4 Best TV Shows Similar to Meet Marry Murder
Presumed Innocent
For a large segment of Gen X and Millennials, legal thrillers have an undeniable comfort food quality. These generational cohorts grew up as authors like Scott Turow and John Grisham rose to prominence, dominating best-seller lists. With that beachhead established, it wasn’t long before the legal thriller came to screens, large and small, via adaptations. While rarely deeply prestigious works, many, if not most, boasted big stars, well-established directors, and compelling enough storytelling. Presumed Innocent, an 8-part limited series—Apple provided critics with all but the final installment—arrives with that wind at its back for a considerable portion of the audience. It is further helped in the comfort department by being the second adaptation of the titular novel by Turow, following a well-regarded Alan Pakula-directed Harrison Ford-starring cinematic turn in 1990. The book also spawned a sequel and a made-for-TV adaptation of that sequel. Uh-oh. Jake Gyllenhaal and (Renate Reinsve) just spotted you across the bar. (AppleTV+) No one can accuse Turow’s Rusty Sabich (played here by Jake Gyllenhaal after Ford on the silver screen and Bill Pullman for the at-home audiences) of being the central star of a law and order-driven MCU. However, when it comes to legal thrillers, he’s about as close as you can get. Playing with that house money, creator David E. Kelley and star Gyllenhaal don’t exactly reinvent the wheel. Nonetheless, they offer a solid series to slip into just as summer kicks in. Continue Reading →
Manhunt
Making Abraham Lincoln or Hamish Linklater the least interesting thing about your television series is no easy feat. That's especially the case when it features Linklater playing the 16th President of the United States. Yet, somehow, the Monica Beletsky-created MANHUNT, adapted from the James L. Swanson tome of the same name, manages to do just that. And that is 100 percent a compliment. Often forgotten is that Lincoln was not John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle) and his co-conspirators’ only target. The schemers also marked Vice President Andrew Johnson (Glenn Morshower, an acting veteran turning in his best work.) and Secretary of State William Seward (Larry Pine) as targets. (The series additionally implies that the show’s lead, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Tobias Menzies), may have been on that list, but that doesn’t appear in historical texts.) By opening on the far larger plot that almost immediately unraveled due to bungling and cold feet, MANHUNT quickly asserts its intentions. While catching Booth is the series’ splashiest element, it is certainly not all it has on its mind. Tobias Menzies has hat, will travel. (AppleTV+) If anything, the eponymous search provides the show a means of taking stock of America immediately after the Civil War. Ping-ponging around in time, Manhunt provides a glimpse of how a collection of Americans experienced life after General Lee’s surrender. The derailing of a far more extensive restructuring of America feels every bit as mourned here as the fallen President. 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 →
A Murder at the End of the World
Hulu’s crime thriller/environmentalist warning is less than the sum of its references, but star Emma Corrin earns viewers’ attention. The plot for A Murder at the End of the World goes a little something like this. A wealthy tech genius invites a group of similarly impressive individuals—including a detective who seems not to belong—to an isolated location for not entirely clear reasons. A murder sets everyone on edge as competing interests suggest several suspects and impede a proper investigation. Things only get worse as more die, and a storm ensures the group has no means of immediate escape. If you find yourself thinking back to Glass Onion, rest assured you can’t be the only one. Functionally, the series plays as a kind of Anti-Glass Onion, the film’s cracked mirror image. While it is still plenty critical of the rich, it treats them with significantly more credulity. Their reputations earned, they’re genuinely talents apart from the rabble. The big issue isn’t that they're idiots and buffoons but that they’re squirreling away their gifts from the masses. Continue Reading →