With “This Is Us” beginning to wind down its third season (its season finale airs April 2), NBC introduces another feel-good drama, as it did last year with the disappointing “Rise.” It’s another effort to woo viewers who are already watching the network Tuesday nights.
“The Village” (10 p.m. Tuesday, WPXI-TV) is certainly better and more ambitious than “Rise,” but it’s no “This Is Us.” Often, “This Is Us” comes by its emotional moments believably and naturally. For its lack of subtlety, “The Village” would be more aptly titled “All! The! Feels!”
Set in a Brooklyn apartment building called The Village, the drama series chronicles the unlikely intertwined lives of the tenants who know one another by name and gather for a weekly party in this dream-like image of New York apartment living.
There’s single mom nurse Sarah (Michaela McManus, “Aquarius”), whose politically minded, anti-war teenage daughter, Katie (Grace Van Dien), turns up pregnant. Sarah also has to mind elderly Enzo (Dominic Chianese, “The Sopranos”), who lives in a nursing home but really wants to be roomies with grandson Gabriel (Daren Kagasoff, “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”), who lives in The Village complex where Sarah and Katie reside.
The apartment building is run by Ron (Frankie Faison, “The Wire”), who also owns a bar, and Patricia (Lorraine Toussaint, “Any Day Now”), who gets bad news at a doctor’s appointment on the same day ICE comes for neighbor Ava (Moran Atias, “Tyrant”), who leaves her son with New York cop and neighbor Ben (Jerod Haynes).
And that’s all before war vet Nick (Warren Christie, “October Road”) moves in and brings a three-legged dog with him because of course he does!
Blatantly manipulative, “The Village” rarely earns the emotional responses it so assiduously attempts to wring out of viewers.
“They laid a trap for a poor, defenseless woman,” Patricia says of Ava’s situation with ICE. “They don’t know they’ve caught themselves a tiger!”
Miraculously, through the first two episodes, none of the characters actually say, “It takes a village…,” but that’s clearly the vibe series creator/writer Mike Daniels (“The Brave”) wants viewers to take away.
‘Shrill’ on Hulu
In recent years “Saturday Night Live” star Aidy Bryant proved to be one of that show’s most valuable players, particularly in her skewering portrayal of White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
But in the new half-hour Hulu series “Shrill,” streaming Friday [now streaming for print version], Ms. Bryant does more than comedy. She turns in a heartfelt, entirely believable, often dramatic performance.
Inspired by the Lindy West essay collection “Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman,” Ms. Bryant stars as Annie, a plus-size writer with low self-esteem who takes condescension from her alt weekly editor boss Gabe (John Cameron Mitchell, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”) with a smile and embarrassment from the guy she’s sleeping with, Ryan (Luka Jones, “Best Friends Forever”), with a sad acceptance (he makes her leave by the backdoor after sex so his roommates don’t see her).
And she endures backhanded criticism from strangers with an uneasy grace (“There’s a small person inside of you dying to get out,” a personal trainer tells Annie.)
But a crisis stimulates some latent backbone in Annie. She refuses to continue to be a doormat and takes charge of her life. Initially that new attitude proves to be of the two steps forward, one step back variety, but it’s still rousing to see Annie’s empowered self emerge.
While a half-hour series, given its subject matter about female body image and a woman made to feel less than, “Shrill” is as much a drama as it is a comedy in early episodes. Toward the end of the season — all episodes are available at its debut — the balance reverses to prioritize the funny over the dramatic. Ms. Bryant is not as zany as she’s called to be on “SNL,” instead giving a down-to-earth performance in a grounded roll that’s sometimes searing in its emotional honesty.
Kept/canceled/rebooted
AXS TV renewed wrestling show “WOW-Women of Wrestling” for a second season.
NBC renewed “The Blacklist” for season seven.
Hallmark has severed ties with actress Lori Loughlin (“When Calls the Heart,” “Garage Sale Mysteries”) after she was charged in a college admissions bribery scandal this week.
Showtime canceled “SMILF” after two seasons (and an ongoing investigation into the star and executive producer Frankie Shaw’s alleged misconduct).
HBO canceled “Crashing” after three seasons.
Netflix canceled the critically acclaimed “One Day at a Time” after three seasons.
Bronies, drown your sorrows: Discovery Family’s “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” will end after its ninth season, which premieres at 11:30 a.m. April 6.
Vulture.com reports ABC will reboot 1980s game shows “Card Sharks” and “Press Your Luck.”
Channel surfing
Kennedy McMann, a 2018 grad of Carnegie Mellon University’s drama program, has been cast in the title role of The CW’s “Nancy Drew” reboot pilot. … NBC News Now, a free ad-supported streaming service, will launch in May. ... The Oscar-winning documentary "Free Solo" is now available via the streaming service Hulu. ... WQED-TV explores Pittsburgh’s changing workforce needs in "Future Jobs: Growing Our Region's Workforce" (8 p.m. March 21). … WTAE-TV’s “Chronicle” debuts its first episode in the post-Sally Wiggin era with Janelle Hall and Andrew Stockey hosting an hour on neighbors bridging gaps and confronting divides in “Project CommUNITY” (8 p.m. March 22).
Tuned In online
Today’s TV Q&A column responds to questions about “Seal Team,” “Mindhunter,” cable queries and local TV news. Read online-only TV content at http://communityvoices.post-gazette.com/arts-entertainment-living/tuned-in.
TV writer Rob Owen: rowen@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2582. Follow RobOwenTV on Twitter or Facebook for breaking TV news.
First Published: March 14, 2019, 12:00 p.m.