‘Abbott Elementary’ Returns With a Warm, Melancholy Look at the Teaching Life: TV Review

Still feuding. After Kathy Hilton and Kyle Richards’ feud made waves during Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 12, the two sisters are showing no signs of reconciliation.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic Mike Flanagan has, of late, distinguished himself as one of Netflix’s signature creators and as a generational figure in the horror genre; though his past series for the streamer, including “Midnight Mass” and “The Haunting of Hill House,” have been of various quality overall and from episode to episode, they’re consistently interesting. His willingness to engage ideas with his scares sets him apart, perhaps more than it should. So it is with “The Midnight Club,” which Flanagan and Leah Fong co-created based on the work of YA novelist Christopher Pike. Here, Iman Benson plays Ilonka, a college-bound high school salutatorian who receives a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Ilonka is both a star student and an idealist; she researches Brightcliffe, a facility to which her foster father can take her to be placed into hospice, and holds in reserve a secret hope that there will, there, be a miracle cure for her. What she finds, first, is a circle of ill teens who gather when the clock strikes twelve to share scary stories; it’s a mordant nihilism they share, and a sense of indulgent pleasure in the knowledge that things could be worse: They could be fighting against cosmic forces of evil.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic Once again, the great cycle of culture has come back around to vampires. This year, TV has seen a new season of FX’s “What We Do in the Shadows” as well as the debuts of AMC’s “Interview With the Vampire,” Peacock’s “Vampire Academy,” and Netflix’s “First Kill” — all of which were based on existing intellectual property. It follows, then, that the latest entry into the genre would be drawn from a story that was big during the last great vampire craze. “Let the Right One In,” a 2004 Swedish novel that became a Swedish film in 2008, just in time for “Twilight”-mania — and followed by an American adaptation called “Let Me In” in 2010 — now inspires a Showtime series executive produced by Andrew Hinderaker of “Away” and “Penny Dreadful.” In its early going, the show is intriguing: Its central story, of the tremulous, growing bond between a young vampire (Madison Taylor Baez) and her socially isolated peer (Ian Foreman) is sweetly drawn. But the show falters in illustrating the world around its characters. Though the kids are at the heart of the show, their interactions tend to lack stakes.

Meredith Marks doesn’t seem to be letting Lisa Barlow off the hook.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic It’s been said that former President Donald Trump corrupts all who enter his orbit — that it’s impossible to deal directly with him without taking on his amorality and crassness. “The Lincoln Project,” a new documentary series on Showtime, depicts that process among his political opposition. Here, people devoted to ousting Trump mirror his rhetorical style and his self-regard. And it’s in subtly making this case that the documentary succeeds, even as it grows punishing to watch. The Lincoln Project, a circle of former high-level Republican strategists who made viral anti-Trump ads, seemed throughout the 2020 presidential election to be, Trumpishly, more focused on brand promotion than political work. “No one’s ever fucked with a candidate like we’ve fucked with a candidate,” Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson says early in the doc; those schemes include a Times Square billboard, attention-getting for attention’s sake.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight” is the single best film about journalism of our era. So while it comes as no surprise that the writer-director’s take on life at a daily paper for ABC is substantially better than the average 2020s network drama, it’s certainly good news. On the McCarthy-created “Alaska Daily,” Hilary Swank plays Eileen Fitzgerald, a high-powered newspaper reporter whose reporting comes into question in the pilot’s early going; her losing her job is as much about the claims against her work as it is about the fact that her sudden vulnerability opens up a conversation about her habit of talking down to colleagues. Suddenly, she’s spinning her wheels, endlessly reporting a book that may never see daylight; the conditions are perfect for her to accept the offer of a former mentor (“Scandal’s” Jeff Perry, excellent) to take a job in Anchorage.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic The first two seasons of “The Mole” came at a remarkable moment for the genre of reality TV. Premiering in 2001, the series was made during that brief and delicate time when competitors on mainstream broadcast unscripted series hadn’t yet figured out how to slip into the roles with which we’re familiar. Tasked with determining who among their number was sabotaging group challenges, the show’s cast members allowed themselves to be, well, themselves — ragged and un-telegenic and embarrassingly earnest and real. Eventually retooled into an all-celebrities format, the show lost what made it special and went away, but fans remember both the intrigue of the show’s gameplay and the rawness of its players.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic “East New York” fits neatly into CBS’ battery of dramas about law enforcement, from “The Equalizer” to the “CSI” revival. But credit it with this much: In its roundabout way, it has more on its mind than one might expect at first blush. Set in a Brooklyn neighborhood where the beginnings of gentrification rub up uncomfortably against families who’ve lived there for generations, “East New York” is relatively careful in its presentation of cops and policing as flawed tools in need of rethinking, and boasts a charismatic lead who can make you believe, for an hour of primetime, that such change might be possible. We meet Regina Haywood (Amanda Warren of “The Leftovers” and “Dickinson”) as she’s getting a manicure; the robbery of a dollar van outside gets her attention, and draws her out to the street. She’s very early in her tenure as precinct chief, and this comes as a wake-up call of sorts; Regina is, soon enough, working to reduce quotas for arrests on petty crime and chicanery in the interrogation room, all with a single-minded focus on addressing major crime’s root causes. Her long-term goal is for the cops she oversees to live in the neighborhood they defend; she’s willing to start with placing an eager underling, Officer Brandy Quinlan (Olivia Luccardi), in an apartment procured by city housing.

