For all its flaws, “Saturday Night Live” used to consistently launch its cast members onto movie marquees. But changes in the film business have made that an impossibility in recent years. Nobody is becoming a movie star these days, except for a small handful of people. Even so, not enough of the NBC late-night staple has felt original or especially funny these days to warrant that kind of stardom.
Let me contradict myself to also point out that you can’t argue with a half-century milestone. On Feb. 16, “Saturday Night Live” will air its 50th anniversary special on network TV. No doubt “SNL’s” most famous alumni will be on hand, underscoring my nagging original question: When was the last time the show was an early platform for a breakout Hollywood star?
On Jan. 16, NBC’s streaming arm Peacock will also premiere a four-part docuseries called “SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night Live” that will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the show, including the audition process. Plenty of former cast members have been critical of the show’s sexism, its dearth of non-white performers and creative process overall, but I’m not expecting this in-house project to address any of that.
Here’s a wider look at the winter TV season, which includes more medical dramas (TV wouldn’t be TV without ’em) plus a Hollywood satire starring Seth Rogen and a new twist on Sherlock Holmes featuring Watson at the forefront.
“Doc” (Jan. 7 on Fox)
This medical drama is based on an Italian series about a doctor (Molly Parker) who has lost nearly 10 years of her memory after an accident. “Forced to re-acclimate to the present — with no recollection of a tragedy in her personal life and bereft of the medical knowledge she’s accrued over this time — she must return to being an intern and somehow rebuild her life from the fractured pieces which remain.”
“Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action” (Jan. 7 on Netflix)
The two-part docuseries about the long running and often notorious “Jerry Springer Show” will feature “first-hand testimony and revelations from show insiders” to uncover “a murkier picture” of the show. (The unhinged goings-on that transpired on the show were also the basis for an opera that premiered in London in 2003 called, fittingly enough, “Jerry Springer: The Opera.”)
“The Pitt” (Jan. 9 on Max)
HBO’s streaming platform, the inelegantly named Max, is getting into the weekly medical drama game. This may be a first, a streamer trying to emulate the kind of network shows that remain a staple. The 15-episode series stars Noah Wyle (oh hey, he knows his way around a medical drama) in a “realistic examination of the challenges facing healthcare workers in today’s America as seen through the lens of the frontline heroes working in a modern-day hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Each episode follows an hour of Dr. Robby’s (Wyle) 15-hour shift as the chief attendant in Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital’s emergency room.” My curiosity is piqued!
“On Call” (Jan. 9 on Amazon)
This half-hour police procedural is the first streaming series from Dick Wolf’s production company, which is the creative force behind the One Chicago franchise as well the “Law & Order” and “FBI” franchises. That’s quite a single-minded focus on fictional law enforcement stories. Co-created by Tim Walsh and Elliot Wolf, it’s being marketed as an “adrenalized and visceral police drama that follows a rookie and veteran officer duo as they go on patrol in Long Beach, California” that incorporates bodycam, dash-cam, and cellphone footage to create a cinema verité effect. The cast includes Eriq La Salle (who is an executive producer and director on the series).
“Severance” (Jan. 17 on Apple TV+)
The creepy-sardonic workplace drama starring Adam Scott and Patricia Arquette ended on a cliffhanger. Now it’s back, three years after it first premiered. Hang on, is that right? (Squints) Yep, three years. That’s no way to build anticipation! At any rate, there was a lot to like about show’s production design (conjuring a retro ’80s blandness) as well as its premise, where employees of a company agree to have a chip implanted in their brains that “severs” their memory in two: At work, they have zero knowledge of their life at home, and vice versa once they leave the office. An intriguing idea that probably would have worked better as a movie instead of dragging it out over nine episodes. By the end of Season 1, the workers learned an inconvenient truth about who is actually behind this cockamamie system. That’s presumably where Season 2 will pick up.
“Prime Target” (Jan. 22 on Apple TV+)
A conspiracy thriller in which mathematician is on the verge of a major breakthrough teams up with the NSA agent who has been spying on the work he and other mathematicians have been doing. What is this premise?
“The Night Agent” (Jan. 23 on Netflix)
I liked the first season of this show, about a young, square-jawed FBI agent relegated to a boring desk job on the overnight shift until he finds himself on the run, protecting a cybersecurity expert from nefarious forces inside the White House. In Season 2, he is working in the secretive organization known as Night Action that will propel him “into a world where danger is everywhere and trust is in short supply.” I mean, sounds just like Season 1. Not a critique, just an observation.
“Watson” (Jan. 26 on CBS)
Morris Chestnut is back on network TV playing Dr. Watson — yes, Sherlock’s old pal — who now gets to be at the forefront of his own medical procedural. I like Chestnut and I like the general Sherlock framework; here’s hoping it’s a winning combination. In the end, it will all come down to the writing. After the premiere in January, the series will have a two-week hiatus before returning for a weekly schedule on Feb. 16.
“Great Migrations: A People on the Move” (Jan. 28 on PBS)
The four-part docuseries from Henry Louis Gates, Jr. looks at the Great Migration of the early 20th century that saw Black people relocate across the U.S. from the American South, and asks: “What political or economic pressures inspire people to move? Is it more often inspired by hope or fear? Is there even such a thing as a promised land?”
“Good Cop/Bad Cop” (Feb. 19 on the CW)
Leighton Meester (“Gossip Girl”) stars with Luke Cook as “sibling detectives who don’t always see eye-to-eye, working together to solve crimes — and the strained relationship with their police chief father.”
“Reacher” (Feb. 20 on Amazon)
I’ve always liked the way Alan Ritchson both takes the role of Jack Reacher seriously, but is also in on the joke that is the character’s inherent absurdity. It’s a great tonal balance. The upcoming third season is based on author Lee Child’s novel “Persuader,” wherein Reacher “hurtles into the dark heart of a vast criminal enterprise when trying to rescue an undercover DEA informant whose time is running out.”
“A Thousand Blows” (Feb. 21 on Hulu)
From “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight, the six-episode series is set in the “perilous world of illegal boxing in 1880s Victorian London” and is apparently based on real people. The other day I read a harrowing account of now-retired pro boxer Heather Hardy, who (like so many other boxers) has brain damage as a result of her involvement with the sport. It’s why I have so little interest in boxing itself, but I understand why it proves to be a potent storytelling framework. As Hardy’s interviewer Hamilton Nolan puts it: “It seems to me like nobody goes into pro boxing unless their life outside the boxing ring is harder than a life inside the boxing ring would be.”
“Dope Thief” (March 14 on Apple TV+ series)
A crime drama adapted from Dennis Tafoya’s book of the same name about a group of friends in Philadelphia who pose as DEA agents to rob a house, and somehow “unwittingly reveal and unravel the biggest hidden narcotics corridor on the Eastern seaboard.” Brian Tyree Henry stars.
“Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light” (March 23 on PBS’s Masterpiece)
Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis are back, playing Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII respectively, in the final chapter of author Hilary Mantel’s literary trilogy about the 16th century British monarch.
“The Studio” (March 26 on Apple TV+)
Seth Rogen stars in this 10-episode Hollywood satire (can anything match the heights of “The Comeback”?) as the head of a movie studio. His team of “infighting executives battle their own insecurities as they wrangle narcissistic artists and craven corporate overlords in the ever-elusive pursuit of making great films. With their power suits masking their never-ending sense of panic, every party, set visit, casting decision, marketing meeting and award show presents them with an opportunity for glittering success or career-ending catastrophe.”
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.
