It’s funny to think about how much television owes to Stephen King. High-profile adaptations of literary hits like “The Stand,” “The Outsider,” and “The Institute” are one thing, but the “Stephen King Expanded Universe” (SKEU) could be expanded to include shows inspired by the masterful storyteller as well. Hits like “From,” “Midnight Mass,” and especially the very IT-inspired “Stranger Things” have been doing their variations on the King Thing for years, casting a large shadow over the first stretch of “IT: Welcome to Derry,” a show whose atmosphere, pacing, and characters pale in comparison to those examples.

The team behind the massively successful theatrical adaptations of “IT”—Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs—creatively drives “Welcome to Derry.” But it’s a show that’s too often stuck in first gear, only coming to life in its big, surreal set pieces and lacking almost everywhere else. It also suffers from that common plague of the streaming era: It takes forever to get where it’s obviously going, content to circle the same sewer grates while viewers wait to get to the good stuff.

“IT: Welcome to Derry” unfolds in 1962, primarily following two interconnecting narrative threads linked by the Hanlon family. If that name is familiar, it’s because Mike Hanlon is a key member of the Losers Club, the protagonists of the book and hit movie, played by Chosen Jacobs and Isaiah Mustafa in the films. Hanlon’s father Will (Blake Cameron James) was a child in 1962, having just moved to Derry with his mother Charlotte (Taylour Paige) and father Leroy (Jovan Adepo). Dad has taken a job as a military pilot for a secret operation on the outskirts of Derry led by General Shaw (James Remar). That thread includes another familiar name in Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk), the character most known from “The Shining” as the guy who teaches Danny how to use his very special powers. The powers that be are employing those abilities in a way that relates to the interdimensional being who most often manifests itself as a murderous clown.

Meanwhile, across town, a new version of the Losers Club is forming, led chiefly by Lilly (an effective Clara Stack). Reeling from the traumatic death of her father, she’s empathetic in ways that her often bullying and obnoxious classmates are frequently not, which makes her more curious about the unusual disappearance of a local kid. When that incident is followed by actual child deaths, the whole town starts to take note—but it’s Millie and her buddies, including Will Hanlon, who put the pieces together, following the horrific breadcrumbs to Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård).

Other characters play on the periphery, including those played effectively by Madeleine Stowe, Kimberly Guerrero, and Peter Outerbridge. The core of the show tracks how a military operation and a group of outsiders are connected by a force that’s been ripping the planet apart every generation for centuries.

“IT: Welcome to Derry” clearly wants to be a show about the darkness under the pristine surface of beautiful ‘60s suburbia. Whether it’s the supernatural force in the woods or the racism that the Hanlons face both in town and on the base, things are not what they seem in Derry. It recalls the driving aesthetic of “Twin Peaks,” a show that also imagined powerful, impossible forces at play under naturally beautiful landscapes.

Still, Muschietti and his team seem almost resolutely unwilling to play with dread, tension, or atmosphere. Too much of “Welcome to Derry” exists on the surface with characters saying what they need, what they feel, and what they’re going to do next at every turn. The characters are almost defiantly shallow, pawns moved across a chess board as they are forced toward the grip of the Crimson King. There are glimpses of strong character work from Paige, Adepo, and Stack, but they’re too often victims of the shallow writing. The most interesting performance by far comes from Chalk, who imbues Hallorann with a sense of doomed responsibility. His work here, especially in the fifth episode, is easily the best thing about the show.

Some of the big scare set pieces work too in a way that feels almost manufactured for virality. Whether it’s a movie theater, grocery store, or, of course, the sewers, “Welcome to Derry” gets a lot of mileage out of turning mundane settings into pure nightmare fuel. But it’s hard not to imagine those bursts of horror greatness in a feature film or even two that doesn’t stretch out the material in between past its breaking point. As is so often the case lately, it feels like the writers crafted a movie script and then figured out where to stretch it to meet an episode order.

Of course, it’s critically unfair to compare a new show to a program like “Twin Peaks,” but the truth is, pop culture has been living in its own Derry for decades now, as creators have grown up on King’s work enough to make their own visions inspired by it. Sure, “IT: Welcome to Derry” may have names like Hallorann and Pennywise to draw in the King faithful. But this vision of Derry too often feels like one of those Hollywood backlots: all the facades look right, but there’s nothing behind them.

