said Kay. “We sit in a room for eight hours and spend six of those talking absolute rubbish, and there will be two hours of productivity.” 

Myha’la Herrold plays Harper, an American woman learning the ropes in London. Down described the Industry ethos as “honoring the small moments of work success when you’re very young.” 

Lena Dunham directed the pilot. An HBO exec sent her scripts, and she was on board almost immediately. “She said, I don’t understand this world at all but I understand these relationships,” Down said. “She was incredibly supportive.” 

Industry is darkly funny, and offers a glimpse at office life you may not miss in work-from-home 2020. “We just hope people get a lot of vicarious enjoyment out of it,” said Kay. “Me and Mickey want it to be a rip-roaring, super-watchable, super-fun, great piece of entertainment.” 

‘Real Housewives’ Invades Salt Lake 

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is on Bravo Nov. 11. The show offers a peek at “six successful women who’ve created their own paradise filled with luxury homes, shopping sprees and multimillion-dollar businesses,” according to Bravo, along with “the undiscovered world of Salt Lake City.” 

“We weren’t looking for a new Housewives franchise,” Noah Samton, Bravo senior VP of current production, said. Then Bravo execs saw the pitch from the producers. “We saw the potential,” said Samton. “The cast was really interesting.” 

Shed Media produces. 

There are Mormons among the six cast members, along with others who are Jewish, Pentecostal and Muslim. “Put all that together and it feels unique and special and really compelling,” said Samton. “They all bring something special and amazing to the show.” 

The women are Lisa Barlow, who owns a tequila line and calls herself “Mormon 2.0”; Mary Cosby, a Pentecostal woman who inherited an empire of churches and restaurants; Heather Gay, who was born Mormon but distanced herself from the church after her divorce; Meredith Marks, a Jewish woman who designs jewelry; Whitney Rose, who descends from “Mormon royalty”; and Jen Shah, a CEO who converted from Mormonism to Islam. 

Real Housewives has been set in New York City, Beverly Hills, Miami and Dallas, among other locales. Add Salt Lake to the list. “The show uncovers a world the audience might not be familiar with,” Samton said.

Supermarket Sweep is back! The game show from the late ’90s/early 2000s is on ABC, and Leslie Jones hosts. Jones was a die-hard watcher as a kid, and reached out to Fremantle about bringing it back. 

“Leslie brings an unparalleled amount of energy to everything she does,” said executive producer Wes Kauble. “If there’s one thing Supermarket Sweep needs, it’s that bombastic personality in primetime.”

Three teams of two battle it out using their grocery-shopping skills. Fremantle built a store in an airplane hangar in Santa Monica. “The supermarket has grown up quite a bit in the last 20 years,” Kauble said. “It’s definitely a primetime supermarket now.”

Jones feels contestants’ pain when they lose and their joy when they win. Contestants can come away with $100,000, a far cry from the original show’s $5,000 jackpot. “You can watch people’s lives change in a matter of seconds,” said Kauble. 

How To with John Wilson premieres on HBO Oct. 23. A documentary filmmaker, Wilson films random New Yorkers while passing along life lessons, such as How to Make Small Talk. 

Wilson’s how-to videos on Vimeo caught the eye of Nathan Fielder of Nathan for You. Fielder got some meetings, and a show for Wilson. 

“I’m surprised HBO picked it up,” Wilson said. “It’s such a low budget, dangerous show.”

Nathan for You, which saw Fielder help struggling businesses with often loony suggestions, lasted for four seasons on Comedy Central. Wilson called it a dream to have Fielder on board. “We’re very similar,” he said. “We both want the same things out of our work.”

These are certainly polarized times, but Wilson said How To taught him to work past that to find what makes people tick. “The gray areas are always more interesting than the polar ends,” he said. 

Season 10 of Alaska: The Last Frontier rolls on Discovery Oct. 25. The Kilcher family is fighting its usual array of harsh elements, and a pandemic to boot. Just after production began in March, crews were evacuated. The homesteading family shot their own footage. 

It offers a unique perspective on a unique family. “By following them through their own lenses, viewers will experience the Kilchers’ resiliency, tenacity and their incredible work ethic in an up-close and personal way,” Gretchen Morning, executive producer, said. 

Why do viewers love watching the Kilchers? “For many of us, living on our own terms and defining our lives is something we long to do,” said Morning. “It’s somewhat a part of our American ethos. And so seeing the Kilchers do so both on a daily basis — and for three generations — is inspiring and motivating.”

End-of-the-World Fun on Amazon 

Utopia is on Amazon Prime. A group of young people come together when they discover that the conspiracy in a comic that foretells the demise of humanity is, in fact, real. 

That demise-of-humanity thing might feel a bit timely. “The show does feature a panic-inducing viral outbreak,” executive producer Jessica Rhoades said. “But it’s more about how different groups of people band together to save the world.”

