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State of the TV season: We check in on 10 top shows


Sometimes, the best surprise you can get from a new season is no surprise.

It's always nice, of course, when some new show that had initially seemed unpromising shocks you by turning into a monster hit and critical darling. Unfortunately, what more often happens is that the shows that sent hopes soaring collapse and those that seemed doubtful double down on those doubts.

This year, however, the new broadcast shows that looked good in September still look good in December. Indeed, in some cases — most notably Jane the Virgin — they look even better. That level of new-season stability is rare.

Not all the news is good, of course. It wouldn't be a TV season without at least one sophomore slump or well-praised series that didn't quite live up to its hype.

In that vein, here's a second look at the seven series we picked as the season's most promising, six from broadcast and one (Showtime's The Affair) from cable. You'll also find the three returning shows that made the biggest quality shifts, for better or worse.

But overall it was a pretty good fall. Which may count as a nice surprise after all.

Jane the Virgin

CW, Mondays, 9 ET/PT

Two things were clear from the beginning: Gina Rodriguez was a TV queen waiting to be crowned, and she was going to get her sweet, funny, telenovela-based series off to a great start. What wasn't so clear was that Jane planned to move just as quickly and twist just as outrageously as the telenovela form dictates. Nor could we have known how well it would negotiate those turns, how adeptly it would mine melodramatic situations for real emotion, and how swiftly the characters and the cast would grow on us.

The Flash
CW, Tuesdays, 8 ET/PT

The season's two best new broadcast series, Jane and The Flash, have more than just a network in common. There's an open-hearted lightness to both, represented on Flash by Grant Gustin's sometimes troubled but ultimately optimistic Barry Allen. He's taken his knocks this fall (some of them from friends like The Arrow), but he remains a superhero who enjoys being a superhero, and that's rare these days. As for his easy-to-enjoy show, it has retained the gloss of its pilot while adding an increasingly intriguing dark undertone represented by Tom Cavanagh's ambiguous Dr. Wells.

Black-ish
ABC, Wednesdays, 9:30 ET/PT

Television's best new sitcom benefits from great intentions and a great performance from Anthony Anderson. This exploration of one couple's attempt to pursue the American dream of financial security and racial equality while holding on to their cultural identity was intelligent from the start. But over the course of the fall, it's also shown it can be very funny, and very cutting. The series is inconsistent, and the children are not yet able to really carry scenes on their own, but like their show, they're improving.

Gotham
Fox, Mondays, 8 ET/PT

No new series has been better at maintaining a consistent, disquieting tone. It struggled a bit in the beginning, but the more the story shifted its focus from the struggles of detective (and future police commissioner) Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) to the criminal rise of the proto-Penguin (the fabulous Robin Lord Taylor), the more fun it became.


How to Get Away with Murder
ABC, Thursdays, 10 ET/PT

The latest series from Shonda Rhimes' production company is precisely the pot-boiler fans probably hoped it would be — littered with clues, chock-full of shocks, and propelled by sex. And at the center stands the magnificent Viola Davis, who gets all the best lines, and yet can command the screen with no lines at all. Her extended scene where she stripped off her wig and makeup as if she were a knight removing her armor stands as one of the season's seminal moments.

Madam Secretary
CBS, Sundays, 8 ET/PT

Let's face it: Rationality doesn't always rule in TV. Much of Madam makes no sense, and most hours leave you wishing the show were half as smart as the series that follows it, The Good Wife. And yet, whenever Tea Leoni and Tim Daly are on screen together, complaints and disbelief are suspended. They could use more help carrying the show, but so far they are still carrying it.

The Affair
Showtime, Sundays, 10 ET/PT

What distinguishes this sometimes compelling, sometimes maddening drama is its attempt to tell the story of a breakdown of two marriages from varying points of view — none of which are necessarily honest or accurate. That format brilliantly captures something very real about how unreliable we are as narrators of our own stories. But the very unreliability of the show's narrators also means we can't know exactly who these people are. That makes it hard to invest in them, a problem compounded by the fact that so many of the views we do get are unflattering.

Sleepy Hollow

Fox, Mondays, 9 ET/PT

And here you have the dreaded sophomore slump. It's possible, of course, that there are viewers out there who wanted to see more of Ichabod's wife , or wanted to hear her and Ichabod argue over their grown son's mother fixations and Satanic leanings. The ratings, however, would indicate otherwise.

Mom
CBS, Thursdays, 8:30 ET/PT

In its first season, Mom explored the effects of addiction on an economically shaky family. This season, it has followed that story to a natural conclusion, as Christy's gambling problem led to her family's eviction — and to even better, deeper stories. There's nothing delicate about the sometimes vulgar work here, but there's an honesty and energy that makes many of its more detached, ironic and tasteful competitors pale in comparison.


Homeland

Showtime, Sundays, 9 ET/PT

After last season's much reviled run, many seemed set to give up on Homeland. Well, to judge from the ratings and the chatter, many of those fans are back — hooked once again by a taut story and a terrific cast. And if it feels more like 24's seventh season than Homeland's first? Hey, 24 Season 7 was still an awfully good show.