Television

From Valiant:

Can an angel sleepwalk -- or sleepfly? That's the question Lucifer (TOM ELLIS) finds himself asking when he and Detective Chloe Decker (LAUREN GERMAN) investigate a home invasion murder where one of the would-be victims claims to have been rescued by an interceding angel. Lucifer has serious doubts that another of his brethren are wandering Earth interceding in petty robberies, but is given reason to be concerned by his therapist, Linda Martin (RACHAEL HARRIS) that the angel could, in fact, be him, engaging in a little celestial somnambulism over his inability to come to terms with the relationship developing between Chloe and Cain (TOM WELLING).

We hit two major milestones in GOTHAM last night, as Jerome (CAMERON MONAGHAN) puts together his biggest attack on the city ever.

With the mayor, police commissioner and other Gotham notables captured and wearing dynamite necklaces, the leader of the Arkham maniacs holds a street concert hostage while demanding that his last two empty seats be filled with the final two people who have upset his plans in the past -- his twin brother, Jeremiah, and Bruce Wayne (DAVID MAZOUZ). Meanwhile, Jerome's partners Mr. Freeze (NATHAN DARROW) and Scarecrow (DAVID W. THOMPSON) prepare the real attack -- a zeppelin loaded down with Jerome's lethal laughing gas. On board, a hypnotized pilot, courtesy of the Mad Hatter (BENEDICT SAMUEL), and a panicked Penguin (ROBIN LORD TAYLOR) who has been tied up after betraying Jerome to the police.

The fourth season of THE FLASH has been, to date, one of the most exciting of the series. It's been running like a well-oiled machine.

Last night, a cylinder misfired.

Now, I don't know where it went off the rails. Maybe the writing. Maybe the directing. Maybe there's just too many episodes and not enough story. Either way, things didn't work.

Things begin with Flash (GRANT GUSTIN) trying to run Ralph (HARTLEY SAWYER) through a training scenario. But Ralph's inability to take it seriously grates on Barry, who keeps reminding Ralph that they're doing this to save his life, since he's one of the remaining Bus Metas that The Thinker (played this week by MIRANDA MACDOUGALL, the former Fiddler) is trying to acquire and absorb.

From Good Housekeeping:

They're back! Actress Candice Bergen, who played the Murphy Brown, shared the first photo from the upcoming reboot of Murphy Brown — and we are getting serious flashbacks.

In the Instagram photo, Candice is joined by the old and new cast members, including Nik Dodani, Faith Ford, Joe Regalbuto, Grant Shaud, and creator Diane English. And get this: The crew will start filming new episodes this July in New York City!

The hunt continues for the escaped Arkham inmates, including Jervis Tetch (BENEDICT SAMUEL), Jonathan Crane (DAVID W. THOMPSON), and their ringleader, Jerome Valeska (CAMERON MONAGHAN). And Jerome's own hunt also continues, as he seeks out a reclusive building engineer named Xander Wilde for reasons unknown.

Until now.

Leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, Jerome finds the proxy used by Xander to communicate to his clients. But she turns out to be too much for him to handle, and he finds himself knocked out and transported to Wilde's underground home where he's locked away in a concrete prison.

As the Sagittari crack down on Seg's home district, Seg and Adam race against time to locate the probe that Brainiac sent to Krypton; it may already be too late.

Seg brings the probe that Adam and Kem found in the outlands to have Val-El run analysis on it. Adam meets Val's hologram for the first time and is rather impressed by it. They learn that the probe is just a shell that contains a parasitic sentry that will seek out a host. This host will be used to transmit all available data about the planet back to Brainiac.

When they open the probe to extract the sentry, they discover that it has already been released.

GOTHAM is getting its groove back in this trailing half of the fourth season. With a breakout at Arkham, we don't have time to think about the fallout of Sophia Falcone's shooting or Lee Thompkins' role in it. We don't care where Solomon Grundy is, or what Oswald and Nygma are up to. No, because three of the most dangerous lunatics ever to grace the Gotham streets have busted out, and brought hell riding with them: Jonanthan Crane (DAVID W. THOMPSON), Jerome Tetch (BENEDICT SAMUEL), and Jerome Valeska (CAMERON MONAGHAN).

I'll admit up front that I have not watched a lot of SUPERNATURAL. And by "not a lot" I mean I've seen perhaps two episodes.It's not a taste or preference thing, I just haven't added it to my overwhelming list of things to watch. But when I learned they were doing a team-up with Scooby-Doo and the gang, I made watching this special episode, "Scoobynatural," a priority.

Sam and Dean (JARED PADALECKI and JENSEN ACKLES, not the musical duo) Winchester are fighting a giant stuffed dinosaur when the episode opens, setting the tone for the silliness that is to follow. In payment for saving his life, the grateful toy store owner gives Dean the widescreen television off his wall, which Dean uses open up "The Deancave." But it turns out the television is also a cursed object, like the toy dinosaur, and almost instantly the brothers are sucked into the screen and animated.

Brainiac and Phantom Zone and Rao...oh my! Episode 2 titled "House of El" hits the ground running by picking up right where the pilot ended.

The pilot established the world and society of Krypton, as well as laid the foundation for the characters. This allowed episode 2 to breathe. Krypton doesn't talk down to its viewers by feeling like it needs to explain every minute detail. But when its necessary to set up a significant plot point, it does a very good job doing so.

