Details

Written by: Tim Riley

Published: 05 October 2025

Created: 05 October 2025

When announcing its primetime programming lineup for the 2025-2026 season, CBS claimed to be on track to win its 17th consecutive season as the most watched network. 

One new comedy, four action-packed dramas, and three unscripted series might be enough to push them to the top once more.
  
Everyone knows that a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles is more of a horror show than a laugh-filled adventure. CBS aims to change the image of one of the government’s least popular agencies with its comedy series “DMV.”
  
Based on award-winning author Katherine Heiny’s short story, “DMV” is a single-camera workplace comedy set at the place everyone dreads going most. The site is supposedly filled with quirky and lovable characters, which explains this is pure fiction.
 
The idea is that these minimum wage workers are doing a thankless job where customers are annoyed before they even walk in the door. Apparently, it’s a good thing the staff have each other, and certainly not the public that cools its heels with insufferable wait times.
  
“Blue Bloods,” a police procedural starring Tom Selleck as New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan, had a long run of fourteen seasons, which came to an end in December last year.

The police commissioner’s eldest surviving son, Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg), will now be the star in the new spin-off series “Boston Blue,” where he’s taken a position with the Boston Police Department.
  
Once in Boston, Danny is paired with detective Lena Peters (Sonequa Martin-Green), the eldest daughter of a prominent law enforcement family who is considered a “rising star” in the police department.
  
Another police procedural arrives with “Sheriff Country,” starring Morena Baccarin as straight-shooting sheriff Mickey Fox, the stepsister of Cal Fire’s division chief Sharon Leone (Diane Farr in CBS’s “Fire Country”).
  
Sheriff Fox investigates criminal activity while she patrols the streets of small-town Edgewater, contending with her ex-con father, Wes (W. Earl Brown), who is an off-the-grid marijuana grower, and a mysterious incident involving her wayward daughter.
 
“Sheriff Country” is considered to be an expansion of the universe of the hit drama “Fire Country.” The latter stars Max Thieriot as a convict seeking to redeem himself and shorten his prison sentence by volunteering as a Cal Fire firefighter.
  
Dick Wolf, best-known as the producer of the “Law & Order” television franchise, should also be familiar for creating other law enforcement series like “Chicago P.D.” and the “FBI” show that resulted in two spinoffs with “FBI: Most Wanted” and “FBI: International.”
  
What’s next for Dick Wolf is an expansion of the “FBI” series into new series “CIA,” a one-hour drama centered on two unlikely partners. Tom Ellis stars as a fast-talking, rule-breaking loose cannon CIA case officer.
  
Ellis’ CIA officer is teamed up with a by-the-book, seasoned and smart FBI agent who believes in the rule of law. When this odd couple are assigned to work out of the CIA's New York Station, they must learn to work together to investigate cases.
  
There may be challenges ahead for these disparate characters as they lean into ferreting out criminals posing threats on U.S. soil, but then they find their differences may actually be their strength.
  
The unscripted series “The Road” offers viewers a backstage pass into the gritty and unforgiving life of a touring artist. With exclusive access to behind-the-scenes workings of the music industry, viewers will see what happens when performers pile into a tour bus and tackle a grueling schedule.
  
The documentary format trails Grammy Award winner Keith Urban on his journey to discover the next big artist alongside Grammy Award winner Gretchen Wilson, who acts as the “tour manager.”
  
Singers will join the headliner on tour, performing as opening acts in venues across the country. They will compete over local fanbases to secure a spot in the next city and remain on the tour.
  
During the mid-season, “America’s Culinary Cup” unscripted series from Emmy-nominated food expert Padma Lakshmi (“Top Chef”) is a new cooking competition series. Not all cooking shows can belong to Gordon Ramsay.
  
Show creator Lakshmi serves as host of this new culinary showdown featuring a cast of the nation’s most decorated chefs as they embark on a one-of-a-kind, high-stakes competition designed to challenge their creativity, endurance, presentation, leadership, and more.
  
The working title of “Y: Marshals” will come to fruition in some form during the mid-season where Luke Grimes stars as Kayce Dutton, leaving behind the Yellowstone Ranch to join an elite unit of the U.S. Marshal.
  
Combining his skills as a cowboy and Navy SEAL to bring range justice to Montana, Dutton and his teammates must balance family, duty and the high psychological cost that comes with serving as the last line of defense in the region’s war on violence.
  
Another midseason show is “Harlan Coben’s Final Twist,” which brings the world’s best-selling mystery author into the true-crime television genre for the first time. In each episode, Coben will guide audiences through gripping tales of murder, high-profile crimes, and life-altering surprises. 

