Modernized ‘House of Usher,’ ‘Frasier’ Rebooted, New Boss on ‘Transplant,’ Reality TV ‘House of Villains’

The Fall of the House of Usher

Mike Flanagan, the macabre mastermind behind modernized homages to Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House) and Henry James (The Haunting of Bly Manor), tackles Edgar Allan Poe’s oeuvre in an eight-part corporate immorality tale. The Ushers are now symbolic kin to the Sackler pharmaceutical dynasty, reaping a fortune from peddling addictive drugs. These venal, cruel vultures are dealt a bloody hand of karmic justice by a mischievous shape-shifting vixen (perfectly cast Carla Gugino) as the heirs of CEO Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) meet inventively grisly fates inspired by Poe’s haunting inventions (a black cat, a tell-tale heart, even a pit-and-pendulum callback). Among the welcome additions to Flanagan’s repertory company: Mary McDonnell as Roderick’s ice-cold sister Madeline and Star Wars icon Mark Hamill as the family’s gravel-throated fixer, Arthur Pym. (See the full review.)

Frasier

After nearly two decades, Kelsey Grammer steps back into the role of the lovably pompous pop psychiatrist Frasier Crane, returning to his Cheers roots of Boston in an uneven reboot that shines best whenever he’s in the spotlight. Launching with two episodes, directed by comedy master James Burrows, Frasier reconnects with his son Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), whose working-class tastes are more reminiscent of his late grandpa Martin—and there’s a shout-out to John Mahoney, who played Frasier’s cranky dad, with a local bar named in his honor. Don’t look for original Frasier or Cheers regulars to pop up in the first episodes, as the new/old series establishes an ensemble that includes scene-stealer Nicholas Lyndhurst as Frasier’s college buddy Alan, now a jaded and boozy Harvard professor, Anders Keith as his anxiously bumbling nephew David and Toks Olagundoye as Harvard’s psychology department head, desperate to land a celebrity like Frasier. (See the full review.)

Transplant

The Canadian medical drama, which first aired on NBC to fill a programming hole during the pandemic, returns to fill a hole left by the strike-altered fall season. Season 3 gets off to a solid start, introducing Rekha Sharma (Battlestar Galactica) as Dr. Neeta Devi, the new Chief of Emergency Medicine (replacing John Hannah’s Dr. Bishop, who resigned at the end of Season 2). Among the residents, Syrian refugee Bash (Hamza Haq) is applying for Canadian citizenship while assessing his relationship with Mags (Laurence Leboeuf), who’s moved from the ED to cardiology. Ambitious chief resident June (Ayisha Issa) is figuring out her next move, while a bearded Theo (Jim Watson) recovers from the cliffhanger helicopter crash that has put his psyche on edge.

House of Villains

The world of reality TV teems with characters you love to hate (or so I’m told), and this cheeky reality competition gathers some of the most infamous camera hogs to live under one roof while enduring physical, mental and emotional challenges, with one (only one?) sent home each week. The ultimate winner takes home $200,000 and “America’s Ultimate Supervillain” bragging rights. The players hail from The Apprentice (Omarosa), Survivor (Jonny Fairplay), The Bachelor (Corinne Olympios), The Real World/The Challenge (Johnny Bananas), Love Is Blind (Shake Chatterjee), Vanderpump Rules (Jax Taylor), Love & Hip Hop: Miami (Bobby Lytes), Flavor of Love (Tiffany “New York” Pollard), Bad Girls Club (Tanisha Thomas) and 90 Day Fiancé (Anfisa Arkhipchenko). Suddenly, the current cast of Dancing with the Stars doesn’t look so bad.

Loki

Why is Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) working at a 1980s McDonald’s? (Besides flagrant product placement.) It’s one of many timeline paradoxes as Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) try to make sense of things while General Dox (Kate Dickie) continues her destructive pruning crusade. Stealing the episode: Rafael Casal as Hunter X-5 aka Brad Wolfe, who in an alternate world is a movie star action hero, promoting his new “elevated thriller” Zaniac. Can’t blame him for wanting to stay there.

INSIDE THURSDAY TV:

• The Golden Bachelor (8/7c, ABC): Former Bachelorette and Dancing with the Stars champ Kaitlyn Bristowe joins host Jesse Palmer and man-of-the-moment Gerry Turner for a talent show featuring the remaining 12 women vying for the widower bachelor’s favor.
• Buddy Games (8/7c, CBS): Things get messy during a game in which the teams are quizzed on how well these friends truly know one another.
• Little Bird (9/8c, PBS): A Canadian drama series tells the story of Bezhig Little Bird (Darla Contois), who at age 5 was taken from her First Nations family in Saskatchewan to be adopted into an affluent Jewish family in Montreal, and as an adult is determined to rediscover her roots. House’s Lisa Edelstein co-stars as her adoptive mother.
• Keke Wyatt’s World (9/8c, WE tv): The R&B star and reality-TV veteran gets her own show, featuring her family who helps Keke get her life and career on track as she records a new album while nursing a new baby, her 11th child.
• Dateline NBC (10/9c, NBC): A note written by Wisconsin mother-of-two Julie Jensen before her 1998 poisoning death becomes a key piece of evidence implicating her husband Mark.
• True Crime Story: Citizen Detective (10/9c, SundanceTV; streaming on Sundance Now and AMC+): Over six episodes, a new True Crime Story offshoot features amateur sleuths investigating crimes that often hit close to home. In the opener, a family refuses to believe the official conclusion that a young mother’s death was caused by an accidental heroin overdose.

ON THE STREAM:

• Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House (streaming on Hulu): An unsettling “Huluween” documentary goes inside the immersive and controversial “haunted house” experience overseen by Navy veteran Russ McKamey, whose torture tactics some say go too far.
• Doom Patrol (streaming on Max): The misfit superheroes return for their final six episodes, taking on Immortus in their quest to save the world and regain their longevities.
• Wake (streaming on BET+): A high-concept thriller stars Shoniqua Shandai as an MIT physics professor whose condition of severe narcolepsy results in her believing she’s witnessed a murder by her famous rapper neighbor.