Throwback TV And More Coming This Fall

Published September 15, 2017 at 10:00 AM CDT

This image released by HBO shows James Franco portraying twins Vincent and Frankie Martino in, "The Deuce," a new HBO series about Times Square in the early 1970s. (HBO via AP)

We’ll look at the new fall TV season. There’s a lot coming out.

Whatever TV means these days — broadcast, cable, streaming, in your car, on your wall, on your phone — there is a lot of it. The fall offerings are tumbling out right now. David Simon of the The Wire is back with The Deuce, Times Square and 1970s New York. Ken Burns is back with The Vietnam War. Will & Grace is back. Stranger Things, Better Things, SEAL Team, Transparent and the Menendez Murders, all queued up. Up next, On Point: We’re looking at fall TV. — Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Lorraine Ali, television critic for the Los Angeles Times ( @LorraineAli)

Matt Zoller Seitz, television critic for New York Magazine and Vulture ( @mattzollerseitz)

Tom’s Reading List

Los Angeles Times: ‘Valor,’ ‘SEAL Team’ and other militaristic shows offer viewers odd TV-as-comfort-food choices — “As they say of Southern California, television seems to have become a place without seasons. Autumn used to bring in the TV harvest; now, new fruit drops on-screen the year ’round. What does it mean to be a fall series anymore? Are they the best of the best? Not necessarily! (Indeed, networks seem to hold some better ones back for when their first line of new offerings is shot down.)”

Vulture: The Best TV Shows of 2017 (So Far) — “In the Peak TV era, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of television available. Even when you winnow the options down to the best of the best, as we did below, the shows don’t fit into any one category. They span genre, tone, and style in remarkable ways, from the romantic ennui of Master of None to the family comforts of One Day at a Time to the bizarre horror of Twin Peaks: The Return.”

The Atlantic: 29 New TV Shows to Watch This Fall — “Although the summer wasn’t exactly a respite, given the abundance of new Netflix series and the rejiggered schedule for a somewhat popular show about dragons, the back-to-school season is bringing an embarrassment of new series, rebooted classics, and spinoffs.”