Three to watch

Here’s a statistic to boggle the mind: By the end of 2015, more than 400 new scripted television shows (or, given ever-multiplying platforms, let’s just say filmed series) will have been produced. As one Rolling Stone wag put it, these days, instead of feeling guilty for watching too much television, we feel guilty for not watching enough.

So many options and providers can be overwhelming, but here are three standouts from the 2015 fall TV season.

Blindspot

NBC, Mondays, 10/9 Central

Blindspot bears the distinction of being the first network series this year to earn a full season order. For good reason. Like 2013’s big ratings winner, The Blacklist, it marries an extremely hooky long-form mystery to a traditional catch-a-bad-guy-every-episode cop procedural.

Warning though: NBC takes full advantage of the premise in which a woman wakes up in Times Square with no memory of who she is, covered with elaborate tattoos that hold the clues to stopping a series of crimes. Strategic shots of scantily clad star Jaimie Alexander may be pertinent to the plot, but the producers go overboard in showing her off.

The Last Kingdom

BBC America, Saturdays, 10/9 Central

Medieval (or medieval-ish) epics are having a moment on cable, as demonstrated by the success of Vikings and Game of Thrones. Now the same producers behind Downton Abbey have spared no expense (reportedly more than $15 million) to adapt Bernard Cornwell’s best-selling books, The Saxon Stories. Their investment shows. Their sweeping Anglo-Saxon world feels as authentic as it does removed from modernity, and they manage to bring the same sharp, relatable characterizations to the late ninth century that they did to the early 20th. And if the initial episode is indicative of the following seven, the series is focused more on story and less on sex and violence than its competitors.

That said, less sex and violence than Game of Thrones still leaves room for plenty. Though both are clothed from head to toe, one scene between hero Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon) and his love interest is still graphic, as are several instances of Viking savagery. Likewise, while the attempted rape of an underage girl may reflect actual events, the shot could have been handled in a briefer, less explicit way. When it seems as if the producers are reveling in the entertainment value of an assault nearly as much as the assaulters, time to go back to the editing bay.

The Man in the High Castle

Amazon Video on Demand, first episode available now, all 10 to be released on Nov. 20

Proof that increased competition results in increased quality: No pilot I watched this season shows more promise than Amazon’s streaming drama High Castle.

Based on the Philip K. Dick novel and executive produced by Ridley Scott, the alternate history sci-fi opens on an America in which Hitler is victorious and the eastern seaboard is now the province of the Germans. The west belongs to the Japanese with a sliver of Rocky Mountain states remaining neutral. Yet canisters of mysterious newsreels that begin to make their way into the hands of resisters show a different ending to the Second World War—an ending that includes American G.I.s celebrating in the streets of Manhattan.

With the exception of a few anachronistic-feeling profanities (including F-bombs), the first episode is a study in patiently drawing the viewer into a dense, intelligent storyline without wasting a moment on gratuitous junk. The phenomenal world-building throughout speaks of Scott’s years of experience with this kind of property.

Even more impressive, the logical conclusions of our twisted modern morality find their way into this socialist dystopia. When one character asks about the ashes he sees floating over a cornfield, another shrugs. “It’s the hospital. Tuesdays they burn cripples, the terminally ill. Drag on the State.” Later another casually observes, “Technology is not the measure of a great civilization.” Nice to see technology making this argument for once.

Listen to Megan Basham discuss these three new TV series on The World and Everything in It.