Advertisement

arts entertainmentTV

Overdone ‘True Detective’ leads off HBO, PBS show premieres

It's premiere Sunday for HBO and PBS, with the prestige networks starting a generous handful of new shows.

After drawing raves with True Detective's first season starring Texans Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, the series resets with an entirely new cast and location. HBO also debuts the comedies The Brink, a foreign service farce with Jack Black, and Ballers, starring Dwayne Johnson as an ex-football great in a new career.

On PBS, a remake of the old favorite Poldark and the new World War I battlefield-medic drama The Crimson Field start their runs.

Advertisement

Here are details, starting with a review of True Detective, 2.0.

News Roundups

Catch up on the day's news you need to know.

Or with:

True Detective overdoes it

8 p.m., HBO. 1 hr.

Advertisement

HBO is asking for it, having Colin Farrell's character state in the second season of True Detective, "I welcome judgment."

Well, as the saying goes, you asked for it.

No, it's not awful, and contrary to fans' anxiety, Vince Vaughn doesn't ruin the new season. And why should he? Writer Nic Pizzolatto seems determined to handle that assignment by himself. Fortunately, he doesn't entirely succeed.

Advertisement

The first episode introduces the four characters whose stories and secrets will be intertwined this season.

It's set in California with representatives of various law enforcement agencies teaming up to solve the murder of a porn-obsessed businessman whose body is discovered, Weekend at Bernie's-style, at a roadside picnic table.

A California Highway Patrol officer named Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch), finds the body after going on an orgasmic high-speed motorcycle ride in the middle of the night without a helmet.

In this image released by HBO, Rachel McAdams portrays Ani Bezzerides, a tough, embittered...
In this image released by HBO, Rachel McAdams portrays Ani Bezzerides, a tough, embittered Ventura County Sheriff's Detective, in the second season of the HBO original series "True Detective," airing Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT.(Lacey Terrell / AP)

Among those with connections to the dead guy is Frank Semyon (a chilling Vince Vaughn), who paid millions to buy key property he knows will be needed by the state for the construction of high-speed rail in California. Trouble is, Semyon has no authentic proof he paid the dead guy for a key piece of land.

Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) is a troubled cop with daddy issues and a sister who does live video porn. Their father is a New Age guru at an Esalen-like facility.

Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) was with the L.A. sheriff's office for eight years, then the Ventura department for another two. He's mad at the world, but mostly mad at his ex-wife.

On paper, the setup and the plot may seem workable, but in reality the characters are both overwritten and under-thought. The writers seem to have gone overboard finding layers and layers of trumped-up psychology to make the characters more interesting. In so doing, they've also made them less credible.

Advertisement

The superficial excesses of True Detective are not only ineffective in disguising what is really a perfectly acceptable mystery, they are so piled up on top of each other that there are moments when you'll wonder if the whole thing is meant to be some kind of spoof.

David Wiegand, San Franscisco Chronicle

Ballers

9 p.m., HBO. 30 mins.

Advertisement

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays former superstar Spencer Strasmore, who tackles life after football by mentoring other current and former players. With Rob Corddry, Omar Benson Miller and John David Washington (son of Denzel).

The Brink

9:30 p.m., HBO. 30 mins.

HBO describes this new show as "a dark geopolitical comedy."

Advertisement

Tim Robbins is the United States secretary of state and Jack Black is a bumbling foreign service officer surrounded by chaos.

Can World War III be averted?

Poldark

8 p.m., PBS (Channel 13). 1 hr.

Advertisement

Nearly 40 years after Poldark became one of the earliest Masterpiece hits, a swashbuckling new version arrives. Aidan Turner plays the dashing squire Ross Poldark, and original star Robin Ellis appears as the Rev. Halse.

The eight-episode season is set in England after the Revolutionary War.

The Crimson Field

9 p.m., PBS (Channel 13). 1 hr.

Advertisement

Our World War I lessons continue with the France-set story of doctors, nurses and women volunteers who work to save men wounded in the trenches. In the early episodes, Kitty (Oona Chaplin), Rosalie (Marianne Oldham) and Flora (Alice St. Clair) arrive as the hospital's first volunteer nurses and struggle to be accepted by the established medical team.

It's sure to take Masterpiece fans back to Downton Abbey'sseason of war. The setup also will be familiar to fans of Vera Brittain's autobiographical Testament of Youth, about her time as a nurse in France, England and Malta during that conflict. A movie version of Testament opens in theaters Friday.

Morning News staff writer  Leslie Snyder, Contra Costa Times, Tribune News Service