CW network has added a new series to its DC universe commonly known as the Arrowverse because the shows were a spinoff of the original “Arrow” series. “Batwoman” is a new series whose titular character first appeared in a series of Arrowverse crossover episodes “Crisis on Infant Earths” near the end of last season. Unfortunately I’m way behind on my Arrowverse shows and did not see those episodes yet. However I decided to go ahead and check out the pilot of Batwoman.

The story revolves about Kate Kane who is a cousin of Bruce Wayne apparently on his mother’s side whose name was Martha Kane. When she was a child her mother and sister died in an accident when a school bus full of kidnapped kids driven by The Joker drove them off the road and they were dangling precariously on the edge of the bridge. Batman tried to secure the vehicle with some cables and then went off to chase the Joker. Kate was able to crawl out of the car before the cables failed and mom and sis fell to their death. She always blamed Batman for caring more about catching the bad guy then saving innocent lives.

As the story opens, Batman has mysteriously disappeared for several years. So the job of protecting Gotham City had fallen to a private security firm called “The Crows” headed by Kate’s father Jacob Kane. He had sent her off to military academies supposedly to train her to be part of his kick ass security firm but had always denied her the opportunity to serve. Kate is an out of the closet lesbian who was kicked out of the military academy for having a relationship with fellow student Sophie Moore.

Just as Gotham City is ready to give up on Batman by turning off the bat signal and putting all of its trust In the Crows, a new super villain calling herself Alice (as in Wonderland) appears on the scene to terrorize the city and convince them that the Crows can’t keep them safe. Kate’s former girlfriend Sophie now works for the Crows. In an attack on a public event Alice kidnaps Sophie. The idea is that if the Crows can’t protect one of their own, how can you trust them to protect the city? Kate returns to Gotham to help rescue her former girlfriend and to try to persuade her father to let her work for the family company. An offer he initially refuses. We also learn he has since remarried and has 2 grown stepdaughters.

Kate Kane is played by Ruby Rose who has had a variety of minor roles including 9 episodes of “Orange Is the New Black“. For some reason she was a bit of a controversial choice for the role. In real life she is genetically female and attracted to women but describes herself as gender fluid not identifying as male or female herself. This led people to claim she wasn’t lesbian enough to play a lesbian role. Of course the actress’ own gender identity and orientation really doesn’t have any bearing on their ability to play gay, straight, or whatever. And how many roles are there out there for gender fluid people? The only one I can think of is Taylor Mason played by gender fluid actress Asia Kate Dillon on the series Billions. (I apologize for not knowing the proper gender-neutral noun for person in the performing arts). For me, the lesbian aspect of the storyline neither adds to nor distracts from the rest of the story. The relationship between Kate and Sophie could’ve just as easily have been a heterosexual couple in which one was expelled for fraternization.

Kate’s father is played by veteran character actor Dougray Scott who has played a variety of roles. Sophie is played by Megan Tandy who is probably most noted for 18 episodes of Teen Wolf as well as a variety of other TV roles. Along the way we meet Luke Fox son of Lucius Fox who is keeping the abandoned Wayne Manor and Batcave secure in the absence of Bruce Wayne/Batman. When Kate stumbles on to the secret identity of her cousin Bruce, she decides to fill the void and become Batwoman.

Although she is highly trained in a military academy and a fit kick ass fighter, she’s not quite as invincible as we have expected Batman to be. Usually he completely overpowers his enemies but the fight sequences she has are not quite as one-sided which sort of increases the drama and tension. She’s still getting used to her new role.

Overall the quality of story, acting, stunts, action, and special effects are on par with the rest of the Arrowverse. If you’re a fan of those other series you will definitely want to add this one especially since this will be the last season for Arrow so there should be room in your schedule for another series. I’m giving it a strong rating of “I’m Watching“.

In 2013 it was with much anticipation that we had a TV adaptation of “Silence of the Lambs” character Hannibal Lecter in the series “Hannibal” which explored the early days of the character before it was revealed that he was a cannibalistic serial killer. The show was highly stylized, very dark, and quite compelling. Sadly it only lasted three seasons. The new Fox drama “Prodigal Son” could easily be described as a ripoff of “Hannibal”. But as I said in the title, I think this one works just as well.

Tom Payne stars as Malcolm Bright, a former FBI profiler who now works with NYPD. His insights into the dark criminal mind, mostly from studying his own father, an infamous serial killer known as “The Surgeon”.

