If it feels like real-world heroes are in short supply these days, the fictional variety can be easily found on television. They may not conform to a particular heroic ideal, but they’re out there, and when their escapades click, they can be a treat to behold and even a little inspiring. Be they noble crusaders, antiheroes, or reluctant saviors, they come in all shapes, sizes, and genders, and the shows they populate can deliver drama, thrills, comedy … or something more atypical.
‘Lanterns’
Just this past weekend, Lanterns, an unconventional eight-episode police procedural inspired by DC Comics’ Green Lantern comic books, debuted on HBO and introduced its fractious buddy-cop duo: cocksure veteran Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and disciplined rookie John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). These policemen are a rare breed: two Earth-based members of an interstellar peacekeeping force called the Green Lantern Corps, whose officers each wield a cosmically powered ring that can respond to their will, enabling flight and creating temporary constructs to help them in their otherworldly crime-fighting. The milieu may be superheroic, but this particular series, developed by showrunner Chris Mundy (Ozark), screenwriter-producer Damon Lindelof (Lost), and award-winning comic book scribe Tom King, is a little more grounded.
As Jordan trains Stewart to be a new member of the force, a multiple-murder mystery in a small Nebraska town gets their attention. Although this is far more True Detective than it is Superman at the start, it references elements of DC’s current movies and TV programs and is expected to eventually take its pair of protagonists into space. Sci-fi aspects notwithstanding, it’s anything but a mindless mega-powered slugfest. The dual leads have great chemistry, with Jordan’s jaded attitude coming up against Stewart’s tightly wound diligence. As they unravel the truth behind the deaths they’re investigating, Lanterns explores what fuels the valiant actions of these very different men and reveals the consequences of their choices.
New episodes of Lanterns premiere Sunday nights on HBO.
‘Reacher’
Speaking of larger-than-life heroes with amazing gifts in gritty circumstances, Alan Ritchson is back as nomadic former U.S. Army M.P. Jack Reacher in the fourth miniseries adaptation of a novel about the character created by author Lee Child (Gone Tomorrow). This latest eight-episode season of Reacher, now in progress on Amazon Prime Video, brings the hulking, seemingly invulnerable do-gooder with an analytical brain and a gift for withering sarcasm to Philadelphia, where he witnesses a woman kill herself in a subway car. Initially a suspect in her death, Reacher finds himself the target of the local police department and a CIA black-ops unit, then starts to unravel a government conspiracy that endangers him and anyone connected to him.
As in the previous seasons of Reacher, the story is complex and engrossing; the fight scenes are brutal and precisely choreographed with at least one banger an episode; and the massive, taciturn Ritchson is the physical embodiment of the character from Child’s book series (unlike the comparatively diminutive Tom Cruise who played Reacher in two less than satisfying feature films that preceded the TV show). Ritchson also has a deadpan delivery that makes a certain well-muscled, stone-faced action star with a heavy Austrian accent seem positively histrionic. His gruff, scruffy demeanor aside, Reacher is a champion of ordinary people in dire straits, and he doesn’t stop his efforts until justice is served. It’s not hard to root for him, unless you’re a piece of work like the lazy Philly detective who referred to Reacher as “HoboCop” in a recent scene.
New episodes of Reacher premiere Wednesdays on Amazon Prime Video.
‘Stuart Fails to Save the Universe’
In the realm of unlikely heroes, beleaguered Stuart Bloom leads the pack. Stuart, played in total nebbish mode by Kevin Sussman, was a notable recurring presence on the monumentally popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory. He ran the Pasadena comic book store that was regularly patronized by Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj, the science nerds of TBBT, although he was never a core member of their peer group. With his less-than-lofty status there, it’s fitting that Stuart is the focal point of HBO Max’s Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, the first actual sequel to The Big Bang Theory. There have been two successful TBBT prequels: Young Sheldon and George & Mandy’s First Marriage, both of which were standard domestic sitcoms on CBS. Stuart Fails to Save the Universe is a different creature: a 10-episode single-camera comedy with plentiful special effects and no laugh track that follows the progress of Stuart and three other supporting characters from TBBT — his girlfriend Denise (Lauren Lapkus), his geologist buddy Bert (Brian Posehn), and their nemesis, quantum physicist Kripke (John Ross Bowie) — as they attempt to stop a multiversal Armageddon.
As the series begins, an alternate version of Stuart is trapped in the middle of an apocalypse. He’s visited by the original Stuart from TBBT, who tells him that he can set the universe right if he secures a device invented by Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard at Caltech. Only he flubs the assignment, inadvertently damaging the machine and sending himself, Denise, Bert, and Kripke from one amusingly messed-up universe to another. As much of a bumbler as Stuart is, he means well, and he displays a measure of heroism in his attempts to set things right. Franchise creator Chuck Lorre, his collaborator Bill Prady, and science-fiction screenwriter Zak Penn cleverly conceived the different dimensions. The laughs are organic to the ongoing plot and what we know about Stuart and his dimension-jumping companions. What’s more, there are alternates of TBBT mainstays Penny (Kaley Cuoco), Raj (Kunal Nayyar), Bernadette (Melissa Rauch), and Amy (Mayim Bialik) who pop in from time to time. Further enhanced by a few surprising cameos, a rousing show theme by Danny Elfman, and ever-changing opening credits sprinkled with Easter eggs, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe is an agreeable trip through familiar terrain that’s recalibrated enough to keep it fresh.
New episodes of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe premiere Thursdays on HBO Max.
