“Twin Peaks: The Return”
David Lynch likes to change his mind. After vowing he would never make a film again, despite claiming he would shoot on celluloid again (he loved the low-end digital of “Inland Empire”) and insisting he would never return to “Twin Peaks,” the surrealist filmmaker did just that. By turning in what he describes as an 18-hour movie shot on film, Lynch has reneged on everything he promised and we couldn’t be happier [*ed. Lynch vowed he wouldn’t shoot “Twin Peaks” on film and this was one of the sticking points when the Showtime deal fell through, but the point stands, he often contradicts what he swears he will do]. “Twin Peaks: The Return” resumes 26 years later IRL and 25 years later in the narrative as Special Agent Dale Cooper has been missing since the end of season 2. As weird and eccentric as ever, sometimes more abstract and sometimes just as absurdly quotidian, the new “Twin Peaks” centers on the return of Cooper, his doppelganger Dirty Dale and a murder that presumably tethers everything together. It’s hard to tell if Lynch and Mark Frost’s re-visitation will be as iconic as the original series (or season one and the first 1/2 of season 2 before it got bad, at least) –it’s a tall order and expectations know no ceiling. But it’s captivating thus far and as Lynch’s first piece of traditional narrative in over a decade, we, like everyone else, are willing to wait around to see how damn fine this particular cup of coffee turns out to be.
“Legion”
You know you feel pretty superheroed out when perfectly good examples of the genre — “Logan,” “Wonder Woman,” even “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2” — leave you feeling a bit defeated. Which is one of the reasons that “Legion” felt exciting. If Noah Hawley’s take on an obscure X-Men character didn’t quite transcend the genre (it became more conventional in its closing stages), it certainly presented it in a fresh, exciting and provocative way that felt like one of the more startling things that aired in 2017 so far. Starring Dan Stevens (confirming his promise in a big way) as a protagonist who might be a superpowered mutant, or might just be crazy, the show flirts with quirk, and goes to some pretty heady places, but ultimately builds a universe that makes that whimsy work rather than distract (while still arguably being the most visually distinctive series on TV this year). It’s a flawed series — in thrall to its influences, frequently frustrating, a little slackly plotted even at eight episodes. But it also has a fizz and a crackle and a touch of genius, that all the four hundred CW superhero shows combined couldn’t come close to right now.
“The Good Fight”
Robert and Michelle King‘s legal drama shares a model with “Better Call Saul” in that it’s a spinoff. But parent show “The Good Wife” never had quite the cool-kid cachet of “Breaking Bad,” perhaps because, averaging 22 episodes over its seven seasons, airing on CBS and adhering somewhat to a legal procedural format, “The Good Wife” was so much easier to take for granted. The good news is that “The Good Fight” is just as hot-button topical as ‘Wife’ ever was, but in slimming down to just 10 episodes, there’s a lot less filler, while the decision to focus on the great Christine Baranski as her character Diane moves to a majority black firm, was risky but proves inspired. There is still room for it to grow in that direction, and we probably could have done without the slightly wan season arc involving Rose Leslie and a banking scandal, but in every way that counts, “The Good Fight” is terrific TV: cracklingly intelligent, breathlessly up-to-the-minute, and immensely entertaining. Now, if season 2 just gives us 300% more Delroy Lindo, we’ll be in clover.
“Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events”
After an abortive attempt to get the macabre children’s book series off the ground as a starry film franchise back in 2004, there was no reason to think this go-round was going to work. Especially when developed by the same exec producer in Barry Sonnenfeld, for whom hits have been thin on the ground lately. But this Netflix version, perhaps due to the involvement of original author Daniel Handler, is a dark-chocolate delight, perfectly pitched between tongue-in-cheek grotesquerie and no-expense-spared lavish adventure. Neil Patrick Harris is an appropriately dastardly Count Olaf, who plots to steal the vast fortune owed to the Baudelaire children (Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes) after their parents (Will Arnett and Cobie Smulders) apparently perish in a fire. Even the potentially least involving aspect — the narration by the fictional “Lemony Snicket” — is great, thanks to Patrick Warburton‘s rumbling bass delivery and pinpoint skewering of the show’s tricksy tone, while guest stars like Joan Cusack, Catherine O’Hara, Alfre Woodard and Don Johnson constantly bring new dimensions to its baroquely imagined universe.
“Better Call Saul”
Vince Gilligan’s “Breaking Bad” universe has always been one driven by tragedy. But if the story of Walter White was a Jacobean tragedy — a frantic moral cautionary tale splattered with blood — its spin-off “Better Call Saul” confirmed in its third season that it’s more akin to Arthur Miller, a slo-motion, deeply human tragedy infused with sadness in its bones. It remains to some extent a tale of two shows, perhaps one of the reasons it’s never quite got the same audiences that “Breaking Bad” was pulling by the end. One is closer to its source, with Mike, Nacho and the return of Giancarlo Esposito’s fearsome Gus; the other is the legal and personal drama around Jimmy McGill, his lover Kim and his brother Chuck. But both of those shows remain utterly superb, shot and cut to a level that puts most of what’s on TV to shame, and drawing mighty performances from seemingly unlikely quarters (this season has confirmed, for one thing, that Michael McKean is one of our most terminally underrated character actors). It’ll likely never quite get the legendary standing of ‘Bad,’ but for many, it’s likely to stand as the superior show.