The show is inspired by a U.K. series of the same name that ran 2013-2014. Exec producer Gillian Flynn added Dr. Christie, played by John Cusack, to the U.S. series. “I think viewers will see a John that they haven’t seen before,” said Rhoades. 

Rhoades and Flynn previously worked on HBO’s Sharp Objects. Rhoades received a bunch of Utopia scripts and read them until the wee hours. “It’s a different side of Gillian,” she said, with lots of “wicked humor.”

Tong Wars Brought to Life on Cinemax 

Martial arts drama Warrior begins season two on Cinemax Oct. 2. Based on the writings of Bruce Lee, it’s about the brutal Tong Wars of San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 19th century. After proving his worth as a fighter, Ah Sahm becomes hatchet man for the Hop Wei gang. 

Warrior shoots in Cape Town. Creator Jonathan Tropper said producers needed to build a “self-contained world” — streets, alleys and buildings from 1800s California — and South Africa made
that possible. 

Immigration was a hot issue when Warrior takes place, and still is. “We tell a story from 1870 that’s still true today,” said Tropper. “A country built by immigrants, yet we struggle with our relationship with immigrants.”

New AMC Series Goes Beyond ‘The Walking Dead’ 

The Walking Dead: World Beyond debuts Oct. 4 on AMC, following the first generation raised in the post-apocalyptic world. Two teen sisters, Hope and Iris, set out on “a grand adventure,” as co-creator Matt Negrete puts it, and run into a bit of trouble, including zombies the series refers to as “empties.” 

Viewers won’t find Walking Dead characters in
the spinoff. “This is a whole other thing,” co-creator Scott M. Gimple said. “You won’t see Rick Grimes walking around the corner, saying, ‘Hey kids,
what’s up?’ ”

Negrete said World Beyond has similar horror and suspense, but “a bit more hopeful tone.”

The show is shot in Richmond, Virginia. It was slated for an April premiere, but COVID jammed things up. Gimple hopes World Beyond will provide a bit of entertainment in these trying times. “The show offers people an escape,” he said. “An escape from their homes, from the monotony, from the pressure people are feeling.” λ

FX Docuseries Ventures Into Wilderness

Docuseries A Wilderness of Error begins on FX Sept. 25. It looks at a U.S. Army surgeon who is sent to prison for killing his pregnant wife and two daughters at Fort Bragg in 1970. The surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, said a band of drug-crazed hippies led by a girl in a floppy hat killed his family. 

Marc Smerling, who previously worked on HBO true-crime smash The Jinx, directs and executive produces the series, based on a book by Errol Morris. 

“What I'm always amazed about is how when you slow this story down and you look at it over a series, you start to see things that are in plain sight,” Smerling said. 

Morris has long been obsessed with the MacDonald case. “It has so many, many, many, many layers,” he said. “And among those many layers, how, in our judicial processes, we arrive at conclusions and how those conclusions may, in fact, be hopelessly biased.”

Morris credits Smerling with “taking the story several steps further” than his book had. 

The book shares its name with the docuseries. The Wilderness of Error title comes from a Poe short story called “William Wilson.”

“It’s a phrase that has always fascinated me,” Morris said.

Disney Movie Features Teen Girl Superhero 

Also on Sept. 25, live-action movie Secret Society of Second-Born Royals airs on Disney Plus. It’s about Sam, a teen “royal rebel” lined up for the throne in the kingdom of Illyria. Not all that interested in the royal life, she discovers she has super-human abilities and is invited to join a secret society. 

“Sam does not feel like she fits in at all in a royal family,” said Anna Mastro, director. “She’s a little more punk rock — she’s in a band, she doesn’t like to follow rules, she doesn’t like to dress up and be told where to go and what to do.”

Sam’s special abilities include heightened vision, hearing and smell. “Those allow her to do incredible things,” said Mastro, “and get her in trouble.”

Peyton Elizabeth Lee plays Sam. Niles Fitch plays Prince Tuma and Isabella Blake Thomas plays January. 

Secret Society production concluded in mid-March, just as the pandemic lockdown set in. “We really got lucky,” Mastro said. 

Mastro called X Men: First Class a major influence on her film. “I’m a big Marvel junkie,” she said. 

What makes Secret Society of Second-Born Royals right for 2020? Mastro said loads of children remain stuck at home, feeling different and often feeling down. “In the movie, the things that make you unique are the things that make you special,” she said. “Appreciate those things and they will help you find your place and where you fit in.”

'Hard Knocks' Tackles Two on HBO

Hard Knocks: Los Angeles, HBO’s annual close-up of an NFL team prepping for the season, begins August 11. Unlike other years, this season focuses on two teams, the Chargers and the Rams. 

Hard Knocks opted for two teams because both want bragging rights in their new market. “There’s a built-in tension we found attractive from the get-go,” said Ken Rodgers, showrunner and supervising producer. 

There will be five episodes. Liev Schreiber narrates. 

