TV Talk: Part II: Elementary, Claws, Queen of the South, Luther and More TV!
Season Premieres
Elementary (CBS)
This take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic character has disgraced Sherlock Holmes fleeing London for present-day Manhattan after a stint in rehab. He arrives to find that his father has assigned a sober companion to live with him – Dr Joan Watson, a former surgeon whose medical licence was revoked three years earlier after she lost a patient. She now seeks penance by helping addicts stay clean. However, Holmes has his own plan for keeping on the straight and narrow, throwing himself into his work as a police consultant in New York City. The two find that they make a good team and are soon cracking some of the NYPD’s most-difficult cases.
She’s Gotta Have It (Netflix)
Iconic filmmaker Spike Lee revisits his first feature film with this Netflix original series of the same name. Brooklyn-based artist Nola Darling struggles to stay true to herself and her dreams while dividing her time between her friends, her job and her lovers — all three of them. That trio includes married businessman and father Jamie Overstreet, photographer and self-described “biracial Adonis” Greer Childs and chatty Michael Jordan fan Mars Blackmon. In addition to creating the series, Lee directs all the episodes and serves as an executive producer alongside wife Tonya Lewis Lee.
CLAWS (TNT)
At the Nail Artisan of Manatee County salon in Central Florida, five diverse, hardworking manicurists try to make ends meet in a staid economy while managing perilous personal lives awash in drama. Amidst all the silk wraps, pedicures and polish treatments, salon owner Desna, who lives with and cares for her mentally ill twin brother, leads a staff that includes best friend Jennifer, now sober and raising two kids from a previous relationship; enigmatic Ann, who provides security for the salon; mild-mannered preppy and ex-convict Polly; and Virginia, who becomes easily bored and impatient with her job. Also hanging around the salon are shady redneck Roller; ambulance coach Bryce, Jennifer’s husband who is also newly sober; and Uncle Daddy, a dangerous, deeply Catholic and actively bisexual crime boss.
Queen of the South (USA)
While living in the barrio of Jalisco, Mexico, poor Teresa Mendoza falls in love with a member of a successful drug cartel, hoping the love will help her rise above the hopelessness she feels in her life. When it doesn’t happen, she is forced to flee the country after her boyfriend is murdered. She seeks refuge in America, where she teams up with an unlikely person from her past to take down the leader of the drug ring that is after her. Teresa ends up starting her own drug empire, becoming one of the world’s wealthiest women in the process. With her success, she discovers that money doesn’t fix all of her problems, and she can only depend on herself if she wants to stay one step ahead of others and stay alive.
Luther (BBC America)
Luther is a brilliant but emotionally impulsive detective who is tormented by the dark side of humanity while hunting down murderers. Once the self-destructive detective knows the killer’s identity, it becomes a psychological duel between predator and prey.
The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)
Based on the best-selling novel by Margaret Atwood, this series is set in Gilead, a totalitarian society in what used to be part of the United States. Gilead is ruled by a fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state, and is faced with environmental disasters and a plummeting birth rate. In a desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world, the few remaining fertile women are forced into sexual servitude. One of these women, Offred, is determined to survive the terrifying world she lives in, and find the daughter that was taken from her.