‘Gotham Knights’ Joins ‘Superman’ on The CW, ‘Accused’ Tackles Disinformation, Hackers Hit ‘American Auto’

Gotham Knights

When is a superhero show not a superhero show? When said superhero, Batman aka Bruce Wayne, is killed in the opening reel. Posthumous news of his identity comes to a shock to Wayne’s adopted son, Turner Hayes (a wan Oscar Morgan), who’s framed for the caped crusader’s murder, along with two petty thieves and, most intriguing, the Joker’s Daughter, Duela Doe (Olivia Rose Keegan), who has a grudge against Batman for her no-good dad’s demise. The youths become fugitives, to the consternation of D.A. Harvey Kent (Supernatural’s Misha Collins, finally freed to wear various shades of overcoats). And so the mystery begins.

Superman & Lois

One of the last remaining remnants of The CW’s DC Comics overkill, the family-driven superhero drama picks up almost a month after Season 2’s finale, following Superman/Clark’s (Tyler Hoechlin) defeat of Ally Allston, saving our Earth from merging with the doppelgänger Bizarro World. While Clark and soulmate Lois (Elizabeth Tulloch) toil at the Smallville Gazette and prepare for their sons’ 16th birthday (Alex Garfin and Michael Bishop, the latter replacing Jordan Elsass), an undercover assignment reveals a terrible new foe. The season opener is directed by former Flash star Tom Cavanagh.

Accused

One of the most unsettling episodes to date of the dramatic legal anthology piles trauma upon tragedy when Laura (Deadwood’s Molly Parker, excellent), a professor still grieving the loss of her 12-year-old adopted son in a mass school shooting, learns there are conspiracy zealots in her community claiming it’s all a hoax. Emmy winner Margo Martindale (Justified, The Americans) is fearsome as her adversary, Joanna, leading an army of trolls who trap Laura’s family (including Big Love’s Shawn Doyle as her supportive-to-a-point husband and Liam Macdonald as their surviving son) in a seemingly hopeless nightmare of disinformation. The episode would have benefited by attempting to unearth the source of Joanna’s belligerent paranoia, and the incendiary final twists lead to a somewhat predictably downbeat ending (a recurring flaw of the series). But the acting is strong, and the scenario a stark reflection of our polarized society.

American Auto

Most weeks, the self-centered jerks in fictional Payne Motors’ C-suite are their own worst enemies, jumping from one PR crisis to another in a broad corporate satire. But this time they’re victims, their servers hacked and being held for ransom. As CEO Katherine (Ana Gasteyer) and general counsel Elliot (Humphrey Ker) debate whether to pay up, the stakes become higher when Katherine learns they have personal photos of her.

INSIDE TUESDAY TV: 

• The Bachelor (8/7c, ABC): For two hours, the women tell all. As if we haven’t heard it all before.
• FBI (8/7c, CBS): An ex-Marine gone rogue after his tour in Afghanistan is the prime suspect in the shooting of a federal corrections officer. On FBI International (9/8c), it’s an officer of the Hungarian National Police who’s suspected in the murder of a Budapest couple. The task on FBI Most Wanted (10/9c): Find the foreign tennis pro after her kidnapping from a Brooklyn court.
• 9-1-1: Lone Star (8/7c, Fox): While the series catches up with Marjan (Natacha Karam) on her road trip, back in Austin, Owen (Rob Lowe) is becoming a “Dad-zilla” when it comes to planning son T.K.’s (Ronen Rubinstein) wedding to Carlos (Rafael Silva).
• Frontline (9/8c, PBS): The investigative news series’ report on the “Age of Easy Money” seems even more timely after last week’s collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank.
• Return to Amish (10/9c, TLC): The Amish head to Florida in a new season, learning about life in the outside world away from their sheltered communities. It’s not all Disney World escapism, as Daniel seeks a non-Amish wife and Kenneth chases hoop dreams of Division 1 college basketball stardom.
• Razzle Dazzle (streaming on Netflix): Outrageous and shirtless comic Bert “the Machine” Kreischer returns to Netflix for another high-energy set of stories about his raucous family-and bodily emissions.