Also unlike other years, there’s the pandemic issue to deal with. Camera crews set out for Los Angeles in mid-July, anticipating the start of practice. “It’s not completely clear when training camp will start,” Rodgers said. “But we’ll be ready when they are.”

Hard Knocks is aiming to produce what Rodgers calls “a historical document”— a league restarting amidst unique, and daunting, circumstances. 

The head coaches should emerge as star performers, offering their leadership in these trying times. Among players, Rodgers is keen to see Chargers safety Derwin James and Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey show sides of themselves that football fans don’t normally get to see. He said both players have “huge personalities, and even huger playmaking abilities on the field.”

No one knows what will happen with the new season. “Whatever happens to the football teams happens to Hard Knocks,” Rodgers said. 

‘The Circus’ Corrals Trump, and Biden, on Showtime 

Also offering fast-paced, hard-hitting action, The Circus is back on Showtime Aug. 16, airing Sundays through the election. John Heilemann, Alex Wagner and Mark McKinnon “take viewers behind the scenes as the Trump and Biden campaigns hurtle toward a historic Election Day in November,” said the network.

For the hosts, the feeling before this season premieres is a bit different than what it usually is days before kickoff. “We knew two years ago that this would be the most extraordinary, potentially the most important election of our lifetimes,” Wagner said, acknowledging the “deep cleave” across the country. 

There is plenty of political reporting on TV, but Wagner said The Circus’s “documentary verite” style sets it apart. “We do a completely different thing,” she said. “We’re very much out in the world. We’re sifting through the noise.”

Wagner is a special correspondent for CBS News and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. COVID-19 offers plenty of new challenges for the program, which shoots days before an episode airs. “Anybody in journalism is facing a really great challenge,” said Wagner. “Everyone’s figuring out a set of protocols that gives them opportunities to get out in the field.”

Getting into the Trump camp for reporters is always “complicated,” she said, and has been much more so in this challenging year. “We have every intention of following President Trump,” said Wagner, “in the most robust, unflinching way possible.” 

The fourth and final season of Room 104 starts on HBO July 24. The 12 episodes tell “a unique and unexpected tale of the characters who pass through a single room of a typical American chain motel,” according to HBO. 

Mark and Jay Duplass created the show. Executive producer Sydney Fleischmann said the ethos of the series has always been “creating rules, then we break them. This season, we really put the rules to the test.”

The premiere episode is a funky one. A group of friends adores a teen songwriter who disappeared decades before. One of them finds the man, and gets him to perform for the small group in, yes, room 104. 

RELATED: Duplass Brothers Find ‘Room’ for New Season of Hotel Hijinks

Mark Duplass spoke with a musician or two about playing the character, and finally took on the role himself. He sings and plays a distinctive guitar. “We wanted a guitar that was well-loved and well-used,” Fleischmann said. “This guitar has been around the block.”

Fleischmann directed her first episode, called “Generations.” It is the series finale and shows an old man reflecting on his life. Fleischmann’s 92-year-old grandfathers, “in the winter of their lives,” were an inspiration, she said. 

She said Room 104 doesn’t feel over. “It really feels limitless,” she noted. “We feel like we can keep going.” 

Movie Upside-Down Magic premieres on Disney Channel July 31. Izabela Rose plays Nory Boxwood Horace, a student at the Sage Academy for Magical Studies. While at Sage, she’s quickly shoved into a class for those with upside-down magic — those whose powers don’t quite work the way they’re supposed to. 

Nory’s a tough kid. “She has so much energy and enthusiasm and excitement for the world, and for everybody around her,” said Joe Nussbaum, director/exec producer. “It takes a lot to put her down. It takes a lot to crush her spirit.”

The movie is based on a book of the same name. Nussbaum got a look at the script and was hooked. “I loved the concept,” he said. “I loved the idea.”

Nory’s powers are considered “wonky,” in Upside-Down Magic verbiage. She at times turns herself into a “dritten” — half dragon, half kitten. 

Upside-Down Magic may put one in mind of another book series/film franchise about a child at a school for kids with magical powers, but Nussbaum said the Harry Potter overlap is minimal. It’s similar “insomuch as it’s a school for magical kids,” he said. “Hopefully it has a different look and a different feel.”

Nussbaum suspects the timing is right for the film premiere. “We could all use a little escapism in 2020,” he said. “We could all use a story of good versus evil.”

Season two of Doom Patrol rolls in HBO Max June 25, after the first season aired on DC Universe’s streaming platform. DC calls it the “strangest group of heroes,” including Robotman, Negative Man, Elasti-Woman and Crazy Jane. Showrunner Jeremy Carver described Doom Patrol as “an exploration of the human condition wrapped up in a Trojan Horse of a superhero show.” He added, “There are a lot of layers to the show.” 

Brendan Fraser, Matt Bomer and Rita Farr are in the cast. 

Carver was never a big comic book guy and had not heard of Doom Patrol until he was approached about the series. He believes that may be an advantage. “I come with a slightly different point of view,” he said. 