You may or may not recognize Payne from his most recent role as Paul “Jesus” Rovia in “The Walking Dead” without his long hair and beard which gave him the nickname in that series. Malcolm’s father surgeon Dr. Martin Whitley is very creepily played by Michael Sheen. This character is the most blatant ripoff of Hannibal Lecter. The relationship between him and the police profiler is more complicated because unlike Lecter vs Will Graham or Lecter vs Clarice Starling , this relationship is a father-son relationship. Malcolm Bright is much more like Will Graham in that he is a tortured soul not only because of the dark paths that his profiling takes him down as he explores the criminal mind but also because of the legacy of being the son of such an infamous killer. Dr. Whitley exploits this relationship and is constantly appealing to the dark side of his son’s personality declaring repeatedly “we are the same”.

Of course like Lecter, Whitley consults with the profiler to help him solve cases. He does so to manipulate his son to continue to visit him. In flashbacks we learned that Bright (who changed his name to distance himself from his infamous father) quit visiting his father in jail when he applied to the FBI Academy in Quantico.

Similar to the opening plot of last year’s new profiler drama ” Instinct ” in which the opening case was a copycat, the first case that Bright covers for NYPD is someone re-creating four of his father’s most famous killings.

Lou Diamond Phillips costars as Bright’s NYPD boss. Bellamy Young plays Bright’s mother. You will recognize her as Mellie Grant from ” Scandal“. We also meet his sister Ainsley played by Halston Sage who recently appeared as Lieut. Alara Kitan on ” The Orville ” although you might not recognize her without her alien forehead makeup.

Despite the fact that the entire thing is derivative of a variety of other stories in the genre, the father-son relationship adds an interesting twist and the overall execution of the story is very compelling. Set aside any trepidation you have about the fact that it isn’t entirely original and is very much a Hannibal ripoff and just sit back and enjoy the ride.

It is a very dark drama and deeply psychological. But I would say it is not quite as dark as the 2013 TV version of “Hannibal”. I’m giving it a strong rating of ” I’m Watching” and I recommend you give it a try if this kind of story appeals to you.

Last January I wrote a review of the new Fox series “The Passage” in which yet another child with some sort of mysterious ability to save the world is on the run from mysterious bad guys and being is protected by a hero.

Can a Young Girl Save the World? Better Question Why Is This Show Called “The Passage”?

Although I initially gave it a rating of “I’m Watching” I actually gave up after about three episodes and the series was canceled at the end of its first season. I mentioned that it’s been done over and over again in series such as “Heroes“, “Touch“, 2002 TV miniseries “Taken“, and others. ABC’s new thriller “Emergence” is the latest attempt to try this overdone premise.

Our hero this time is small town police chief Jo Evans played by Allison Tolman. She recently played in NBC series “Good Girls” but I remember most from her 2014 season role in “Fargo” where she also played a police officer. A small plane crashes on the beach just outside of town and she discovers a young girl on the beach. She is about 10 years old and is unharmed. The girl has amnesia and doesn’t know who she is or if she was even on the plane.

A series of mysterious events follow which include strange electrical disturbances somehow related to the girl. Agents of the NTSB try to interview the girl in the hospital that she’s being checked out but it turns out they are not really from the NTSB. The FAA and NTSB clear the crash site of debris in 24 hours which of course is unheard of. We also have an investigative reporter who shows up with all sorts of strange conspiracy theories. At one point the girl is kidnapped by some mysterious people. I won’t spoil what happens after that but the story continues to be creepy throughout.

The young girl, who is given the name “Piper” because she doesn’t remember her real name, is played by Alexa Swinton. Her only notable previous performance was 12 episodes as Eva Rhodes in “Billions“. We also have Jo’s daughter Mia who appears to be about 13. She is played by Ashley Aufderheide who had previously been seen as a younger version of Tulip on “Preacher” in 2016. Living with them is Jo’s father Ed played by veteran character actor Clancy Brown. We also get to meet Jo’s ex-husband Mia’s father Alex played by Donald Faison who is most remembered for his role as Dr. Christopher Turk on the 2001 comedy “Scrubs“.

Jo takes the girl Piper into her home rather than turning her over to child protective services because there are all of these strange occurrences surrounding the kid. Her ex-husband Alex gets sucked into helping them protect the child. Friendship develops between Piper and daughter Mia.

