Check and double-check The Original Feed’s once-per-week column for the most-discussed cable shows, binge streaming and network specials. Even the most diehard couch potatoes have to prioritize. This Week on TV is your guide.
Netflix’s Marvel’s Daredevil, starring Charlie Cox as blind Manhattan lawyer Matt Murdoch who moonlights as a costumed hero thanks to superhuman senses, premieres all 13 episodes 3am ET Friday April 10. Early reviews are strong; a good thing for Marvel Comics fans since Daredevil is the first of several Marvel Studios projects including series based on characters Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones and a mini-series based on the heroic ensemble The Defenders.
Rosario Dawson and Scott Glenn co-star with Vincent D’Onofrio chewing the scenery as the fan favorite crime boss named Kingpin.
It will be a savage TV sprint to finish all 13 Daredevil episodes in time for HBO’s 9pm ET Sunday April 12 Season Five premiere of Game of Thrones, the fan favorite fantasy drama from showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series of books.
Cast members Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister), Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) and Kit Harington (Jon Snow) return for more bloodletting, sex and dragons with series newcomers including Jonathan Pryce (High Sparrow), Alexander Siddig (Doran Martell) and Keisha Castle-Hughes (Obara Sand).
Let’s just say The Comedians, the new FX comedy series starring Billy Crystal and Josh Gad as, well, basically themselves, fails to match the advance praise surrounding Game of Thrones or Daredevil.
Premiering 10pm ET Thursday April 9 on FX, it’s impossible not to give a series matching the veteran Crystal with up-and-comer Gad a couple of weeks to find its funny. Besides, The Comedians airs directly before the 10:30pm ET premiere of Louie, the eight-episode fifth season of TV’s best comedy, featuring the hilarious Louis CK.
Lots of premieres this week; so it’s sad to wrap this column with a heartfelt goodbye to Kentucky lawman Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) and his law-breaking nemesis Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins).
Justified, FX’s Kentucky-set crime series based on novels and short stories by Elmore Leonard and developed by Graham Yost; comes to an end with Season Six Episode 13 airing 10pm ET Tuesday April 14.
Tuesday nights are going to feel lonely without Raylan Givens around to wisecrack.