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

Details

Written by: Tim Riley

Published: 28 September 2025

Created: 28 September 2025

‘THE LOWDOWN’ ON FX

FX’s new series “The Lowdown” wastes little time setting up the noir atmosphere of the dusty, hardscrabble landscape of Tulsa, Oklahoma, starting with the apparent suicide of Dale Washberg (Tim Blake Nelson), the black sheep of a prominent local family.
  
Sitting at his desk, penning a mystery letter that will get tucked away inside a paperback book to be hidden on a shelf with several Jim Thompson crime novels, Dale ends up with a bullet hole at his right temple.
  
While the apparent suicide happens within the first minutes of the first episode, it won’t be the last time that Dale makes an appearance. 

One might question whether he is truly deceased, and if he is, then Ethan Hawkes’ Lee Raybon occasionally conjures up his spirit during another quest for truth.
  
What we have in creator, writer and director Sterlin Harjo’s (“Reservation Dogs”) gritty exploits of his central character’s search for veracity is a hunt across a trail of breadcrumbs through the underbelly as well as the upper echelon of the Sooner State’s second largest city.
  
Calling himself a “truthstorian,” citizen journalist Lee Raybon is also the purveyor of rare books at Hoot Owl Books, where his lone underpaid employee Deidra (Siena East) keeps her boss and everything at the store in line one eye-roll at a time.
  
Raybon’s curiosity with the death of Dale, which he suspects as something other than suicide, is that the Washberg family is well-heeled and powerful. Moreover, Dale’s brother Donald (Kyle MacLachlan “Twin Peaks”) is campaigning for governor.
  
Does that fact that Raybon has written an unmasking of the Washberg family having anything to do with Dale’s demise? Obviously, a family member running for office has reason enough to squash any skeletons escaping from the closet.
  
Donald Washberg is connected to unsavory characters, including Tracy Letts’s Frank Martin, owner of Akron Construction that is buying up distressed property all over town, and Allen Murphy (Scott Shepherd), who handles the dirty work for the construction company.
  
Persistent sleuthing has intruded on Raybon’s personal life, to where his ex-wife Samantha (Kaniehtiio Horn) is frustrated by his incessant stalking of corruption and deceit, even if she grudgingly admires his dedication and fears for his innate ability to place himself in danger.
  
What about Keith David’s Marty, a mysterious private investigator hired by the gubernatorial candidate to tail Raybon? Does he pose any threat? He keeps showing up at the same diner frequented by the citizen journalist. 
  
Violence comes for Raybon when a pair of skinheads break into his bookstore’s upstairs quarters and beat him to a pulp for what he wrote about them setting fire to a synagogue. What’s surprising is that these dimwits had enough brain cells to read a newspaper.  
  
However, Raybon is devoted to his wise 14-year-old daughter Francis (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), who shares her father’s curiosity and adventurous spirit so much that she’s always eager to tag along on his escapades.
  
Despite being mostly a loner, Raybon has support from friends and colleagues, like the antique dealer Ray (Michael Hitchcock) who helps with clues, and Cyrus (Michael “Killer Mike” Render), editor of the crime newspaper “Tulsa Beat” who publishes some of his work.
  
Film noir is a popular genre that’s also had a storied history in television. Personal favorites on the small screen include the “Mr. Lucky” and “Peter Gunn” series when television was black-and-white, and thus all the better for authentically depicting the harsh noir atmosphere.
  
The interesting thing about noir over time, whether in film or television, is that the settings are typically in big cities like Los Angeles, in particular, or New York, Chicago, and even New Orleans, where crime rears its ugly head in the dodgy parts of a city.
  
During a press conference with television critics, Sterlin Harjo, who has called his show “Tulsa noir,” explained that the Oklahoma town has “the right amount of grit, the right amount of history, the right amount of secrets to set the story in,” to fight for the truth.
  
Ethan Hawke let it be known that he loved the expression “truthstorian” because “it’s not a really a word,” and furthermore, it expresses “the intersection of truth and history,” and then he finally admits it’s “also sloppy and kind of a trainwreck of an expression.”
  
The most fun part of “The Lowdown” is that just about everyone in Tulsa, with the possible exception of Raybon’s precocious daughter, is either a trainwreck or on the verge of becoming one. 
  
In the role of Dale Washberg’s widow Betty Jo, Jeanne Tripplehorn let it be known that her character may or may not have been a stripper, but she was “definitely a rodeo queen” and “kind of a hellcat.”
  