New episodes of What Made America Great debut on streaming platform Fox Nation June 29. Host Brian Kilmeade travels the country, revealing “the hidden history and ongoing controversies behind some of America’s most iconic locations,” according to Fox Nation. Kilmeade’s travels include trips to Washington to look into women’s voting rights and Huntsville, Texas to connect with Sam Houston’s legacy. The pandemic has made the visits challenging. “It’s so hard to plan something when you don’t know when you’re allowed to travel,” Kilmeade said. 

His goal is to “bring a different perspective, a different slice of America” to the nation’s history, and where it happened. “I always try to bring something you didn’t know,” Kilmeade said. 

He’s energized by people who want to talk about the big news event, unlike many politicians or pro athletes. “It’s a pleasure to cover something where people say thank you for covering it,” he said. “Thank you for being here.”

History Examines How We Get Through Tough Times 

History also checks out interesting places where history happened. Starting July 5, America: Our Defining Hours examines the most trying times in U.S. history — the Great Depression, civil rights, Pearl Harbor, Sept. 11 — and how we got through it. 

Jane Root, CEO of producer Nutopia, met with History execs as the pandemic was emerging. “They said, what can you do, what can you make?” she said. 

Root got the idea to examine how Americans respond in these exceedingly difficult times — “moments in history we come back to that at the time felt cataclysmic,” she said. 

The original title was Times We Were Tested. Two dozen notable historians weigh in on the events. Root said a project such as this would typically take a year. Our Defining Hours came together in about 14 weeks.

 What did she learn about Americans facing dire consequences? “People find the depth of resourcefulness,” she said. “People work together.”

TBS Offers More ‘Misery’

Season two of The Misery Index, a comedic game show hosted by Jameela Jamil and paneled by the guys in the Tenderloins, starts on TBS May 14. Jamil played Tahani on The Good Place and The Tenderloins — Brian “Q” Quinn, James “Murr” Murray, Joe Gatto and Sal Vulcano — are from Impractical Jokers.

Inspired by the card game Sh*t Happens, The Misery Index features teams competing against each other by attempting to rate miserable and hysterical real-life happenings based on the “misery index.” The producers are pumped about the way season one landed. “The audience got it in the way we intended it to be,” said Dan Newmark, who produces alongside brother Ben for Grandma’s House Entertainment.

Ben said they’ve “decided to amp things up” in season two, including fun episode themes, such as USA versus U.K., as New York’s Tenderloins and the U.K.’s Jamil often debate which nation creates better misery.

The Newmarks rave about Jamil in the host role. “There’s a lot she brings to the show, and she’s a great counter to the Tenderloins and the type of comedy they bring,” Dan said. “She balances the show.”

Ben calls Jamil “the fifth Tenderloin.”

He added, “The guys embrace her and she embraces the guys.”

The Newmarks feel The Misery Index is about right for the nation in the state that it’s in. “It’s a time when we need entertainment and distraction and our show gives people permission to have fun,” Dan said. “We need to laugh with each other and share the miseries that come up in our lives.”

Acorn TV ‘Still’ Offering Darkly Funny Drama

On May 18, Dead Still begins on Acorn TV. Set in Victorian-era Ireland, the series is a murder mystery centered around postmortem photography, which apparently was a bit of a thing in 1880s Ireland.

Brock Blennerhasset makes a living taking portraits of the deceased for their families, and a series of murders threatens his reputation. A detective drags him into an investigation of Dublin’s slimy underbelly. 

“The kernel of the idea was the origins of crime-scene photography,” said co-creator/writer John Morton.

Morton initially had Daguerreotype as the title of the show. “It’s a little bit of a mouthful,” he said.

Dead Still was suggested, and “it suited the tone of the show,” he said.

Morton’s influences on the project include Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels and other Victorian-era detective fiction. He said much has been set in Victorian London and Victorian America, but not so much Ireland. “It seemed like a novel take,” he said.

Dead Still deftly mixes drama and humor. “It starts jaunty,” Morton said, “and progresses to a darker place.”

Lodge 49 premieres on AMC Aug. 6. Wyatt Russell plays Dud, a goofy surfer dude in Long Beach, Calif., who’s in shoddy shape following the death of his father. He ends up at a fraternal lodge, and finds the easy camaraderie — and the cheap beer — helps him heal.

Jim Gavin created the show and Peter Ocko runs it. Gavin said Lodge 49 represents “the culmination of many of my interests and obsessions,” including a “long-term interest in the strangeness of fraternal orders.”

Both executive producers acknowledge the challenge of birthing a series with so much other good stuff out there clamoring for people’s attention. “It’s very hard to cut through the noise,” said Ocko.

He espoused the virtues of “being loud by being quiet”— Lodge 49 does not require the viewer to sort through brain-bending puzzles, like some other series that won’t be named. “It’s the kind of show you can relax with and enjoy,” he said. “Shows about murder mysteries and terror attacks — we are the opposite.”

