‘Fall’ for Netflix’s Stylish Black Western, A Pivotal ‘Survivor’ Moment, ‘Million’ Time Jump, Airborne ‘CSI’ Mystery

Movie Premiere

With a flourish that has been likened to Tarantino, first-time director Jeymes Samuel enlists an all-star Black cast to bring real-life legends to life in a buzzworthy revenge Western. Lovecraft Country’s Jonathan Majors stars as the Robin Hook-like outlaw Nat Love, whose nemesis Rufus Buck (Luther’s Idris Elba) has just been released from prison, setting up a showdown between their two gangs. The outstanding cast includes Regina King as “Treacherous” Trudy Smith, Atlanta’s Zazie Beetz as Stagecoach Mary, LaKeith Stanfield as Cherokee Bill and co-stars Delroy Lindo, Damon Wayans Jr. and Edi Gathegi among others. Saddle up!

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As often happens on this show about endurance and strategy, the person seen as most endangered can somehow turn the tables. That could happen with Erika, who was sent to Exile Island upon the merge with a target on her back, only to learn that she now has the power to choose to reverse the outcome of the immunity challenge and send the perceived victors to tribal council upon her return. Will she?

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Leapfrogging over six months of misery for this crew, the show jumps forward in time to reveal Maggie (Allison Miller) finally having success both professionally and personally, while her ex, Gary (James Roday Rodriguez), is still coping with his past. Rome (Romany Malco) faces another possible setback with his film, while wife Regina (Christina Moses) has her own drama to deal with. Because when don’t they?

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One of the reasons the original CSI was such a hit was the quality of its outlandish mysteries. Continuing the tradition, Vegas sends its team to investigate a variation on the locked-room puzzle, involving a cargo plane that lands autonomously with everyone on board having been killed. Back at HQ, Grissom (William Petersen) and Sara (Jorja Fox) get closer to figuring out who framed Hodges.

In another powerful episode of the docudrama about the scourge of OxyContin, cold-blooded pharma mogul Richard Sackler (Michael Stuhlbarg) devises a strategy to “hammer the abusers” to convince critics that the ODs are a law enforcement, not a medical, problem. (Adding to the subterfuge: former prosecutors like Rudy Giuliani are now in private practice, representing Purdue and its lethal drug.) Thankfully, the state attorneys and DEA crusader Bridget Meyer haven’t given up, unearthing evidence of the faulty science used to market the drug while linking more deaths to common usage. For the addicts, including the former Dr. Fennix (Michael Keaton) and his one-time patient Betsy (Kaitlyn Dever), the road to recovery continues to be harder than anyone imagined.

Inside Wednesday TV:

• Dr. Brain (streaming on Apple TV+): Could lightning strike again? The latest far-out export from South Korea, this six-part thriller from director Kim Jee-woon stars Parasite’s Lee Sun-kyun as a brain scientist who resorts to experimental “brain syncs” with the dead to access the memories of his family, who perished in a mysterious accident.
• Wild Tales from the Farm (8/7c, Smithsonian Channel): Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville narrates a four-part series about the secret lives of animals on a 500-acre English farm. Perfect for those counting the days until All Creatures Great and Small returns to PBS in January.
• The Wonder Years (8:30/7:30c, ABC): Character actor Richard Gant guests as Dean’s (Elisha “EJ” Williams) Granddaddy Clisby, whose car is bequeathed to Kim (Laura Kariuki), but only if she chauffeurs him and Dean around town. Dean isn’t thrilled when gramps joins him and his buds at the mall, but Clibsy has some tricks up his sleeve. (Grown-ups provide much of the wonder on this series.)
• Secrets of the Dead: The First Circle of Stonehenge (10/9c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): Archaeologists use state-of-the-art tools of geotechnology to explore the murky history of the fabled ancient stone circle, built on a hillside in West Wales before being moved to Salisbury Plain.
• Chicago PD (10/9c, NBC): Sgt. Voight (Jason Beghe) forges a bond with new CI Anna Avalos (Carmela Zumbado) while trying to bring down a drug ring, but she may have her own agenda.