LITTLE ROCK — TV fans have a choice tonight - a complicated new series, and an old series that hopes you’ll treat it as new.
First the brand-new stuff.
Cult, a new drama aimed at the younger demographic, joins The CW at 8 p.m. today. It has a show within-a-show and multiple layers that ask viewers to pay extra attention to ensure they’ve gotten all the nuance.
It may be asking too much.
Our hero is investigative reporter Jeff Sefton (Matt Davis, The Vampire Diaries), who gets hip-deep in the world of obsessed TV fans when his younger brother Nate disappears.
The TV series with the rabid fans is titled Cult. Cult is the fictitious show within the CW series titled Cult. Are you following?
The main character in the “within” series is a charismatic cult leader named Billy Grimm, played by Robert Knepper. Knepper is a swell villain. He also played the infamous bad guy T-Bag on Fox’s Prison Break.
Brother Nate becomes so obsessed with the show that he keeps a journal about it and scours each episode for clues to its true meaning. Then he disappears. Brother Jeff springs into action.
Jeff joins forces with Skye Yarrow (Jessica Lucas, Melrose Place), a beautiful young research assistant for “within” Cult who has also started to grow suspicious of the increasingly dark happenings surrounding her show. They look for clues in Nate’s notebooks and computer files.
Wait. There’s more.
There are crimes that occur in the real world after they happen on the “within” series. Are the “within” fans taking their obsession to deadly extremes in the real world? Will we care enough to work this hard to follow a new series?
The “within” Cult also has an investigative team, except it has a female detective who used to be a cult member. Alona Tal (Supernatural) plays the detective and object of Billy’s obsession. It’s her sister who has been kidnapped on the “within” show.
To recap. Cult is a new series that has a show-within-a-show titled Cult. In the “real” world of the new CW series, there are parallels going on between it and the show-within-the-show where the gruesome plot twists on the “within” show are much more than fantasy for some.
Confused? There’s always revamped Body of Proof over on ABC. It’s back: Body of Proof is one of those series about which I get frequent e-mails asking when it’s returning. Answer: Season 3 kicks off at 9 p.m. today on ABC. Only it’s revamped to the point of almost being a brand-new show.
Samantha Baker and Bud Morris, the characters played by Sonja Sohn and John Carroll Lynch, are gone and two new cast members have been added to aid medical examiner Megan Hunt (Dana Delany) “in her quest to find justice for the dead and prevent harm to the living.”
Why mess with the show? Creator/producer Christopher Murphey says it was time to tweak the show in a new direction.
“Our goal was to inject more energy into the show, to give it another gear both in terms of storytelling and in the exploration of Megan’s character,” Murphey told ABC. “With two new cast members and a creative overhaul of the show, we’re confident we will draw in new viewers without alienating our loyal audience.”
Yep. More serial killers; more romance. That’s the ticket.
The most notable character addition is Tommy Sullivan, a police detective played by Mark Valley. Twenty years ago Megan had a passionate love affair with Tommy, but he cheated on her and broke her heart.
Then she moved on, built a career in neurosurgery, got married, got divorced, lost custody of her young daughter, had an accident that affected her ability to operate and had a patient die on the table. So Megan became a medical examiner. She’s very, very good at her job.
And now, Tommy walks back into her life. He and his partner, Adam Lucas (Elyes Gabel), have been assigned to team with Megan to solve homicide cases.
In tonight’s episode, it has been three months since Peter Dunlop (Nicholas Bishop) saved Megan from a serial killer, but got stabbed and died. Megan has been on leave and is champing at the bit to get back to work. Let the drama begin.
The series also stars Jeri Ryan as Dr. Kate Murphy and Pine Bluff native Mary Mouser as Megan’s diabetic daughter Lacey Fleming. We’ll see more of Lacey this season.
Killer ratings: The numbers are in for the Feb. 10 return of AMC’s The Walking Dead. Opposite the Grammys, the midseason return still attracted a record 12.4 million viewers. Add the late-night encore viewers and the total was 17 million.
That is phenomenal for a basic cable show.
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Style, Pages 24 on 02/19/2013