Ocko said Lodge 49 is a different animal than a series one might expect to find on AMC, home of The Walking Dead and Better Call Saul and, going back a bit, Mad Men. “We are more optimistic than shows they generally do, shows they’re known for,” he said.

Speaking of different animals, Disney Channel offers a fresh take on Freaky Friday on Aug. 10. The mother-daughter body-swap story has been done many, many times, but props to Disney Channel, and stars Cozi Zuehlsdorff (teen Ellie) and Heidi Blickenstaff (mother Katherine), for freshening up Freaky Friday this time around.

This one is a musical movie. Mom and teen daughter don’t get along. They swap bodies, thanks to a magical hourglass they are wrestling over, and find a bit of empathy for each other during the day they wear their opposite’s shoes.

Through it all, Mom is to be married (her husband, and Ellie’s father, died years before), and a magazine is interested in the wedding, which Katherine and her catering company are handling themselves.

Laughs come from high school mean girl Savannah, uber-uptight catering manager Torrey, and goofy Great Dane Boris, among others.

And season three of Insecure starts up on HBO on Sunday (Aug. 12). Creator and star Issa Rae said the series brain trust tries “a bunch of new things” in the new season. Prentice Penny, showrunner, didn’t want “Issa does Issa and “Molly does Molly.”

“We want to go deeper,” Rae said.

We shall soon see how Team Insecure pulls that off.

Paid Off With Michael Torpey, a game show with humor, sees contestants compete to see who gets their student loans paid off. Three college grads, saddled with serious debt, play the game. It debuts July 10 on truTV.

Student loans are a profound issue for host Torpey. He did not have to take out college loans, which enabled him to study theater, and pursue acting after college, without crippling debt to contend with. “All I had to worry about was rent and eating,” he said.

Torpey landed a major commercial, for Hanes, where he discussed underwear with Michael Jordan. Its windfall enabled him to help pay off his girlfriend’s student debt, which brought tears to her eyes. “That experience stuck with me,” Torpey said.

His acting career moved onto a stint as corrections officer Thomas Humphrey on Orange Is the New Black (“an absolute piece of shit,” Torpey said of his character), before he landed the host role on Paid Off. “I’ve gained a ton of respect for people who host game shows,” he said.

On July 11, season two of Harlots starts on Hulu. Executive producer Moira Buffini said she’s “absolutely thrilled” with how the first season landed. “It being a British costume drama about the sex trade, I had no idea how it would go down at all,” she said. “People totally got it.”

Harlots is set in Georgian London. Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, essentially a guide book about local prostitutes, inspired the series. “We said, let’s tell the stories of society through the eyes of harlots,” Buffini said.

The “outrageous” Georgians almost write their own lines, Buffini said. “They’re fantastically good characters to write because they don’t hold back.”

Liv Tyler comes on board as aristocrat Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam.

The Georgian-era yarns are timely these days. “We tell stories about now,” Buffini said, “through the lens of the 18th century.”

On a lighter note, Fancy Nancy starts on Disney Junior July 13. Six-year-old Nancy Clancy is the show’s centerpiece. “She has a very specific vision of what she wants the world to be,” Krista Tucker, who developed the series, said. “She wants the world to be fancy.”

Fancy Nancy has big names in the cast. George Wendt plays Nancy’s grandfather, Alyson Hannigan voices her mother and Christine Baranski is her neighbor, Mrs. Devine. Mia Sinclair Jenness voices Nancy.

Tucker said the relatable nature of the Fancy Nancy stories appealed to the cast. “They read the scripts and it resonated with them,” she said.

One memorable scene sees Nancy get a vanity from her deceased grandmother. She looks in its mirror — and glimpses her potential. “It’s a very heartfelt moment,” Tucker said.

A new season of Bizarre Foods rolls on Travel Channel July 3, as Andrew Zimmern schleps along some of history’s most iconic routes, hearing stories and sampling fascinating grub. Zimmern said the show was initially pitched as a look not at the quirky dining spots in cities and countries, but as a close-up of historical routes that offer compelling stories and victuals.

The new season sees him try deer haggis while walking in the footsteps of William Wallace in Scotland, sampling squirrel on the escape route of the Underground Railroad, and following a Pony Express trail to Sacramento while noshing on fire-roasted duck hearts.

“The stories are so fabulous,” Zimmern said. “We meet such engaging people.”

There’s a political bent to some of the episodes, such as Scotland’s struggle with independence and a visit to the Battle of the Bulge site in Belgium. “Belgium is one of the many countries we stood with as allies for truth, justice and freedom,” said Zimmern. “In 2018 we are rejecting those allies.”

Zimmern doesn’t deny the political messages in the new season. “It’s impossible to escape what I call civic truths,” he said.