If anything, “The Lowdown,” in the fine tradition of noir with a touch of dark comedy, is deliciously character-driven, with so many of the players proving to be eccentric, none more so than Ethan Hawke’s Lee Raybon constantly engulfed in all sorts of problematic situations.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

Details

Written by: Tim Riley

Published: 21 September 2025

Created: 21 September 2025

Before he was master spy Ethan Hunt in the popular series of “Mission: Impossible” films, Tom Cruise demonstrated his traits of bravado and reckless behavior in 1986’s “Top Gun” as a cocky naval aviator.
   
Cruise’s Lieutenant Pete Mitchell, known by his call sign Maverick, entered a training program at the U.S. Navy’s Fighter Weapons School where his reputation as an impulsive pilot willing to break the rules put him at odds with fellow aviators and Navy brass.

   

Almost four decades later, an even more popular sequel emerged with “Top Gun: Maverick,” and Cruise’s now-Captain Mitchell, though still flying, was now training young Top Gun graduates for a dangerous mission.
   
The idea is not far-fetched that Tom Cruise’s impetuous and foolhardy antics as a Navy fighter pilot served him well for many of the daring stunts he pulled off in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.
   
Moreover, “Top Gun” proved to be a recruiting tool for the Navy. The image of brash rule-breaking fighter pilots may seem cool, but real-life Top Gun pilots are efficient, methodical professionals engaged in strict rules of engagement.
   
This is why National Geographic’s “Top Guns: The Next Generation,” a six-part series that will also stream on Disney+ and Hulu, takes a real-life view of what it takes for one to be an elite fighter pilot.
   
In this compelling series, the cameras follow a class of Navy and Marine Corps student pilots as they enter the final and most unforgiving phase of elite strike fighter training.
   
The grueling program is six months of high-stakes aerial training, brutal physical demands, and emotional reckoning, where only the top performers earn the chance to fly the most coveted aircraft.
  
The series goes beyond the cockpit, following ambitious young Navy and Marine students both in the air and off-base, capturing candid moments with family and friends and revealing the personal stakes, sacrifices and motivations that brought them here.
   
Filmed with unprecedented access, the series immerses audiences in a world of intense pressure and soaring expectations, where dreams of earning wings of gold collide with the harsh reality of demanding training.

From bombing drills to close-range dogfights and nail-biting aircraft carrier approaches, each episode captures the intense demands of a program that challenges their abilities, endurance, and resolve at every turn. 
   
While the emotional stakes fuel the story, the skies are where the drama hits full throttle. Outfitted with in-cockpit cameras, the series delivers a breathtaking front-row experience to capture moments of precision, panic, and hard-fought triumph as they happen.

Filmed by some of the creative talent behind the blockbuster film “Top Gun: Maverick,” the aerial sequences are cinematic and pulse-pounding, pushing the limits of what these student aviators and their aircraft may accomplish.
   
The first episode, “Strike,” finds one student’s dreams of becoming a fighter pilot put in jeopardy as the class starts advanced phase training with a set of breathtaking bombing tests.
   
Diving at speeds they’ve never faced before, students struggle with the dynamic moves and start to make high-risk mistakes. Instructors deliver tough assessments in the debriefs to keep students safe.
   
“Catching the Wire” episode follows next. Landing on an aircraft carrier demands precision flying and is a skill vital for all U.S. Navy fighter pilots.
   
As the students tackle the longest and most technical section of the Advanced Phase, they know it’s a test they must pass to keep their dreams alive. The pressure mounts on some struggling pupils, and the commanding officer issues a timely warning to one. 
   
As the students reach the midpoint of their training in “Attack Attack!,” they start the iconic dogfighting phase. Against them are seasoned instructors with hundreds of hours of real-world experience.
   
To pass, they must outmaneuver the enemy to take a “kill shot.” One student has the added pressure of flying with his Top Gun-trained commodore, while another struggles to control his aggressive instincts.
   
Entering the second and most challenging phase of dogfighting in “Fight’s On!,” apprentice pilots find everything is on the line.
   
Defensive dogfighting involves dynamic maneuvers to evade battle-hardened instructors. The physical strain proves too much for one student, while another has a crisis of confidence when past failures come back to haunt him.
   
In “Head-to-Head,” the students face their final test in an iconic head-to-head dogfight against an instructor. To pass, they must bring all the skills they’ve learned during their Advanced Phase training.
   
With graduation just days away, students start to worry about their final grades and whether they will get the posting they – and in many cases, their families – want.
   
In the appropriately-titled last episode “Last Chance,” it’s graduation week. For the remaining students, it means they have one last chance to prove they deserve their prestigious fighter pilot wings. 
   
Standing in their way is a tense head-to-head dogfight against an instructor. Past failures come back to haunt one student, and another’s whole fighter pilot future comes down to a single flight with their commanding officer. 

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.