John Byrne reckons that Thursday has turned in to the most competitive and enjoyable night of the week for telly.
Reviewed: How to Get Away with Murder (Thursdays, RTÉ2); The Good Wife (Thursdays, More4); Fortitude (Thursdays, Sky Atlantic); Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe (Thursdays, BBC Two); The Comeback (Thursdays, Sky Atlantic)
We all know that some days are better than others, and some nights definitely take precedence over others if you fancy watching a TV show or two. Or four. Take Thursdays for example. You could make a week's viewing out of what's on offer.
Now that the telly's pretty settled into its 2015 stride, the last night before the weekend officially kicks off is a bit of head-melter. Actually, there's just too much good viewing to choose from and even a seasoned couch potato such as myself is struggling to fit it all in. It's obviously part of a plan to keep us all at home every Thursday so that we are guaranteed to go mental at the weekend.
In recent weeks On the Box has reviewed Thursday night arrivals such as Scandal (Sky Living), Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Marry Me (both E4), but the night's now incredibly cluttered with several other new and returning shows. Thankfully there's that red button on the remote, and a second telly in the house.
As a big fan of Scandal, and someone who finds Grey's Anatomy unwatchable these days, the arrival of a new show from the prolific Shonda Rhimes was always going to capture my attention.But nothing – not even the cattiest clip from Scandal – prepares for the riot of confusion that is How to Get Away with Murder (RTÉ2).
Slightly resembling the opening season of Damages (confusing flashbacks of a killing, arrogant lawyers), this is a courtroom drama and a murder-mystery with its shoulders back and chin out.
Last Thursday's second episode settled into a more familiar case of-the-week approach while still exploring the circumstances that led to a group of legal students getting acquainted with a dead body in their lecturer's home. This is good as it gives the show a base to work off each week while exploring/explaining the season's story arc.
The murder of the week deals with Marjorie St Vincent, a retail empire heiress found stabbed 16 times in her bed. That's pretty much by-the-by because, well, there's a lot of explaining required after the confusing flashbacks that dominated the previous week's season opener.
We got some new views of incidents such as the coin flip and petrol station scenes, while the mysterious Rebecca is implicated in a secondary murder involving a student. It seems hopelessly confusing but it's all worth sticking with. The main reason why this show works is Viola Davis, who made a major name for herself in hit movie The Help.
She completely dominates when she is on-screen and it's no surprise that she has been praised for her role as Annalise Keating, the seemingly amoral criminal law professor who uses her best and most eager students to help solve challenging cases. There's a darkness at the heart of this show, with a lot going on with Keating that viewers have yet to learn, and it makes it all quite compelling.
Perhaps HTGAWM can ultimately reach the celestial level of The Good Wife, but it's asking a lot. That Julianna Margulies-led legal drama will be back on RTÉ One sometime around next May, but if you can't keep it together until then, the sixth season is underway on Channel 4 subsidiary More4. It's hardly a surprise to discover that this show is as good as ever – which means it's great. How do they fit so much into an hour?
The main talking points so far in this sixth season are (a) Eli is determined to get Alicia to run for the State's Attorney office, (b) Diane's retirement from Lockhart/Gardner & Canning and subsequent move to Florrick/Agos, and (c) the imprisonment of Cary Agos on a dubious drugs charge, as the forces of law and order aim their sights at drug baron and Florrick/Agos client, Lemond Bishop, a latterday Stringer Bell. And we're only two episodes in.
Again, this show's great strength is its unerring ability to hit the ground running, episode after episode, with breathless opening scenes that have the viewer hooked immediately. Great characters, a remarkable cast, clever twists and turns and some expensive clothes do the rest. The Good Wife remains the best prime time drama on the box, and no mistake. It's got everything.
But telly is nothing if not competitive and Sky Atlantic, a channel that has developed a quite often superb niche for itself with clever and cool US imports, has joined the fray with its own series, the Nordic-based drama Fortitude.
The feature-length pilot apparently cost a hefty eight-figure sum and it looked it. Last Thursday's second episode was equally impressive in that regard. But looking good and being any use are two very different things and – despite a stunning cast and some remarkable cinematography – Fortitude hasn't sparkled at all. If anything, it's quite dull, and I found myself having to rewind the telly every now and again as my mind wandered.
It could be the large (and therefore confusing) cast of characters, or the langorous approach, or the way it reminds me of the first season of Broadchurch (everyone in turn looks guilty and the coppers are unlikeable). There's obviously a market for downbeat dramas as they've been around for a long time now, but real life's miserable enough, thank you very much. I'll keep watching to see how things go, but I need a laugh. Hello? Is that Lisa Kudrow?
It was, of course, a crime against humanity to almost rival the demise of Firefly that The Comeback was cancelled after one great season a decade ago by some silly suit at HBO. So it's therefore a miracle of almost Star Trek proportions that it's back on – where else? – Sky Atlantic.
The Comeback's second coming suffered slightly from my heightened sense of expectation. The mock-reality show concept is also a little tired at this stage and what seemed pretty fresh in 2005 now looks like the leftovers from last night's pizza delivery. But it still works.
Once again, Kudrow plays Valerie Cherish, a former sitcom star now trying to revive her career for a second and even more desperate time, and attempting to shoot a reality TV pilot for peanuts with a group of pretty clueless students.
And while she's clearly struggling to remain relevant, or less irrelevant, the former writer of her last show is out of rehab and writing a sitcom that's a thinly-veiled character assassination of Cherish. She confronts the writer and show execs only to end up being offered to play her fictionalised self. Any part in a storm, you might say.
Whether this second coming can reach the embarrassing highs of the original series, which was often as damning of Hollywood life as The Larry Sanders Show, will be determined over the coming weeks. My fingers are crossed, which makes it rather difficult to eat popcorn while watching Kudrow make post-post modernism look far too easy.
Also fun was Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe, on BBC Two, a perfect show for bringing Thursdays to a close. After this show you'll need a weekend to forget about everything out there that's highly infuriating, so you can face Monday and more of the same.
Although last Thursday's edition failed to reach the outrageously hilarious levels of the previous week's season opener, this remains the sharpest, shoutiest, finger-pointiest show on TV. Charlie Brooker is a smug know-all, but he's also very funny and has a keen eye for nonsense, which makes Weekly Wipe unmissable.
Phew! All this telly's making me hungry. Now, did someone say something about ordering pizza?
John Byrne