The host was pals with Anthony Bourdain, and offers up fun bits about his fellow chef and TV host, including one Travel Channel promo session when Zimmern was first starting in television. As they sat on the Brooklyn Bridge, Bourdain described television as a “vile mistress.”

“The man was a f--king symphony,” Zimmern said.

Evel Live, History’s three-hour homage to daredevil Evel Knievel, premieres July 8. Motorcycle maven Travis Pastrana will attempt three of Knievel’s jumps in Las Vegas: a leap over 52 cars, then 16 buses, and finally the fountain at Caesar’s Palace.

Pastrana said his father and uncles “pretty much worshiped Knievel,” and he was raised to obey “the Evel mentality: ‘If you say you’ll do it, do it,’ and, ‘It’s not a failure until you fail to get up.’”

Evel Live is a tribute not just to Knievel, he said, but to all the swashbucklers from the days of yore. “When men were men,” said Pastrana, “and bikes were crap.”

He admits the Vegas jumps are “very frightening,” and says each of the three has its quirks. The 52-car jump should be the easiest. The 16-bus leap, two more buses than Knievel jumped, offers the highest ramp. The Caesar’s fountain jump, meanwhile, has never been pulled off before. Knievel tried it, and ended up in a horrific crash.

“We’re pushing the limits on what can be done on this kind of motorcycle,” Pastrana said. “We’re showing that there are still guys who push the boundaries like the guys from the ’70s.”

Deep State has begun on Epix. The drama centers on Max (Mark Strong), an ex-spy whose past comes back to haunt him when he’s summoned from his new life in the Pyrenees by the head of a covert operation, who convinces Max to return to the field to avenge the death of his son.

Michael Wright, Epix president, said Deep State is “elevated” and “entertaining,” with the smart, high-quality vibe of a premium cable series.

Deep state is defined as “a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy.” It’s a phrase that’s picked up in popularity since President Donald Trump moved into the White House.

Trump factors into Deep State, at least per the Boston Herald. “If Donald Trump produced 24, it would look like Deep State,” it said. “Epix’s new conspiracy thriller might be the first drama with the president squarely in mind — and as it turns out, a significant character, albeit off-screen.”

The show “speaks to the notion of people who work behind the scenes who may not have the same agenda as our elected officials,” Wright said.

Just as Deep State takes off, RuPaul’s Drag Race is heading toward its fizzy finale. The reunion special happens June 21, and the season ten closer is June 28. Host RuPaul Charles promised a season where the “shenanigans are off the mother-tucking charts,” and has pretty much delivered.

The show shifted from Logo to VH1 last season. Drag Race is on pace for its highest ratings yet, said Pamela Post, senior VP of original programming, MTV, VH1 and Logo. “I’m constantly surprised by the audience and how it responds year in and year out,” she said. “It’s been a bit of a phenomenon.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race used to emulate pop culture, Post said, but now pop culture emulates Drag Race, evident in the show’s catchphrases — say, sashay away, or shade — popping up in conversation and on t-shirts. “It all becomes part of current-day language,” Post said.

RuPaul’s Drag Race was nominated for eight Emmyslast year, including outstanding realitycompetition series. RuPaul won for hosting.

Which contestant stands out in season 10? Post said they all do, including Eureka, who left season nine due to injury; Aquaria, who started watching the show as a kid; Kameron, “a force to be reckoned with”; and Asia, who “all around delivers the goods.”

How many more seasons for Drag Race? “Hard to say,” said Post. “Ru is going strong. We haven’t seen the show slow down, we’ve only seen it grow.”

As we near the 20th anniversary of Sex and the City’s premiere, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong releases her book Sex and the City and Us: How Four Single Women Changed the Way We Think, Live and Love. Keishin Armstrong, who also wrote the Seinfeld deep dive Seinfeldia and Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted, chose Sex and the City for a book because of the effect it had on her life. The introduction details the author, emboldened by the show, leaving her fiancé in the early 2000s.

“It was very personal to me, and I don’t think I’m alone,” she said.

Keishin Armstrong landed interviews with Sarah Jessica Parker, Darren Star, Michael Patrick King, Kristin Davis and other key figures involved with the series. She supplements those with published reviews and think pieces about its six-season run on HBO.

Which episodes stand out? One entitled “My Motherboard, My Self,” from season four, which sees the women rally around Miranda when her mother dies. “It’s the absolute essence of the show,” Keishin Armstrong said.

She noted Sex and the City’s “magical effect” on young women. “It changed people’s lives,” she said. “It changed so much about the way we date, the way we talk about sex.”

A new season of Teachers begins on TV Land June 5. Season three offers surprises, star and executive producer Katy Colloton promised. “We’ve done 30 episodes, and wanted to change it up a bit,” she said. “We introduce some new characters and explore new territory.”

One episode offers an homage to The Walking Dead. A student has lice, prompting the teachers, in ponchos and hairnets, to wander the halls like the living dead. “It’s a fun twist on zombie movies,” Colloton said.

