Set in the 1950s on Capitol Hill during the McCarthy era, “Fellow Travelers” (9 p.m., Sunday, Showtime, TV-MA) adapts the 2007 novel by Thomas Mallon about how the witch hunt to rid the government of homosexual “deviants” ruined the careers and lives of many talented men and women and came between the story’s main protagonists.
Matt Bomer (“Chuck,” “White Collar”) stars as Hawkins Fuller, a wounded war hero and impossibly good-looking staffer for liberal Sen. Wesley Smith (Linus Roache). While Smith assumes that Hawkins is destined to marry his daughter Lucy (Allison Williams, “Girls”), he is really a deeply closeted gay man who finds fleeting, furtive and anonymous trysts in the city’s gay demimonde. Until he begins to enjoy the company of Tim (Jonathan Bailey), an idealistic young man and deeply conflicted Catholic, newly arrived in Washington.
Hawkins arranges for Tim to get a job in the offices of the red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy (Chris Bauer), all but run by his counsel Roy Cohn (Will Brill), who hires a protege of his own, David Schine (Matt Visser), a very handsome heir to a hotel fortune. It only slowly dawns on Tim that he’s been hired as a spy.
“Travelers” doesn’t shy away from wading deep into the details and complexities of its time, its seeming contradictions as well as echoes of our current era.
While the McCarthy witch hunts traded in the homophobia of the day, it was widely rumored that Cohn’s interest in Schine was about more than their shared anti-Communism. And the series trades in tales that Sen. McCarthy was more than a bit “handsy” with male staffers.
The action bounces back and forth in time between the McCarthy era and the mid-1980s, when Hawkins, just a bit grayer, has become a prosperous family man and an established diplomat. He has clearly grown estranged from Tim, even as he hears through the grapevine that his old friend and lover is dying from AIDS. The deals and betrayals that separate the three decades (and divided the two men) is the story that unfolds.
Impressively produced, “Travelers” may remind some of a “Mad Men” for the McCarthy era, substituting mid-century Washington for Madison Avenue. But unlike that AMC production, it includes extensive and rather explicit sexual content that may be too much for some.
The fact that Hawkins’ life in the closet has inspired him to deal in sex from a violently dominating and dismissive attitude may be true to his character and to his time, but it’s still pretty rough stuff, which may be more than distracting for many.
— “The Gilded Age” (9 p.m. Sunday, HBO, TV-MA) returns for a second season. Set in Manhattan in the late 19th century, the time when robber barons and newly minted fortunes upset the social order of knickerbocker New York, “Gilded” is written and created by Julian Fellowes (“Downton Abbey”).
Bertha Russell (Carrie Coons), buttressed by her husband George’s (Morgan Spector) new fortune, seems more confident in her station and is trying to establish a new Metropolitan Opera to rival the Academy of Music, championed by the old-money crowd.
As in season one, much of the action concerns their more established neighbors, Ada and Agnes Brook (Cynthia Nixon and Christine Baranski), heirs to old Dutch families, who have taken in their penniless niece Marian (Louisa Jacobsen) and her friend Peggy, an ambitious Black woman from a proud and accomplished family, who works as Agnes’ secretary.
The social climbing, schemes and historical details seem interesting enough. The costumes and sets are gorgeous, and the production’s evocation of gaslit Manhattan seems less digitally fake than the first season’s bright lights and big city.
But Fellowes may have created too vast a canvas to maintain our interest. There is so much going on among the rich that he tends to ignore the striving of the servant class. “Downton” struck a much more entertaining balance between upstairs and downstairs.
Having watched hours of “The Gilded Age,” I’m still not sure who I am supposed to be rooting for or against. Who are the heroes and villains? The young characters who eventually find romance despite impossible odds? If you’re going to create a soap opera, even a high-class one like “The Gilded Age,” you still have to provide opportunities to cheer and to hiss.
For a very smart series, “The Gilded Age” can seem impossibly studded with fussy details and too frequently dull.
SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— College football action includes Tennessee at Kentucky (7 p.m., ESPN); Ohio State at Wisconsin (7:30 p.m., NBC/Peacock); Colorado at UCLA (7:30 p.m., ABC) and Cincinnati at Oklahoma State (8 p.m., ESPN2).
— The Texas Rangers host the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 2 of the World Series (8 p.m., Fox).
— An abusive man upsets a close-knit family in the 2023 shocker “Would You Kill for Me? The Mary Bailey Story” (8 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).
— While working a holiday job, a woman reconnects with friends from a former stint at a local pizzeria in the 2023 romance “Mystic Christmas” (8 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
— TCM invites viewers to compare and contrast Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 thriller “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (8 p.m., TV-PG), starring Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, with the original (10 p.m., TV-PG) from 1934, starring Peter Lorre.
— Nate Bargatze hosts “Saturday Night Live” (11:30 p.m., NBC, TV-14), featuring musical guest the Foo Fighters.
SUNDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— “60 Minutes” (7:30 p.m., CBS).
— Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy star in the holiday comedy “Hocus Pocus” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
— Cecil runs with a shady crowd on “Hotel Portofino” (8 p.m., PBS, TV-14, check local listings).
— The Los Angeles Chargers host the Chicago Bears in NFL Football (8:15 p.m., NBC).
— Chuck, Axe and Prince face off on the series finale of “Billions” (8 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).
— Peril in the skies on “World on Fire” on “Masterpiece” (9 p.m., PBS, TV-14, check local listings).
— Padre faces a supply shortage on “Fear the Walking Dead” (9 p.m., AMC, TV-MA).
— A threatened rancher takes a stand on “Billy the Kid” (9 p.m., MGM+, TV-MA).
— A Scottish tycoon drowns in his own fish tank on “Annika on Masterpiece” (10 p.m., PBS, TV-14, check local listings).
— A winner emerges on the conclusion of “The Great Halloween Fright Fight” (10 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
CULT CHOICE
Clint Eastwood stars in the 1973 vigilante thriller “Magnum Force” (8 p.m. Saturday, Sundance, TV-14).
SATURDAY SERIES
An officer and an undertaker on “NCIS: Hawai’i” (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14) … “48 Hours” (9 p.m. and 10 p.m., CBS).
SUNDAY SERIES
Bad press rattles John on “Yellowstone” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-MA) … A tech tycoon bamboozles Burns on “The Simpsons” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … Things get frisky on “Krapopolis” (8:30 p.m., Fox, TV-14).
Dreams and inspirations on “Bob’s Burgers” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … Peter is beside himself on “Family Guy” (9:30 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … “Big Brother” (10 p.m., CBS, TV-PG).
