Fall TV: A binge-worthy line up
Jacob Pitts
Staff Writer
There are plenty of new and returning shows to fulfill students’ binge-watching needs during the upcoming season of spooks and scares.
Halloween is only one month away, and 2017’s roster of fall shows contain varying degrees of the creep factor, which means something for brave souls and scaredy-cats alike.
One of this fall’s most hotly-anticipated shows, “American Horror Story”, is back for its seventh season. Subtitled “Cult”, the new batch of episodes tackles social issues, such as race relations in the wake of last fall’s presidential election. It also features the return of the murderous Twisty the Clown.
Evan Peters and the Emmy Award-winning Sarah Paulson reprise their ever-changing, starring roles; this year as Kai, a smug Trump supporter, and Ally, an anxiety-ridden restaurant owner with a fear of clowns, respectively.
Also in a lead role is Billie Lourd, playing Kai’s sister, Winter, a Hillary Clinton campaigner. The show is backed by a large list of celebrity guest actors, including Billy Eichner, Colton Haynes, Emma Roberts and Lena Dunham. AHS: Cult blends horror with political satire, and can be caught on Tuesdays at 10:00p.m. on FX.
One of last year’s biggest breakout hits was “Stranger Things,” a Netflix original series about a mother’s search for her missing son in an Indiana town plagued by mysterious occurrences.
Having taken inspiration from “The Goonies,” Steven Spielberg films and Stephen King novels of the 1980s, “Stranger Things” put Winona Ryder back on the map and was also recently nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards.
The new season is set to be available for streaming on October 27th, and since the first season is only eight episodes, it shouldn’t take long at all for newbies to catch up before then.
While an official release date still has yet to be announced, fans of “Black Mirror” will be excited to hear that the sci-fi anthology’s fourth season has been filmed and is waiting in the wings.
Initially having aired overseas in Britain, “Black Mirror” became a Netflix original starting with its third season, which blew up and produced the critically acclaimed episodes “Nosedive” and “San Junipero.”
Much like a modern-day successor to “The Twilight Zone”, each episode has its own self-contained story, which usually deals with chilling scenarios brought on by up-and-coming technologies. It might seem far-fetched upon first viewing, but the more one dwells on it, the more it seems within the realm of possibility.
For those who prefer their post-homework viewing lighter on the frights, “Star Trek: Discovery” is coming to CBS. After the success of J.J. Abrams’s film trilogy reboot of the original series, Discovery marks the first time a new Star Trek series has been on TV since the cancellation of Enterprise in 2005.
Only the premiere will be on the airwaves, though, since the rest of Discovery is exclusively available on CBS’s on-demand streaming service, CBS All Access.
The show stars “The Walking Dead” actress Sonequa Martin-Green, who plays Michael Burnham, officer of the USS Discovery, who is taken in by Spock’s father, Sarek. The cast is rounded out by Jason Isaacs, iconic Bond girl Michelle Yeoh and “The Office’s” Rainn Wilson. While Discovery’s premiere comes over 50 years after that of the original series, it takes place a decade before its events.
Other lighter offerings can be found on The CW, home to DC Comics’ “Arrowverse.” The Arrowverse is made up of four other superhero shows: Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl.
The plots of all four are interconnected, and the cast of each one also makes guest appearances on the others. They all return on the week of October 9th, with “Supergirl” first on Monday, “The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow” on Tuesday and “Arrow” on Thursday, following “Supernatural.”
Later on in the year, a gigantic four-way crossover is planned between the shows, which is sure to be action-packed and game-changing for the Arrowverse.
Regardless of your prefered method of viewing or your personal fright-level, this year delivers an endless variety of viewing material to get students in the groove for Halloween.