Autumn 2015 TV - Part Two

It's the second half of my feature, alphabetically listing all the TV shows I've been watching this autumn, with thoughts on how they're developing...

'The Knick' (season 2) - Cinemax.
It's another great year for this period medical drama, so far, which too many people are overlooking. I'm not sure why that is. The subject matter? Its wintry 1900s setting? The stigma of Cinemax? It's their loss. The Knick is amazing. Boardwalk Empire with stethoscopes. Gruesome surgeries. Genuinely insightful stuff about turn-of-the-19th-century medicine and social norms. Clive Owen as a coke-addict genius surgeon. Andre Holland stealing the show with a raised eyebrow. And it's all directed with surgical precision by Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies & Videotape, Ocean's Eleven), every single week. I feel blessed it exists.

Thoughts On: BATES MOTEL (S3), COMMUNITY (S6), GOTHAM (S1) & THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (S1)

BATES MOTEL (season 3, so far)
Not sure why I still watch this A&E series, because you can feel the writers struggling to think up new ways to keep the plates spinning. My patience with Norman Bates' evolution into the orphaned, cross-dressing psycho from Hichcock's seminal movie is wearing thin, and even Vera Farmiga's enjoyable screwy performance as Norma Bates is starting to grow tiring. She's great in this role, sure, but still a small oasis in an artistic desert.

Review: Fox's THE LAST MAN ON EARTH

★★★☆

There have been many stories about post-apocalypses, but they're usually action-packed ways to examine an irreversibly altered civilisation (I Am Legend), or sombre human sci-fi dramas (The Quiet Earth). Fox's THE LAST MAN ON EARTH is an outright comedy, about a man called Phil Miller (Will Forte) who's the lone survivor of an unspecified event that's resulted in the disappearance of every other person on the planet—or at least the U.S, which Phil's toured in his desperate search for companionship.

2015: Television Preview

2014? Pah! That's so last year! What goodies has the small-screen got in store for us in 2015? Below is a chronological list of the most notable TV shows premiering/returning to our screens, according to yours truly...