Five episodes screened for review. Premieres Sunday, October 26, on HBO and HBO Max.

In the Taylor Sheridan Paramount+ universe of cozy genre shows aimed at the AARP set, “Tulsa King” has always been a bit of a breezy, accessible alternative to the dour militarism of shows like “Lioness” or the queasy pro-oil histrionics of “Landman.” (And, of course, “Yellowstone” is no longer on the air to prop up the whole empire.) Like a mafia family without its patriarch, the Sheridan shows have been vying for succession in this new post-Costner landscape, and it seems as if Sylvester Stallone‘s effervescent series (about a New York mafioso setting up his own criminal enterprise in Oklahoma) has become the heir apparent. Season 3 feels like an attempt to set up that position, with greater expansion of the cast and more than a little franchise-building in the shuffle. And it’s still fun, even if it can get easy to get lost, so to speak, in the weeds.

When last we left Dwight “The General” Manfredi (Stallone), he’d seemingly found his happy ending. He shook off the triple threats of rival businessman Thresher (Neal McDonough), the Chinese triad, and the encroachment of New York on his business in the form of antagonistic capo Bevilaqua (Frank Grillo), and had finally taken his illicit weed business legit. What’s more, he’d even found love in strong-willed businesswoman Margaret (Dana Delany). But in the closing moments of Season 2, his door gets beaten down by a tactical team and he’s blackbagged. “You work for us now,” an unseen voice bellowed.

As Season 3 opens, we find out exactly to whom that voice belongs: FBI Special Agent Russo (Kevin Pollak), who’s picked up on Dwight’s activity in the area and has decided to recruit him to be his eyes and ears in the region in exchange for protection. (Sidenote: Russo has a chip on his shoulder about Dwight killing an informant of his decades ago, so expect that to come up later.)

But that’s the least of Dwight and company’s problems, as the gang move from the weed business to the booze business: They get wrapped up in a bid to help Mitch’s (Garrett Hedlund) ex Cleo Montague (Bella Heathcote) rescue her dad’s bourbon distillery from unscrupulous magnate Jeremiah Dunmire (Robert Patrick, all gravel and scowl amid that withered face), who wants to buy it out from under her poor pop. Dwight tries to step in to outbid him; Dunmire responds by burning down the Montague estate, with pops inside.

This turf war, and the chaos that ensues, eats up most of the first half of “Tulsa King”‘s third season, with a few detours along the way to check in on Dwight’s guys, from Martin Starr‘s stoner slacker Bodhi to Jay Will’s Tyson Mitchell, who continue down their path to styling themselves as New York-style mafioso under Dwight’s command. These moments, alongside Sly’s typical wise-guy bristling at newfangled gadgets (there are darkly funny gags about Sly not knowing how to work a Tesla, or not liking the youthful hippity-hop music of *checks notes* fifty-two-year-old rap legend Nas), sometimes bounce the show on an unsteady tone between gritty mob drama and cartoonish “Get Shorty”-esque comedy. The latter works better than the former, I’ll admit; even when the gags are weaker, Sly can still deliver a joke, and Starr feels ever more like his “Party Down” character got plopped into a season of “The Sopranos.”

But even amid its shaky narrative, the nervous footing of its jokes, and the devil’s row of characters and dynamics we’re expected to keep track of, there’s something light and infectious about “Tulsa King”‘s particular way of being. Sure, you feel the absence of Season 1 showrunner Terrence Winter (“Boardwalk Empire”) and the fact that the first season actually shot in Tulsa; Seasons 2 and 3 have swapped that out for the more tax-friendly environs of Atlanta. Even in this watered-down version, though, the central juice of the show’s pinballing tone and appealing characters remains.

Part of it involves one of the Sheridan-verse’s cheaper delights: Getting older A-list movie stars the chance to strut their stuff in a nice, easy, watchable drama. While we’ve always had Stallone, it’s a delight to see people like Grillo, McDonough, Delany, Patrick, Pollak, and Hedlund saunter their way through scenes with a veteran’s ease. They’re clearly too classy for a thing like this, which paradoxically makes the whole thing more effective.

