Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler in Lanterns.
Photo by John Johnson/HBO
As both a kid and an adult, I have not been a big comic book reader. I would always look at the racks in the local grocery while my mom shopped, and every now and then I’d buy one. But my primary relationship with comic characters has been through TV and movies, and through that I came to have two favorites: Spider-Man and Green Lantern.
Can I discuss deep lore about either one? No, not really. Does that make me a bit of a poser? Yeah probably. Do I think both characters (or groups of characters in the Green Lantern Corps) are cool as hell? I very much do. So it’s a pretty good month for me, superhero-wise.
I will probably see Spider-Man: Brand New Day soon (my kids, who also want to go, haven’t seen No Way Home yet), and on Sunday, HBO and HBO Max will premiere Lanterns, a series based on the Green Lantern comics.
HBO is keeping a relatively tight lid on the show — last I checked, no screeners had been made available. That’s often a bad sign, but a final trailer and a good amount of preview footage was well-received at Comic-Con last month. It stars two great actors in Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre (as Hal Jordan and John Stewart) and also features Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt and Poorna Jagannathan.
HBO has insisted that Lanterns has a True Detective-ish vibe — I’m all but legally required to refer to the show as a “dark, Earth-based mystery” — but each trailer has leaned a little bit more into Green Lantern’s cosmic side a little more. My hopes are (unreasonably?) high, but I’m eager to see how it plays out.
Aside from Lanterns, the headline premiere this week is season four of Reacher, with the big guy solving more problems and kicking more ass. The calendar for this week, which is a pretty light one, is below; all times are ET/PT unless noted.
Premieres
Monday
• 9 p.m.: Somebody Knows Something (Freeform): A true-crime series that digs into unsolved murder and missing persons cases. Kara Chamberlain, a kidnapping survivor and advocate (Freeform also calls her a “true crime influencer,” blech), is the host.
• 9 p.m.: History’s Greatest Mysteries (History): Let your dads know a new season is starting.
Tuesday
• Mourinho (Netflix): A short documentary series about well-traveled football manager Jose Mourinho, who is bound for Real Madrid this season. Or you could go back and watch the old episodes of Special 1 TV on YouTube. IYKYK.
Wednesday
• Reacher (Prime Video): Season four opens with three episodes. It’s based on Gone Tomorrow, the 13th book in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series, and puts Reacher (Alan Ritchson) in New York, looking into a shadowy conspiracy. And there will probably be at least one scene like this one, as canonized by the great Brian C. Grubb.
• Conversations With a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes (Netflix): The latest iteration of this true crime show, following previous ones focused on Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy.
• Women in Blue (Apple TV): Season two of the Spanish-language drama (aka Las Azules) about the first squad of female police officers in Mexico in the 1970s.
Thursday
• My Brilliant Career (Netflix): Liz Doran, a writer for Please Like Me, is behind this series adaptation of the Miles Franklin novel about a young woman in late 19th century Australia who dreams of becoming a writer. It was previously adapted as a 1979 movie starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill.
• Tires (Netflix): Shane Gillis’ sitcom rolls out its third season.
Sunday
• 9 p.m.: Lanterns (HBO/HBO Max): As noted above, I’m psyched for this.