ROSEANNE begins its tenth season after a twenty-year hiatus, and there's a lot of the original feeling wrapped up in its return. As with the original, the middle-America family sitcom tries to touch on all the issues everyday folks deal with every day. And perhaps, to its detriment, it may be trying to take too big a bite at once.

It's all about Mazikeen (LESLEY-ANN BRANDT), and it's about damned time.

As the demon Mazikeen continues to fall apart, she decides to move out of the apartment she shares with Chloe (LAUREN GERMAN), and she doesn't go quietly into that good night. She demands that Lucifer (TOM ELLIS) "wing up" and take her back to Hell where she's happier, but he refuses and tells her to go blow off some steam.

Apparently she does this by murdering a man. It's on video. She turns herself in, complete with murder weapon and confession. There's only one problem: she didn't do it. But who would go to such lengths to frame Mazikeen? Is it a celestial thing, or is it something far more basic and human?

From Deadline:

American Gods producer FremantleMedia North America has acquired the rights to Astro City superhero comic book series to develop as a live-action TV drama series.

...

Astro City made its debut in 1995 with Image Comics and is currently published by DC Comics.

Despite the fact that the comic books’ current publisher, DC Comics, is owned by Warner Bros., Busiek owns all of the rights to Astro City, which he will now exploit in TV with FMNA.

The hit fantasy series THE SHANNARA CHRONICLES based on the best-selling book series of the same name, written by Terry Brooks, is coming to Blu-Ray/DVD.

Originally airing on MTV for its first season, the series moved to Spike TV head of the network's pending change to the Paramount Network. For this reason, many fans of the first season may have missed the opportunity to catch up with Wil, Allanon, and the rest of the gang.

This May, fans of the "Four Lands" will be able to catch up with the second season as all 10 episodes land on Blu-Ray and DVD on May 15! Dubbed as "Television's best fantasy series" by Forbes the Blu-Ray will come packed with special features like Behind-the-Scenes Extras.

Overview:

The much anticipated, and highly marketed, KRYPTON, centered around Superman's grandfather, debuted last night on SyFy.

The show starts off with Val-El (Seg's grandfather, aka Superman's Great-Great Grandfather, played by Ian McElhinney) being led to council with Daron Vex (Elliot Cowan) of the lawmakers guild. Daron is also a subordinate of the Voice of Rao, who happens to be hidden under a many-faced golden mask. Val-El is brought up on charges of heresy as he continues to preach that there are other lifeforms out in the cosmos, and something is coming to doom all of Krypton.

The Voice of Rao is a prophet who leads the theocracy and to challenge the word it communicates to the people of Krypton is a serious offense.

For so many years we heard about how "Krypton is doomed". A show that's based on a planet whose fate has already been determined can't be that gripping, can it? 

In a word: YES!

The show contains rich storytelling that doesn't seem to rush the plot. It gives the characters room to breath, and develop organically. The sets were beautifully crafted for each scene and having virtually everything seem tangible makes the world have a real feel to it. The pilot had a movie quality to it and the wide angle shots of Kandor and Krypton as a whole would be beautifully displayed on a large movie screen.

RIVERDALE continues to become the TWIN PEAKS, 90210 it set out to become in the pilot episode, as life for some of our teen residents gets more horrific than ever. It makes you wonder if Jughead (COLE SPROUSE) is really a crusader for justice, or just a deluded fool who sees a peaceful town that never really existed in the first place.

When Jughead learns that Hiram Lodge (MARK CONSUELOS) has accelerated his plans for the demolition of Southside High, he goes on a hunger strike. Yeah, even Archie (KJ APA) has a hard time buying that one, and indeed Jug breaks it when in private with his dad, FP (SKEET ULRICH). He also chains himself, along with other Southsiders, to the building, even though they go home at night and Jug sticks it out. But as much as Jug is a lone voice crying in the wilderness, he's beginning to get attention, and that's something Hiram cannot afford.

Things could have gone a lot better on LUCIFER with Episode 3.18, "The Last Heartbreak." You have a serial killer copycat and the immortal cop who worked the previous case. That's pretty hard to screw up -- and, to be fair, the episode had a lot of great scenes in it, particularly those involving Lt. Marcus "Cain" Pierce (TOM WELLING) recalling moments from his life as a detective in the 1950s and an almost-relationship developed with Kay (FIONA GUBELMANN) and her current-day granddaughter, Maddie (also Gubelmann).

Jude Ellis (STEVE ZAHN) is the sheriff of a sleepy northwestern coastal town that suddenly finds itself the center of a federal investigation. When Ellis is called to investigate a body washed up on a restricted beach, he finds not one body, but a handful -- with  countless more floating in on the tide. What's more, some of them are survivors, still alive. When Agent Emma Peralta (SANDRINE HOLT) begins to interview the survivors for DHS, she finds they all have one story in common -- they are refugees from a war with genocidal intent. But the country isn't a foreign one -- it's the United States, only 250 years in the future.

The police procedural is possibly one of the longest-lived, most successful television genres after the situation family comedy. From DRAGNET to ADAM-12, all the way to HILL STREET BLUES and LAW & ORDER, people love to watch the good guys at work bringing the bad guys to justice.