Kate Aurthur editor The cold open of the Sept. 28 Season 3 premiere of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” featured at the bottom of this post harks back to a more innocent time for the Bravo cast members — before it then reveals how their lives and friendships have exploded during the show’s run. The scene begins in December 2019 with the first confessionals the women filmed for the show’s freshman season, as they introduce themselves, and present their relationships to other cast members. Jen Shah — who in July of this year pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges, and will be sentenced (likely to prison) in November — attempts to explain her job, which she calls “direct response marketing.” As the audience now knows, Shah was in fact — as she’s now admitted — a high-up figure in a telemarketing scheme that defrauded tons of (often elderly) people. She was arrested during the filming of Season 2, practically on camera. And as Shah protested her innocence, the second season made much hay of her legal issues.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic “Reasonable Doubt” has a healthy amount of “Scandal” in its DNA. The series was created by former “Scandal” writer and producer Raamla Mohamed; Kerry Washington directs the first episode. And the swirling intrigue around a self-styled do-gooder protagonist — who’s unconventional in her methods, and irresistibly drawn to drama — will recall Olivia Pope, the character Washington played on the ABC drama. Back then, Olivia unwound with a glass of red wine; as if to flex the looser, loucher possibilities of streaming, Emayatzy Corinealdi’s Jax Stewart ends her day with a cigarette. That seems an apt distillation of a series that’s charged with a nervy energy; “Reasonable Doubt” places Corinealdi’s very flawed protagonist at its center and watches as she generates smoke, and steam. Jax is a former public defender who now works in high-profile criminal defense in Los Angeles; her attention is divided between her caseload and her attraction to a man she once defended, incarcerated for many, years but still a vivid part of her life.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic The rescue, in summer 2018, of a youth soccer team and their coach from a flooded cave system in Thailand remains one of the most outright inspiring stories of recent years. Amidst intense interest and scrutiny, an international team came up with a plan to anesthetize the boys and maneuver them out of the flooded caves before monsoon rains intensified. It’s a tense story, and one with an outcome that isn’t just upbeat but is genuinely astounding. Little wonder that it’s lent itself to repeated retellings, including last year’s documentary “The Cave” and this year’s quietly released Ron Howard drama “Thirteen Lives,” starring Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell as the heroic British cave divers.