Teachers features six stars that also write and produce: Colloton, Caitlin Barlow, Cate Freedman, Kate Lambert, Katie O’Brien and Katie Thomas, collectively known as the Katydids. Each has her own style of comedy, said Colloton, be it bathroom humor or something more sophisticated. “It ends up being something everyone can enjoy,” she said.

What style of humor does Colloton bring? Physical. “I just want to be Lucille Ball,” she said.

Season Four of The Carbonaro Effect starts on truTV May 17, with master prankster Michael Carbonaro offering a fresh batch of tricks and stunts. “The show runs the gamut from completely silly,” Carbonaro said, “to making someone believe we transport through time.”

Indeed, one stunt, shot at the Chicago History Museum, employs a large machine that Carbonaro described as a “revamped Tesla coil” for time travel. An electrician plugs it in, then “vaporizes into thin air,” Carbonaro said. The electrician then turns up in an old newspaper story about the coil, posted next to it.

Carbonaro described the trick as “a full-on cinematic story we crammed into two and a half minutes.”

Another one: A man helps Carbonaro pack up stuff in a barn that Carbonaro’s family once owned. As the man packs, a random guy turns up to chat, then disappears, leaving a scarecrow in his wake. Carbonaro then shows the man a photograph of his grandfather — the same fellow that showed up in the barn for a chat a moment before.

“The show teeters the line between comedy and The Twilight Zone,” Carbonaro said.

He counts among his influences Steven Spielberg and David Copperfield. Carbonaro mentions presenting Copperfield with a Magician of the Decade award recently. “It was a chance for me to tell David how he shaped my creative magic forces,” Carbonaro said.

Dark comedy Motherland, from Sharon Horgan, has started on streaming service Sundance Now. Horgan is the star and creator of Amazon’s lethally funny Catastrophe, and executive produces HBO’s Divorce as well.

Motherland is about what stay-at-home moms do when the rest of the planet’s inhabitants go off to work or school. Graham and Helen Linehan wanted to write about “that particular time of day when the only people around are generally moms,” Horgan said. “It’s how you survive that kind of situation, the tribe you form to get you through it in one piece.”

Anna Maxwell Martin stars. What stands out about Motherland, besides Maxwell Martin’s frantic performance and its mix of anxiety and humor? “I don’t feel like there’s much on TV that shows friendship of women that particular age,” Horgan said. “And we’re quite prepared to show mothers f---ing up.”

The show has performed way better than expected on the BBC, said Horgan, prompting moms to ask each other what kind of mother they are — a Liz (chaotic, but gets the job done) or a Julia (total spaz)?

Horgan is the mother of a 10-year-old and a 14-year-old. Is she a Liz or a Julia? “I want to be a Liz,” she said. “But I’m probably more of a Julia.”

The third season of SuperMansion starts on Sony Crackle May 7. Dr. Devizo, voiced by Chris Pine, is declared a hero and he and the Injustice Club are made members of the League of Freedom. “The good guys have to live with the bad guys,” explained Zeb Wells, who created the show with Matthew Senreich.

The animated series has always attracted some biggish names to voice characters, including Bryan Cranston and Keegan-Michael Key. This season sees Minnie Driver join the cast. Driver will voice Debbie Devizo, Dr. Devizo’s ex-wife. “I am thrilled to put on my superhero cape,” Driver said.

“We’re all super-excited about Minnie joining,” Wells added. “She brings a lot of humor and a certain gravitas.”

How does SuperMansion end up attracting boldface names? Well, Cranston is an executive producer of the show, besides voicing Titanium Rex. “They just like what they’ve been reading,” Senreich said of the scripts. “They get excited about playing these characters.”

“And there’s no hair and makeup,” Wells added.

Season three sees the mythology surrounding the League of Freedom get a bit deeper. “You can watch it for the superhero mythology, or you can watch to see some superheroes farting around,” Wells said.

Indeed, SuperMansion remains zany as ever. “I don’t think anyone can predict the way it plays out,” Senreich said. “That’s what makes it so fun.”

And BattleBots starts on Discovery Channel May 11; it pits the most badass robots against each other in battle. Tombstone, Minotaur, Witch Doctor, Bronco and Bite Force are among the battling bots this season.

BattleBots previously aired on Comedy Central, ABC and Discovery sibling Science Channel. Why is it right for Discovery? Wyatt Channell, executive producer, describes the show as a “remarkable mix of things,” including intriguing builders, who drive the bots, and “tremendously kinetic, engaging battles,” he said. “And it’s just a lot of fun.”

Discovery is doing 20 episodes, which were shot in an airplane hangar in Long Beach, Calif., over the course of two weeks. Five days after they premiere on Discovery, episodes run on Science. Channell described the Science episodes as “the same plus more” — repeats, but with additional stuff, such as a bout you didn’t see on Discovery or behind-the-scenes info.

