11 Best TV Shows Similar to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
The Acolyte
“Brief, they made a monk of me; I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house, Continue Reading →
Mayor of Kingstown
It is, perhaps, unseemly to admit. Still, the fact that Jeremy Renner, who plays morally conflicted series protagonist Mike McLusky, survived a near-death experience does give Mayor of Kingstown Season 3 a draw that the crime show might not otherwise have. What’s immediately apparent in the series opener—and more than a little surprising—is how good Renner looks onscreen. While Mike, the character, is burdened with the weight of Kingstown’s concerns and his sin, Renner, the actor, seems lighter somehow. It doesn’t undermine the performance, though. Instead, it adds a dimension. For the first time, Mike seems like he’s rushing. It gives him—and season 3—a stronger sense of immediacy. It’s as though he’s seeing a different crisis, one bigger but not as immediate, coming down the road, and he’s rushing to set his house in order before it arrives. If anything, Mayor of Kingstown Season 3 would do well to better match its star’s energy and anxiety. The series has plenty of activity but no real sense of forward momentum. In real life, bringing change to a place like Kingstown would be a miserable challenge. So it is realistic when things barely change or do change only to be threatened by figures from the past, like Merle Callahan (Richard Brake), darkening Kingstown’s doorstep. Continue Reading →
Criminal Record
AppleTV+’s new crime drama compellingly juggles issues of race, internal politics, and family dynamics. Criminal Record drips with a sinister sense of foreboding in the first episode’s cold opening. Daniel Hegarty (Peter Capaldi), a high-ranking cop moonlighting as a car service driver, guides an age-mismatched couple to their destination, trying to play nice with them. The man of the lovers obnoxiously probes Hegarty for gruesome tales. In reply, the detective briefly indulges them before trailing off. To bring things to a close, he declares he’s seen far worse than what he’s described, and more often besides. Nothing more happens. We never see the couple again. Presumably, Hegarty got them where they were going without anything further of interest occurring. Still, the scene bristles and pulses with danger. One can easily imagine Hegarty arresting them both. Or, worse, revealing his corruption and killing them both. Criminal Record isn’t that kind of show, as it turns out. However, the series smartly sets its tone in those early moments. No matter what it shows the audience after that, it’s impossible to shake the sense that this aging cop, played by Capaldi as somehow both spry and fragile, could be a ticking time bomb. Continue Reading →
True Detective
Jodie Foster and Kali Reis shine as a pair of detectives investigating an increasingly surreal crime. In Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt mysteries, the title character is a brilliant, eccentric detective haunted by the unsolved disappearance of one of her closest friends. Her cases are vitally recognizable and beautifully surreal. When The Infinite Blacktop, the most recent entry in the series, was released in paperback, Gran held a giveaway, including a copy of the book and some fun feelies. On one of those, a pen, the following was printed: “Open your eyes and learn to see that truth lives in the ether.” In the course of thinking about Issa López (Tigers Are Not Afraid)’s excellent True Detective: Night Country, it’s a line that’s been on my mind. It's the end of 2023. In Ennis, Alaska, the eccentric scientists of the Tsalal research station vanish just as the long polar night sets in. Ennis police chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and detective-turned-trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) know that something is not right. Though bitterly estranged, the former partners share a drive to discover what happened at Tsalal and why. Their need to get to the truth only intensifies after the scientists are discovered in a ghastly, bizarre state—a collective corpsicle, all of them nude and visibly terrified. Continue Reading →
Reacher
The Prime series remains its big, fun, very violent self. Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson), the “has toothbrush, will travel” man, has returned to television and not a moment too soon. Reacher Season 2 is exactly the kind of low-commitment viewing one craves as the year ends and the holidays overtake everyone’s lives. While a large, jolly man busies himself filling many of our stockings, who better to enjoy than a large, angry man knocking bad guys out of their socks? Especially when, like this time, it’s personal! Reacher and Neagly (Maria Sten, back from Season 1 and fully second on the callsheet this time, thankfully) first met when they were members of the 110, an investigative military police unit. As seen in flashback, the group is the last time Reacher had anything approaching a stable group of friends. In the present day, several team members have gone missing, suggesting that perhaps someone is targeting them. Reacher connects with Neagly and the two join up with the only other two 110 members they can find. O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos) is the unit clown and womanizer turned family man and inside the beltway fixer. Dixon (Serinda Swan) is a forensic accountant/warrior who shares an obvious but unconsummated crush with Reacher. Continue Reading →
Fargo
The crime drama returns to the Land of 10,000 Lakes and rediscovers its best storytelling self. Throughout the six episodes of Fargo Season 5 screened for critics, the series isn’t exactly subtle. From opening the season with an on-screen graphic defining “Minnesota Nice” as neighbor attacks neighbor during a school board meeting to Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm) staring up at a campaign billboard of himself, the show loudly states its theses at the viewer over and over. However, it never feels like creator Noah Hawley has lost control of the storytelling. It’s methodically over-the-top. The audience is on a roller coaster, but they can feel the quality of the engineering keeping them on the tracks. In other hands, this approach can feel alienating or blunting. Fargo Season 5 benefits from meeting Hawley’s signature energy with a game cast and impressively insightful art direction. As a result, the series turns in its best offering since Season 2’s near-perfect effort. Continue Reading →
Fatal Attraction
Fatal Attraction is an interesting study of how a controversial movie’s takeaway message can completely change, largely because audiences have changed. It’s a stylish, well-crafted film that spawned dozens of lesser imitations, and comes off as totally different when viewed from a 21st-century perspective. The carefully delineated roles of “hero” and “villain” are something murkier: we now understand that protagonist Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) isn’t entirely clear with Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) that their torrid fling is just that, a no-strings-attached encounter that means nothing to him. We see that Alex is done dirty with a script that depicts her as a one-note monster who must be defeated in the name of preserving the nuclear family. When even the YouTube commentariat largely agrees that Dan leads Alex on, you know the tide of public opinion has turned. Continue Reading →
Hacks
Season 1 of Hacks literally left things up in the air with Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder), as they boarded Vance’s private jet back to Las Vegas. Deborah has convinced reluctant writer Ava to join her on tour. Unbeknownst to Deborah, Ava’s aired their dirty laundry via email to a team of British writers, who are keen to use the material as inspiration for a horrible boss-type sitcom. Ava’s in full crisis mode when news of her email reaches manager Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) as she boards the flight. Continue Reading →
Astrid & Lilly Save the World
Into every generation, a teen horror drama is born: one series in all the media landscape; a chosen show. It alone will wield the quips and metaphors needed to fight the supernatural villains, social pressures, and other various youthful troubles. To stop the spread of standard high school melodramas and the swell of their number. It is...the newest supernatural young adult T.V. series. Continue Reading →
Dexter
It is difficult to imagine the people who, after Dexter’s largely despised series finale, felt that more Dexter would solve the problem. When you recall the last season of Dexter was also largely despised, it becomes even more challenging. Add in that, for many, the writing on the wall started even earlier, and it becomes damn near impossible. And yet, here is Dexter: New Blood. Continue Reading →