John Byrne looks at the returning procedural Forever (Thursdays, Sky 1); Andy Samberg's on-going cop comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Sunday, RTÉ2); and new sitcom Raised by Wolves (Monday, Channel 4)
Have you guys gotten accustomed to the mid-season break that dominates much of American TV? Time was, when shows crossed the Atlantic much later than they do now, we got to see each season in full and one stretch at a time. Now that we tend to see shows on Irish and UK channels very quickly after their US broadcast, it's gotten very piecemeal as we have to bow to the quirks of American broadcasters. It's almost the opposite of binge-watching as shows come in dribs and drabs.
Forever (Thursdays, Sky 1) is one show whose first season I'd subconsciously thought was already over but then it reappeared last Thursday, like an unwrapped Christmas present found under a car seat in March. Starring the very watchable Ioan Gruffudd, whose previous work includes The Fantastic Four and the utterly bonkers TV soap Ringer, as Henry Morgan, a New York-based medical Examiner who is inexplicably immortal and has been around for hundreds of years.
Like many other daft procedurals such as Monk, The Mentalist and Castle, it bounces between its USP and a crime of the week formula that's been tried and tested for decades, and much-beloved by TV execs as the genre attracts big, loyal audiences.
Sometimes these shows can be good fun if they're handled lightly and taken less-than-seriously, but they also need to work on the series arc, in this case Morgan's inability to die, but Forever seems to lack any great commitment to exploring the lead character's quirky past in any real detail.
In this week's return episode, Morgan returns to work to investigate the murder of a young investor, who happens to be the son of one of his friend Abe's wartime Army buddies. And therein lies the problem. The past is dipped into – a time when the now ageing Abe was a teenager and Henry looks the same as he does today – without any attempt at exploring Henry's inability to die.
On top of that, our hero puts himself out there and almost gets killed twice, which is kind of an in-joke with the audience, who know he can't die, but does little else. It adds up to a lame hour, and this show is already showing signs of mortality. Its title may become hugely ironic.
No such scenario looks possible for cop sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Sunday, RTÉ2), which is enjoying a second season that's at least as good as its flawless first run.
While it may be forgotten about in 20 or 30 years' time – come on, who remembers Dharma and Greg? - it's vastly superior to most of its contemporaries and that's all that can be asked of anyone or anything.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine is very funny in an old skool, Nat Hiken kind of way, and boasts a cast of characters that have been nailed down since day one and just need to be put in a particular situation and allowed to make an audience laugh. Look up Car 54 Where Are You? and you'll see what I mean.
This week's episode was a classic case in point. Andre Braugher's Captain Ray Holt is off for Thanksgiving and puts Andy Samberg's Detective Jake Peralta in charge of the precinct in his absence.
Of course, things go pear-shaped rapidly as it's feared that a suspicious package may contain a deadly virus. It's a tried and trusted approach – bring a group of people together and see what happens – that's worked well in both drama and comedy, and with the array of characters on Brookyn Nine-Nine it's just one fun scene after another until the matter is finally resolved. This show is fast becoming my favourite. It just never fails to hit the spot and always leaves me smiling.
No such luck with Raised by Wolves (Mondays, Channel 4), which has taken over the Monday night sitcom slot vacated by this year's surprise package, Catastrophe.
Unfortunately – if this week's opener is anything to go by – it isn't a patch on Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan's potty-mouthed tale of an unplanned pregnancy and its reverberations; which is a major disappointment as I was really looking forward to Caroline and Caitlin Moran's sitcom, based on their own upbringing in the English midlands.
Here's a clip from last year's Raised by Wolves pilot:
It's about Della (played by Rebekah Staton, whose previous include the truly wonderful Hunderby), an unconventional mother of six independently-minded kids on a council estate, and it's as far removed from Shameless stereotypes as is possible.
That's a good thing, of course. As someone who was brought up in a Corpo estate on Dublin's northside I hate to see ordinary folk portrayed as feckless layabouts (even though I'm one myself), and despise the snide caricatures of Little Britain. But this is going the other way – it's like a female version of The Inbetweeners home-schooled by the cast of Bosco, or working-class people as imagined by muesli-munching Guardian readers.
Worst of all, Raised by Wolves just isn't funny. At one stage Della announces to some of her kids: "We're not northern twats, we're not southern twats . . . We're Midlands twats." And that was one of the better lines.
The opening episode revolved around daughter Yoko's first period, a randy granddad ("So, knickers off. Forever's going to start tonight."), and other daughter Germaine's lust for a local lad resulting in her getting her hand caught in a letter box. I dozed through it all.
I wasn't expecting Seinfeld, 30 Rock or even a latterday My Family, but this could become as tiresome as Channel 4's inexplicably popular Friday Night Dinner. And that's not something I'd say lightly.
Here's hoping for a massive improvement from the Morans next Monday.
John Byrne
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