The addition of Patrick is particularly fun, as between this and “Peacemaker” he’s really cornered the market on acerbic patriarchs in tonally-flexible genre shows. (Scenes with him and Stallone feel like the ’90s kid version of the diner scene from “Heat.” Look, it’s Rambo versus the T-1000!) The Dunmire clan even feel like a dark mirror for Dwight’s gang, right down to Hedlund’s Mitch having an evil twin of sorts in Beau Knapp’s brutish Dunmire son Cole.

With only six episodes available for critics at time of review, there’s no telling how “Tulsa King” will shake out its varying plot threads. (We haven’t even seen Samuel L. Jackson‘s character yet, whom the latter half of the season will undoubtedly focus on so he can swan off to get that Paramount paycheck on his own spinoff, “NOLA King.”) But part of me says that the story’s never really been the show’s true appeal. It’s a vibes thing; it’s less about caring for the fate of, as Sly himself puts it, an “over the hill goomba” and his group of misfits. You’re there to watch Stallone put on a double-breasted suit, smoke a cigar, and complain about millennials and their namby-pamby electric cars and their yacht rock alongside other old fogeys enjoying their Sheridan-funded televisual pension. As long as the show nails that core appeal, “Tulsa King” remains watchable.

First six episodes screened for review. The new season of “Tulsa King” premieres on Paramount+ September 21st.

Other than a few major changes, including the age of one beloved character and the occasional reflection of the culture battles facing the country today, the reboot of “King of the Hill” picks up not far at all from where the Fox hit left us in 2009. The Mike Judge comedy was written off by some as being a parody of Southern archetypes, but anyone who watched more than a few episodes of the animated hit knew there was more under the surface of this sharp family sitcom than met the eye. The Hill family are like a lot of beloved sitcom clans in that they’re, like so many people watching, just trying to do their best in a world that often makes that a struggle. Whether it’s Hank’s stubbornness, Peggy’s overconfidence, or Bobby’s awkwardness, it’s easy to relate to the Hills, and that sense of connection has been lost a bit in an era of high-concept TV when the classic model of the family sitcom has gone away. After a slightly rocky premiere, the 2025 version of “King of the Hill” quickly finds its footing again, and a couple of the episodes in the mid-section of this 10-episode season rank among the best half-hour comedy chapters of the year, anywhere. Long live the King.

While “King of the Hill” technically left the airwaves 16 years ago, not as much time as passed in the world of the show. It’s been a few years since Hank (Judge) and Peggy Hill (Kathy Najimy) moved to Saudi Arabia (which Peggy wonderfully pronounces “Saw-die” instead of “Saw-dee”) for a propane-related project, but Hank has now decided to retire, sending them back to Arlen, TX, and to a USA that’s a bit different than when they left. The season premiere leans a little too hard on how much America has changed for the relatively conservative Hank Hill, and I worried that too much comedy this season would hinge on Tim Allen-esque grumbling about “vegan kids these days” and other “woke” talking points, but the writers settle into something less topical and more organic pretty quickly, while never losing the sense that Hank is a bit of a dinosaur. To be honest, that was true two decades ago, but the charm of Hank is in how much he tries to evolve for the people he cares about, especially Patty and Bobby, and that’s still the beating heart of the show. He may grumble and sigh, but he’s willing to grow too.

Someone who has definitely grown is Bobby Hill (Pamela Adlon), who is now a young adult, running his own restaurant, an Asian-German fusion place called Robota Chane, which he runs with Chane Wassonasong (Hong Lee). Young adult Bobby takes some getting used to, especially as he tries to woo Connie Souphanousinphone (Lauren Tom) in a more adult manner than he did back in school, discovering, for example, that Connie is an open relationship. A sexually active, business-owning Bobby will be a shock for “King of the Hill” fans, but I came to love the change, in part because of how much of the original character one can still see in this one. We’re so used to animated characters from Bart Simpson to Stewie Griffin never aging, that it’s refreshing to see a risk like this that works. It helps, of course, to have a great comic talent in Adlon who updates Bobby in her own special way.

The rest of the alley gang is back too, more or less. One of the season’s funniest bits revolves around what Hank’s departure did to the emotionally fragile and still hysterical Bill (Stephen Root), but Boomhauer (Judge) is basically the same character, and Dale (Johnny Hardwick for half the season and then Toby Huss because of Hardwick’s passing) feels more paranoid than ever. Dale could have become a voice for the conspiracy nuts of the 2020s, and there is a sense that the Alex Jones era has only empowered his lunacy, but, again, the writers don’t lean too much into generational or social humor, using it as seasoning instead of the whole meal.

