Loosely based on a tale by Edgar Allan Poe, the eight-episode limited series “The Fall of the House of Usher” launches on Netflix. Featuring a game cast including Bruce Greenwood, Carla Gugino, Mary McDonnell and Mark Hamill, “Usher” offers a lush and violent tale of a family-run pharmaceutical corporation that is characterized as a crime family — in court, no less.
Following the logic of the Poe tale, a figure from their past reemerges to take out members of the Usher family, via one grisly murder after another.
To call this over-the-top is an understatement. It arrives on the heels of a number of series, films and documentaries chronicling the evil deeds of the Sackler clan, whose Purdue Pharma sold America on Oxycontin, sparking an opioid crisis that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, decimated whole communities and put its thumb on the bloody scale of American demographics with enough force to lower the life expectancy of an entire nation. Now that is the grist for a horror tale of murder and revenge.
“Usher” may touch upon these real monsters in our midst, but it also suggests that only a supernatural force can administer justice. Not unlike Marvel movies, it suggests that as mere citizens we are powerless to act and require a hero to save us. So we might as well be entertained.
— Will we be entertained by a new “Frasier” streaming on Paramount+?
Kelsey Grammer stars in this third iteration of his lovably pretentious character as he moves from Seattle, where “Frasier” (1993-2004) was set, to Boston, the scene of “Cheers” (1982-1993).
Here he tries to bond with his son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott). He may not be entirely welcome.
Frasier also reconnects with an old college friend, Alan (Nicholas Lyndhurst), presumably sophisticated enough to get all of Frasier’s impossibly posh references.
The original “Frasier” gained power from its meditation on how education and sophistication had estranged Frasier and his equally fussy brother, Niles, (David Hyde Pierce, unseen here) from their blue-collar father, Martin (the late John Mahoney). The first “Frasier” was very much a show about “boomers,” arriving the very year Bill Clinton was inaugurated.
Father and son bickering masked a bittersweet reconciliation between generations and suggested that a so-called “yuppie” and his six-pack-loving dad could live under the same roof.
This new “Frasier” arrives at a time when boomers are shuffling off to retirement homes, extended vacations and that big Woodstock in the sky. Economic disparities and more than a decade of social media have engineered a meme-driven distrust between generations. COVID revealed a kind of “they’re-old-already-let-them-die” contempt that had remained hitherto unspoken.
So we’ll have to see how Dr. Frasier Crane’s witty bon mots about vintage bottles of Margaux will sit with Freddy. Or with audiences.
Will this series face a quick hook, like the unwelcome return of “Murphy Brown”? Or limp along cantankerously like Tim Allen’s “Home Improvement” reboot “Last Man Standing”?
— PBS imports the Canadian series “Little Bird” (9 p.m., TV-14, check local listings), about a woman (Darla Contois) taken from her Indigenous community and adopted by a Jewish Canadian family in 1968. “Bird” can also be streamed at PBS.org.
— Britbox streams the 2016 miniseries adaptation of John le Carre’s novel “The Night Manager,” starring Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddelston, Tom Hollander, Olivia Colman and Elizabeth Debicki.
— Prime Video streams the Thursday Night Football between the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs.
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— Benson turns the other cheek on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).
— The Canadian medical procedural “Transplant” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-14) returns for a third season.
CULT CHOICE
The ageless George Burns stars as the almighty in the 1977 comedy “Oh, God!” (4 p.m., TCM, TV-PG), directed by Carl Reiner and co-starring Teri Garr and John Denver.
SERIES NOTES
“Big Brother” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … “Hell’s Kitchen” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … “The Golden Bachelor” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … “Buddy Games” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … “Lego Masters” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
“Bachelor in Paradise” (9 p.m., ABC, TV-14) … “The Challenge: USA” (10 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … “Dateline” (10 p.m., NBC, r).
LATE NIGHT
John Mulaney and Darius Rucker are booked on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (11:35 p.m., CBS) … Jimmy Fallon welcomes Raye on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … Josh Duhamel and Maneskin appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (11:35 p.m., ABC).
Jason Blum and Greg Clark Jr. visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC) … Eddie Ifft, Greg Hahn, Marianne Sierk and Tommy Davidson appear on “Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen” (12:35 a.m., CBS).
