SEASON PREMIERE: Give full credit to Ray Romano. Since closing up shop on the very popular and high-profile CBS sitcom
Everybody Loves Raymond, he’s gone far and wide in search of roles that shatter what could have been a trap of stereotyping. And in those roles, most of them a sly mixture of comedy and drama, he’s been believable, endearing and impressive, even when the roles themselves are much less than noble. Think of the range: He played a divorced father in TNT’s
Men of a Certain Age, a photographer on the autistic spectrum in NBC’s
Parenthood, a hustling record executive in HBO’s
Vinyl, and, in this Epix series, a hustling TV producer turned wannabe moviemaker (pictured). Season 2 begins tonight, and not only maintains the quality of last season’s adaptation and extension of the Elmore Leonard story (Chris O’Dowd, like Romano, clearly loves playing his character here), but adds some great new recurring players, including Felicity Huffman and Steven Weber.
For a full review, see Ed Bark’s Uncle Barky’s Bytes.