Fri 27 Dec 2013
TV HIGHLIGHTS IN JANUARY 2014 – ADVENTURE, CRIME AND MYSTERY TV SERIES, by Michael Shonk.
Posted by Steve under TV mysteries[15] Comments
ADVENTURE, CRIME AND MYSTERY TV SERIES
by Michael Shonk
January is quickly replacing September as TV viewers’ favorite month. With cable networks programming all year round more and more new TV series begin in mid-season. Here is the schedule for returning and new series in January.
Below are some of the adventure crime mystery series I look forward to watching.
Tuesday January 7:
INTELLIGENCE (CBS at 9pm then moves to Monday at 10pm on January 13th): New series. Shades of Hugh O’Brian and Angel Tompkins of 1972 NBC series SEARCH. Gabriel (Josh Holloway) is a high-tech agent with a microchip in his head that connects him to the entire global information network (computers, phone, satellites). Marg Helgenberg plays Lillian Strand his boss and Meghan Ory (Riley) is there as his bodyguard and someone to flirt with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMayn0vdCpM
JUSTIFIED (FX at 10pm): Season 5 premiere. Based on characters created by Elmore Leonard who admired the show. Each season has Federal Marshall Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) face off against a new group of criminals in Harlan County Kentucky. This season it is the Crows. Also with Walton Goggins, Jere Burns, Nick Searcy and Joelle Carter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3we6iP0i_mw
KILLER WOMEN (ABC at 10pm): New series of eight episodes, each week female Texas Ranger Molly Parker (Tricia Helfer) hunts down the female killer of the week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceBqNCjeyzY
PERSON OF INTEREST (CBS at 10pm): Series returns from holiday vacation. The group continues to deal with the death of series’ most popular character, Joss (Taraji P. Henson) and new developments with “the machine.†Created by Jonathan Nolan (THE DARK KNIGHT) and stars Jim Caviezel, Michael Emerson, Kevin Chapman, Amy Acker and Sarah Shahi. You can watch a full episode for free at http://www.cbs.com/shows/person_of_interest and see my favorite scene of Season Three here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwCpHt2PGdY
Sunday January 12
TRUE DETECTIVE (HBO at 9pm): New series deals with what happens to two detectives (Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson) in a period of over ten years as they try to solve a monstrous murder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh93mAeKcQo
Monday January 13
ARCHER (FX at 10pm): Season 5 premiere. Animated spy spoof. The story of Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) and the staff of I.S.I.S., a small privately owned international spy agency. Also in the voice cast are Jessica Walter, Aisha Tyler, Judy Greer and Amber Nash.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRQyxcJZMLE
THE BLACKLIST (NBC at 10pm): TV’s most popular new series returns after its holiday vacation. Someone is not happy with Red’s (James Spader) involvement with the FBI. Now despite being on the run from everyone, bad and good, Red’s interest in FBI profiler Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) remains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP8IwBoe4VM
Free full episodes here: http://www.nbc.com/the-blacklist
Sunday January 19
SHERLOCK (PBS at 10pm): Season 3 premieres. Created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, they have produced the best version of Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Dr. Watson (Martin Freeman) I have ever seen or read. This British TV series will last three episodes on MASTERPIECE.
Saturday January 25
BLACK SAILS (Starz at 9pm): New series. Yar, pirates of old! Its 1715 and pirates run the island of New Providence, among them is the most feared, Captain Flint (Toby Stephens).
http://www.starz.com/originals/BlackSails
Other new series of interest to adventure, crime and mystery fans include limited series (eight episodes) spy thriller THE ASSETS (ABC Thursday January 2nd at 10pm), cop series CHICAGO P.D. (NBC Wednesday January 8th at 10pm) and lawyer drama RAKE (Fox, Thursday January 23rd at 9pm).
Returning series to make its new season premiere include CRACKED and KING (both on Reelz channel Monday January 6th), PSYCH (USA, Wednesday January 8th at 9pm), BANSHEE (Cinemax, Friday January 10th at 10pm), and THE FOLLOWING (FOX, Sunday January 19th after NFL football, moves to its regular spot on Monday at 9pm January 27th).
Of course, your fall favorites return with new episodes this month. A few such as HOSTAGES (CBS), SLEEPY HOLLOW (FOX) and AMERICAN HORROR STORY (FX) will have their season finale in January (both SLEEPY HOLLOW and AMERICAN HORROR STORY have been renewed for next season).
December 27th, 2013 at 3:16 pm
Nicely done. More stuff to watch out for:
http://adage.com/article/media/tv-networks-scorecard-channels-watch-2014/245770/
December 27th, 2013 at 4:21 pm
It’s nice to know what’s out there even though the only one I will look forward to actually seeing is Sherlock. I’m teaching a class in Sherlock Holmes in January and February and I am certain someone will initiate a discussion of this.
December 27th, 2013 at 5:45 pm
1. Todd, new channels still have to fight for survivable locations. FXX a comedy channel in located on my Cox cable in the middle of specialized sports channels such as ESPN Classic, NBA, NFL, and Outdoors channel. Getting the Simpsons reruns should motivate the cable provider to find a spot where comedy fans hang out (such as near Comedy Central).