The richest veins of humor come from Judge’s twists on family sitcom basics. The sixth episode centers Root’s phenomenal Bill in an episode about a few significant lies that Mr. Dauterive told in Hank’s absence and the eighth episode is a beauty about Connie’s parents holding a huge secret.

From Hank & Bobby getting into a home-brewing contest to Hank trying to hide from his guys that he’s now a soccer fan, the plotting in this season of “King of the Hill” is richly, consistently funny. Welcome back, Hill family. Don’t go away anytime soon.

Whole season screened for review. It drops in its entirety on August 4^th, 2025 on Hulu.

★★

It’s amazing just how involving The Lion King is on stage. The lack of actual, or, indeed, believable, lions on stage matters less in this context than the ability of the actors to speak to the emotional truth of the characters they are playing. Through the abstracted masks and feathers, the circle of life lives. There’s a joke on this matter in the latter half of Mufasa, Disney’s financially viable follow up to Jon Favreau’s 2019 photoreal remake of the original 1994 Lion King. A Billy Eichner voiced Timon snarks his distaste for the show on the basis of his part being played by a sock puppet. That’s the joke. To this there is only one response. Mufasa’s Timon may look exactly the part of the meerkat he is but he hasn’t half the warmth, humour and soul of the sock.

Where theatre’s Lion King absorbs from open to close, cinema’s Mufasa is but a fitfully involving affair. Pleasing enough for a couple of hours, without ever going so far as to actively astonish or move. As directed by Moonlight and Beale Street’s Barry Jenkins, usually so intuitive in grounding his characters’ emotions, there’s no doubting the visual attractiveness of the film. Technically, it’s brilliant. A triumph of computer generated artistry, masterfully drawn and a testament to technological advancement. You’ll believe a lion can sing – for a moment, at least. Certainly, they do so with rather more physiognomic versatility than was the case in Favreau’s original. There’s less of the taxidermic here.

There are other ways in which the film’s animation improves upon its predecessor too. It’s not simply the detailed rendering of each hair and vista that impresses but the weight and gravity of it all. When the lions fight, they do so with dense and malleable muscles, hitting a ground without give. Jenkins’ excessive use of foreshortened facial close ups jars but when his lens retreats, when the anthropomorphism loses the foreground, the visuals dazzle. You can all but reach out and run your fingers through the texture on display across a screen that boasts not a second of actual live action footage. It’s a world made for the VR experience.

Away from the techs and specs, the story itself plays largely by default. Opening some years on from the close of The Lion King, Mufasa finds the child of Simba (Donald Glover) and Nala (Beyoncé) left in the care of Timon, Pumba (Seth Rogen) and Rafiki (John Kani). As storm clouds grow over Pride Rock, Rafiki comforts the nervous cub with stories of her grandfather and the origins of the enmity he shared with his brother, Scar. Only, as we retreat into flashback, it transpires that Mufasa and Scar were never actually brothers. It’s a rather depressing launchpad that sees Mufasa separated from his parents within the film’s first ten minutes, washed far down river and ultimately rescued by his future murderer, who is here named Taka. It’s hard to imagine many going wild for such detail. Few asked for a pseudo live action Lion King to start with, never mind a sequel for it.

When Taka’s family fall prey to a pride of white lions, lead by Mads Mikkelsen’s genuinely unnerving Kiros, he and Mufasa must seek out sanctuary in the mythical Milele. More familiar faces join the odyssey as they go, while frustrating and desperately unfunny interludes in the present interrupt the flow periodically. Much as Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella were genuinely hilarious in the original animation, Rogen and Eichner missed the mark in their first try and the embarrass in their second. They aside – or inclusive – Mufasa is a largely humourless effort, with a forgettable soundtrack from an out-of-his-depth Lin Manuel Miranda compounding the issue. Only one song in the film – the rousing ‘I Always Wanted a Brother’ – comes close to bonafide entertainment. 

As for Jenkins, one suspects this will be his last foray into studio filmmaking. Hints at thematic overlay with his interests – namely masculinity, friendship and orphanage as a rite of passage – hum through Mufasa but without his usual depth of engagement. Stripped away is Jenkins’ penchant for intimate filmmaking and the sort of ambition that propelled The Lion King brand from hit toon to global phenomenon. 

T.S.