The story moves at a good pace. There’s lots of action and the performances are up to par. The problem is with any of these “Something weird is going on and there’s a big conspiracy behind it all” is that you don’t know until late in the season (if that quickly) if any of this suspense is going to pay off. I guess I’m a eternal optimist when it comes to shows like this. I hope this one really goes somewhere. There’s something compelling about the series. So I’m giving it a cautious rating of “I’m Watching“. But keep in mind that’s what I gave to “The Passage” and it fell apart after a couple of episodes and was ultimately canceled. So travel at your own risk.

ABC’s new sitcom “mixed-ish” is the second spinoff series from their hit comedy “black-ish“. When “black-ish” premiered a few seasons ago, I didn’t think I would like it. Even though I’m a bleeding heart liberal, I’m still an old white guy and I didn’t think I could relate to a show about the struggle of a black family to not lose their African-American identity as the parents both became successful in a white dominated world. But in the end I’ve really enjoyed it because my ultimate test of whether or not I watch a sitcom is “Did it make me laugh?” and this one delivers on a regular basis. It does get a bit preachy at times and I didn’t particularly enjoy last season’s plot line about the marriage difficulties of Andre and Rainbow Johnson. But I’ve stuck with the show through five seasons and plan to continue to watch. I did not watch the spinoff series about their daughter going off to college “grown-ish” because I thought I already had my fill of the Johnson family on the original series. The college adventures of their daughter just didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t bother to watch any of it. When I heard they were doing another spinoff I doubted that I would have much interest in it.

“Mixed-ish” takes us back to 1985 when Rainbow Johnson was 12 years old. By the way I never realized that Johnson was not only her married name it was her maiden name as well. When the government raided the hippie commune where she grew up, her parents moved the family to the suburbs and tried to rejoin normal society. She and her younger brother and sister were totally unprepared for dealing with the challenges of being biracial. Her white father and African-American mother had isolated them from any issues of race while growing up in the commune. Their first day at school found them being forced to choose between identifying as white or black or being left out altogether.

I still cannot identify with what it means to be black or biracial but the story of this family struggling to adapt to this huge culture shift of moving from a commune to the suburbs is entertaining, compelling, and educational. As I have said above and many times before, the ultimate test of a sitcom is “Did it make me laugh?” and like its predecessor, this one did.

Rainbow’s mother Alicia was trained as a lawyer but ran away from the law to join the commune with her hippie husband Paul to raise their family there in peace and harmony. When the commune was shut down the family moves in to a furnished rented house provided by Paul’s father. In order to make ends meet, she trades in her usual tie-dyed clothing for a corporate pantsuit and goes to work as legal counsel for her father-in-law’s business.

Alicia is played by Tika Sumpter whose early career included 239 episodes of soap opera “One Life to Live” and 11 episodes of “Gossip Girl“. Rainbow’s dad Paul is played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar who has had a variety of TV roles but is probably most remembered for “Saved by the Bell” and “NYPD Blue“. Tika’s performance bears little or no resemblance to the older version of Alicia who is played by Anna Deavere Smith in her 9 appearances on “black-ish”. However Gosselaar’s performance is most definitely reminiscent of Beau Bridges version of the character Paul in his three guests starring appearances on the original show.

Gary Cole does a wonderful job creating a new character of Paul’s father Harrison. Young 12-year-old rainbow Johnson is played by Arica Himmel has appeared on stage in off Broadway performances in a few guest performances on other recent TV series. She plays her part quite credibly and you really develop a sympathy for the difficult position she has put in with the culture shock and identity issues she is facing. Newcomers Ethan William Childress and Mykal-Michelle Harris are suitably cute and funny as Rainbow’s younger brother and sister. Alicia sister Denise known to the kids as Aunt Dee-Dee is also a very funny quirky character played by Chicago Second City alum Christina Anthony. She attempts to help the children get in touch with their African-American side.

The characters are suitably quirky. The writing is every bit as good as its parent program and the storylines of these biracial kids trying to make it in the world is actually more compelling than the storylines of “black-ish”.

Despite my already overcrowded TV schedule, I’m going to add this one to the mix and give it a rating of “I’m Watching“. If you like the first show at all I think this one will appeal to you. It risks becoming preachy like the original but if that doesn’t turn you off maybe you should check it out.