While it does not do original programs I wish I could see CLOO.
December 27th, 2013 at 5:50 pm
2. Randy, you might enjoy the BBC site for SHERLOCK
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018ttws
Also, the NY Times just reported an American judge has ruled Sherlock Holmes is in public domain in America.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/27/sherlock-holmes-is-in-the-public-domain-american-judge-rules/?_r=0
December 27th, 2013 at 11:41 pm
FXX is where it is in cable arrays because until the other month it was Fox Soccer Channel. Slow rearrangement will come…Pivot has taken the assignments formerly devoted to New Agey Halogen and the Documentary Channel (US), which Pivot pretty much splits the difference between (while running repeats of the pretty good, weird science-fantasy series FARSCAPE and such as well). That, and Esquire Channel taking the old Style Channel slots, just seem less incongruous. Stations take the channels that their predecessor stations had. The way it goes.
Cloo isn’t too shabby, of course, but it could be better.
December 28th, 2013 at 8:11 am
Nice. We recently diiscovered the ludicrous – but certainly watchable – BANSHEE on Cinemax. Tons of violence, lots of gratuitous sex, a totally unbelievable plot – what more could you want?
December 28th, 2013 at 1:13 pm
Those curious about BANSHEE can visit its website. No free episodes but some clips to explain the series and tease the coming season.
http://www.cinemax.com/banshee
December 28th, 2013 at 1:41 pm
Thanks, Michael. It’s going to take me a few days to sift through all of this. As they say, the game is afoot!
December 28th, 2013 at 8:38 pm
BANSHEE is quite a bit of improbable fun, the hard boiled gothic version of TRUE BLOOD, but it is so straight forward and well done the improbabilities can be excused 90% of the time. The violence is pretty cartoonish, but the nude girls are attractive and the unlikely characters are fun. The plot sort of grows like Topsey, but trying to keep up with it and the flashbacks is half the game. They may even know where they are going with it, but at this point I’m by no means sure.
Is Michael Hardwick still alive? If so he can write about Holmes again (Dame Jean forbade him, and since the copyright held in the States the big market was closed). Doyle died in 1929 putting him well outside the 70 years plus rule. Most of Edgar Rice Burroughs is available as well and he didn’t die until 1950 or ’51.
Toby Stephens, of BLACK SAILS (Starz) is currently the voice of James Bond in the most recent BBC radio adaptations. You can listen to GOLDFINGER on You Tube and an older YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE with Michael Jayston. You can also hear the opening of ON HER MAJESTY’s SECRET SERVICE with David Tennant.
December 28th, 2013 at 9:28 pm
9. David, thanks for the information, especially the Bond audio stories.
The American copyright has been extended repeatedly. Today, anything after 1926 is considered copyrighted (there is much confusion even over that). It was the idea that Doyle was still developing the characters of Holmes and Watson up until he stopped writing for it that was the basis of the Doyle estate Inc. belief they still owned the copyright. The Judge ruled against that using the first stories date instead.
It may be appealed, but more importantly when anything happens with copyright law one must ask, “What will Mickey Mouse do?”
December 29th, 2013 at 9:13 am
So…you do 15 years in prison, being viciously brutalized at the orders of the crime boss you ripped off with the assistance of said boss’s daughter, your lover. You get out and find the lover in Banshee, Pennsylvania with her new husband and two kids, one a 15 year old daughter (hmm). After numerous complications (where you end up posing as the new sheriff) the lover decides to give you up to her father for her own freedom and leaves you handcuffed to a motel room bed with the father and his minions about to torture and murder you before you (of course) escape.
Would you then have sex with the ex-lover because – of course – you still want her?
That’s BANSHEE.
December 31st, 2013 at 1:18 pm
BANSHEE is endlessly recomplicated, as well…the local mob, run by a lapsed/shunned Amish guy whose legit business is a butchery concern, has had to make uneasy alliance at times with the fraudulent sheriff and his department, and at other times is fighting against them…with the local native nation (and their attempts to keep a gambling casino reasonably as opposed to unreasonably corrupt–some ridiculous “race-blind” casting here with Odette Annable from HOUSE with heavy makeup as Native Am) and local bully yahoos and low-rent pushers as further factors, as well as a reform mayor out to take down the local mob, and the local prosecutor married to the undercover/hiding mob-boss’s daughter. Then there’s the undercover daughter and fraudulent sheriff’s old friend/mob partner, the flamboyantly gay male Asian hacker and expert counterfeiter, who’s thrown back in with them…and the local ex-Amish mobster has a niece, also shunned, who might become his protege, particularly if he can keep his lustful urges toward her in check…or not…
December 31st, 2013 at 1:25 pm
Cross JUSTIFIED with TRUE BLOOD and you have a reasonable facsimile of BANSHEE, though it’s not as good as the former and just a shade less attenuated (so far) than the latter.
December 31st, 2013 at 5:43 pm
So you guys are saying BANSHEE is the same old typical police procedural the top four networks churn out?
January 1st, 2014 at 4:23 am
Nah, Michael, it’s a heartwarming family-saga cop show like BLUE BLOODS…BANSHEE *is* the most parental issues in one package you can find in tv drama anywhere, I suspect.