This year’s competition features a mix of horizontal and vertical spinners, and bots with flippers. Of the latter, Channell noted the “hang time of various bots caught on the wrong end of flippers.”

Discovery is doing the BattleBots Twisted Metal Giveaway, where fans of the series have a chance to win a piece of a bot that was presumably smashed to bits in a battle. “A lot of the shrapnel is surprisingly iconic,” Channell said.

Evan Shapiro has hardly been laying low since NBCUniversal pulled the plug on his Seeso over-the-top comedy service. Shapiro, former digital executive vice president at NBCU, is behind streaming series Bartlett, which debuts on Vimeo on Demand and Amazon Prime Jan. 30.

Inspired by the life of ad executive Martin Edwards, the series is about a highly dysfunctional agency and an executive there looking to quit the biz and start a music career.

Shapiro said it targets those who may be going through a “quarter- or midlife crisis.”

“It’s about finding out what is really important to you, and concentrating on that,” he said.

Episodes of Bartlett can be acquired for 99 cents on Vimeo or Amazon, and it’s $4.99 for all six in the season.

Chrissy Mazzeo and Anthony Veneziale are in the Bartlett cast, and Lin-Manuel Miranda even turns up. “It’s a story a lot of people can relate to,” said Mazzeo, also a co-creator. “You come to a point in your life where you look back and realize you went down the road you didn’t intend to go down.”

Shapiro, the former president of IFC/SundanceTV, has come to terms with the demise of Seeso: “Are we thrilled it ended the way it did? Absolutely not. Are we thrilled by the work we did? Yes.”

He likened Bartlett to the offspring of Thirtysomething and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and said it’s a bit of counterprogramming in the peak TV era. “Everything is dark and post-apocalyptic,” he said. “This is not that.”

Back to the dark show theme, there’s a dramatic shift coming up for SEAL Team on CBS. In the Jan. 31 episode, fittingly titled “Getaway Day,” David Boreanaz’s Jason and the rest of his team face what he calls “a big hurry-up situation.” When another SEAL team is ambushed in Afghanistan, Jason’s crew is ordered to get their butts to Jalalabad ASAP.

The episode, No. 13 of the season, is an intriguing look at how deployments are dealt with, not only by military personnel, but by the families they leave behind. Boreanaz said he and the other producers were keen to push the SEAL Team players into the great unknown. “We wanted this to happen so it’s not a Mission of the Week show,” he said. “It’s a new world for these guys.”

The SEAL team on SEAL Team — including Max Thieriot’s Spenser, Jessica Paré’s Mandy and Neil Brown Jr.’s Ray — is a tight bunch. Boreanaz said their deployment makes them even tighter.

“It really brings the characters together,” he said. “Their bond is even more prevalent in episode 13.”

Rooster & Butch, which A&E describes as a mix of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Shark Tank, starts Jan. 10. It’s an unscripted show in the former Duck Dynasty time slot, and it shares some of that series’s DNA. Rooster McConaughey and Butch Gilliam are located deep in West Texas; self-made rich guys, they invite entrepreneurs in to see if there’s a connection.

“The biggest treasure we get is someone who reminds us of ourselves,” Gilliam said. “We pick people we enjoy, who are doing things we enjoy doing.”

Rooster and Butch have known each other for about 40 years. Their vast portfolio includes oil fields and real estate.

There is plenty of beer on the show. Rooster, brother of Matthew McConaughey, says having a beer with a potential partner is the best way to see if there is common ground. “If you walk into an office and there’s a man sitting behind a desk, already the playing field is not level,” McConaughey said. “Butch and I like a level playing field.”

Rooster’s go-to brew is Miller Lite. He loves it so much he named his son Miller Lyte. His daughter had already been named Margarita, but the middle name was up to him. McConaughey opted for Olympia. “That’s a beer too!” he said.

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Over at Amazon, Isa Dick Hackett, exec producer on The Man in the High Castle, is bringing more of her father’s literary work to the screen. Electric Dreams, an anthology series based on Philip K. Dick’s short fiction, debuts Jan. 12. Ronald D. Moore, whose producing credits include Outlander, Battlestar Galactica and multiple Star Trek series, executive produces as well.

The biggest challenge with Electric Dreams was tackling an anthology series, Moore said. It’s a first for many on board, including him. He described a traditional TV series as one big machine that cranks out episodes. An anthology show, on the other hand, is “10 individual machines,” each with its own cast and sets. “It’s like 10 little movies,” Moore said. “TV is not set up like that.”

The cast includes Bryan Cranston (also an exec producer), Steve Buscemi, Greg Kinnear and Maura Tierney. Moore credited Cranston for “drilling deep into the characters, into the subject matter.” He said Buscemi’s episode, called “Crazy Diamond,” truly sparkles: “It’s a lyrical and moving and fascinating piece.”

Moore suspects Electric Dreams will be catnip for sci-fi fans. “They’ll enjoy going on the ride and not knowing where they’ll end up,” he said.