A period drama blending comic visual touches, graphics and ironically chosen corny pop tunes with tragic backstories, the new series “Lessons in Chemistry” adapts Bonnie Garmus’ 2022 novel, streaming on Apple TV+.
“Lessons” glances back at the 1950s through a particularly contemporary lens, exploring issues including racist city planning, sex discrimination and patriarchal attitudes enforced with both clubby smugness and personal violence.
Brie Larson stars as the brilliant and aspiring chemist Elizabeth Zott, introduced as the host of an innocuous black-and-white TV cooking show. She offers recipes with laboratory precision and a demeanor that ranges from disdainful to grim. “Chemistry” then flashes back to her path to the kitchen and the TV studio.
We see her as a lab assistant at Hastings, a corporate chemistry facility with a reputation burnished by the presence of its eccentric star, scientist Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman).
Serious and hard-working, Elizabeth becomes a curiosity in an environment where the rest of the women are secretaries and assistants pursuing their “Mrs. degree” with a vengeance. They can’t understand her need to do independent research. They consider her a snob for refusing to participate in the corporate beauty pageant. “Would it kill you to smile?” becomes a constant taunt aimed in her direction.
We soon learn that her grim reserve is born of pain. On the cusp of embarking on her Ph.D., she is sexually assaulted by an academic mentor and then asked to formally apologize for forcefully defending herself.
Evans, the eccentric chemist, becomes the only other person she can talk to at Hastings, and they soon develop “chemistry” in all meanings of the term. Yet even their intimate dialogue seems formal and stilted.
Elizabeth is clearly traumatized, and Evans operates somewhere on the autism spectrum. That term was probably not coined at the time, but it wouldn’t be the only anachronism in this ardent effort.
Having not read the book, I can only assume that Elizabeth’s unceasing deadpan delivery could seem more amusing or sympathetic on the page.
Depicted on screen, it progresses from strange to wearisome and even dreary. For all her tragedy and brilliance, Elizabeth emerges as a one-dimensional character, better suited to propaganda than drama.
— CBS introduces a new game show — if that’s even possible. Damon Wayans Jr. and Jeannie Mai host “Raid the Cage” (9 p.m., TV-PG).
Teams of pairs are encouraged to enter an area surrounded by Plexiglas walls and grab as many goodies as they can before the walls close in on them. If they escape in time, they can keep their stuff. Players can also increase their time in the consumer-item-filled cage by answering trivia questions.
In promotional clips, Wayans jokes about the show encouraging shoplifting. And the frantic action here does resemble a looting rampage.
At a time when many urban centers and retail stores have been plagued by shoplifting gangs, one may quibble at the timing or the wisdom of this new variation on the ancient “Supermarket Sweep” game show that first aired on ABC in 1965. “Raid the Cage” was first developed for Israeli television.
— “Shining Vale” (9 p.m., Starz, TV-MA), starring Courteney Cox and Greg Kinnear, begins its second season.
— The horror anthology “Creepshow” enters its fourth season on Shudder and AMC+. Shudder also streams the 2023 shocker “The Puppetman.”
— The eight-episode adaptation of “Goosebumps” begins streaming on Disney+.
— Feeling cheated, an old-school funeral home operator (Tommy Lee Jones) hires an aggressive litigator (Jamie Foxx) in the 2023 drama “The Burial,” streaming on Prime Video.
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— “Jada’s Story” (8 p.m., NBC) presents an interview with Jada Pinkett Smith.
— “Next at the Kennedy Center” (9 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) presents “Robert Glasper’s Black Radio.”
— Danny’s fuse grows shorter on “Blue Bloods” (10 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
CULT CHOICE
Set in 1630, the 2015 horror film “The Witch” (8 p.m., Cinemax) follows a family exiled into the deep woods by an unforgiving Puritan community who come to fear that their daughter has fallen for dark forces. The film marked the directorial debut of Robert Eggers (“The Lighthouse”) and the cinematic debut of Anya Taylor-Joy (“Queen’s Gambit,” “The Menu”).
SERIES NOTES
“The Price Is Right At Night” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … “WWE Friday Night SmackDown” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … An entrepreneur serves up frozen beef Wellington on “Shark Tank” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … “Dateline” (9 p.m., NBC) … “20/20” (9 p.m., ABC).
LATE NIGHT
Jimmy Fallon welcomes Kelly Clarkson on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC ) takes an hour-long “Closer Look” … Gary Gulman, Pauly Shore, Carlos Alazraqui and Alonzo Bodden yuk it up on “Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen” (12:35 a.m., CBS, r).