Joshua Alston Among the entries in television’s recent reboot gold rush, “Quantum Leap,” NBC’s revival of its early-‘90s sci-fi drama, is arguably the series most deserving of a contemporary reimagining. That’s not because “Leap” was a blockbuster. It performed modestly enough to be considered a cult series by the standards of its era, clawing its way to just shy of 100 episodes across five seasons. But the high-concept hook is no less potent now than during the show’s heyday. The original found Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula), a gifted physicist, desperate to save the time-travel technology he’s been building on the government’s dime with too little to show for it. To prove his concept and save the project, Beckett tests the technology on himself to spectacular, if inconvenient results. Beckett can indeed hurl himself to and fro about the space-time continuum, but each “leap” plops him into the consciousness of a random person facing a consequential challenge. Once he solves the problems of his latest protagonist, he leaps again, each time hoping to land back in his own timeline.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic The story of Alexis Haines’ entanglement with a circle of Los Angeles-area home invaders has been told multiple times over: In the reporting of Nancy Jo Sales, who profiled her for Vanity Fair in 2010; on her own reality show, “Pretty Wild,” which aired on E! in 2010; and in Sofia Coppola’s 2013 film “The Bling Ring,” based on Sales’ work. Now, Haines (formerly Alexis Neiers), along with former associate Nick Norgo (formerly Nick Prugo), attempts to set the record straight in the Netflix documentary series “The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist.” The three-episode series sheds little light, and bulks out its running time with idle musings on fame that feel warmed over from the early 2010s. It’s not that Haines’ and Norgo’s stories, told with both respective parties’ permission in this doc, don’t have inherent interest: Both of them became entranced by the concept of celebrity and, as part of the “bling ring” cabal, stole cash and belongings from the homes of famous people, including Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Orlando Bloom. (One of their victims, “The Hills” personality Audrina Patridge, speaks to the camera for “The Real Bling Ring.”)

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic On the first episode of Jennifer Hudson’s new talk show, guest Simon Cowell was very gently criticizing the series “American Idol,” on which he had been a judge and Hudson had been a contestant. Remarking how he found the producers’ assignment for her to sing a Barry Manilow song (which she did the week she was sent home) to be unfair to her and outdated, Cowell generated the first semblance of real heat on the episode. Here was something, perhaps, with the frisson and excitement of real conversation. Hudson let it sit there, allowing a couple moments of silence before remarking “Simon being Simon,” then trailing off. This first episode began with a run-through of Hudson’s career achievements: From the sorrow of her “Idol” elimination during Barry Manilow Week to her casting in “Dreamgirls,” for which she would win an acting Oscar, to her successful recording career. Hudson has won all four major entertainment awards — an EGOT, which speaks to the somewhat mythic place she occupies in the celebrity landscape: The recipient of a second chance whose unabashedly showy voice couldn’t be constrained by a reality-show loss.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic Back as a full-scale production for the first time since 2019, the Emmys moved, in moments, with a refreshing fleetness. But much of the production seemed strangely stuck in a hazy past. Why, for instance, did host Kenan Thompson only uncork his best material after the first commercial break, after an opening during which he staggered through choreographed routines to TV theme songs? And why were those songs generally for series not honored at this year’s Emmys? We began with “Friends,” moved into “The Brady Bunch” — with a brief shoutout to the cast of that classic sitcom sitting in the audience, not to be mentioned again — and ended on “Game of Thrones,” the big winner at the last pre-COVID Emmys.

Kaley Cuoco and her boyfriend Tom Pelphrey put on a loved-up display as they finally made their red carpet debut at the 2022 Emmy Awards.SEE: The most glamorous Emmys red carpet looks from Kaley Cuoco to Mariska HargitayThe Flight Attendant star and her beau were caught giggling and looked smitten as they wrapped their arms around each other while posing for photographers outside the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles on Monday. Kaley and Tom made their romance official back in May, and they have been inseparable ever since.WATCH: Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey react to Emmy nominationsThe actress kept the romance theme going with her stunning outfit, opting for a pink tulle Dolce & Gabbana mini dress with floral embellishment that showcased her toned legs.

Walt Disney Pictures has been pushing forward with heaps of “live-action” remakes of classic films from their extensive film library, and one of the more recent attempts has been a modern spin on the hit 1989 film “The Little Mermaid.” The film wasn’t just popular with kids but made a strong impression on adults as well, as it ended up winning Oscar statues for Score and Best Song. This makes sense why Disney recruited singer Halle Bailey to play the live-action version of the mermaid princess, Ariel, along with hiring veteran director Rob Marshall (“Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides“) to helm the musical after tackling feature adaptations of “Chicago” and “Into The Woods.” We’ve all been curious about the project and finally landed our first look at the live-action remake thanks to the studio’s panel at D23 Expo and the very first teaser trailer.