On TV this fall, stars crop up where you least expect them

Both shows wink (in one case literally) at their progenitors. The red-on-black text in the title card for “The Penguin” channels “The Godfather,” and sharp-eyed fans might recognize Cristin Milioti, the actor playing the Penguin’s main antagonist Sofia Falcone, from “The Sopranos,” where she played Johnny Sack’s younger daughter Catherine Sacrimoni. “Agatha All Along” was already a built-in TV joke: The show first appeared as a sitcom of sorts on “WandaVision” (in which Marvel villain Wanda Maximoff channeled her grief into “producing” a series of sitcoms in a small town she took over).

It’s pretty clear what “Agatha” isn’t: Despite featuring a number of “WandaVision” actors playing characters from that show, this version of “Agatha All Along” doesn’t seem to much resemble the original version, which featured Agatha as a nosy neighbor. But Disney Plus has been remarkably coy about what it is. There are rumors that it’s a musical (Patti LuPone is in the cast) and that it combines comedy and horror (a theory bolstered by Aubrey Plaza’s involvement in a role that, based on previews, calls to mind her performance as Lenny in “Legion”). There are promising ingredients; Debra Jo Rupp and Joe Locke are involved. What is clear is that Agatha has a coven, and she’s trying to recover the powers she lost in “WandaVision.”

While Farrell was rightly praised for his performance in the 2022 film “The Batman,” and while this seems like an effort to do for the Penguin what numerous reinventions have done for the Joker, the meatier role is undoubtedly Milioti’s, who emerges as a heavyweight. The show starts where “The Batman” ended: with Gotham City reeling from the catastrophic flooding caused by the Riddler and the Mafia in disarray following the assassination of mob boss Carmine Falcone. Carmine’s son Al is poised to take over when the Penguin gets involved. But Al’s sister Sofia, freshly released from Arkham Asylum (where she was known as “The Hangman”) has plans of her own. The best thing I can say about this series is that it understands — and capitalizes on — the extraordinary things Milioti’s face can do.

Many, many more picks

The fall has plenty of lighter fare. Sitcoms, for instance, might be back: New comedies include “Poppa’s House” (premiering Oct. 21 on CBS and starring Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr.), “Happy’s Place” (premiering Oct. 18 on NBC and starring Reba McEntire), and a medical mockumentary called “St. Denis Medical” (premiering Nov. 12 on NBC).

TV’s genre impresarios are also going strong. Bill Lawrence (of “Scrubs,” “Ted Lasso” and “Shrinking”) is back with “Bad Monkey,” starring Vince Vaughn, which started Aug. 14 on Apple TV Plus. Ryan Murphy is launching three new shows: “Grotesquerie” (Sept. 25), a horror series for FX starring Neicy Nash-Betts and Courtney B. Vance; ABC’s “Doctor Odyssey” (Sept. 26), starring Joshua Jackson as a doctor on a luxury cruise liner (also featuring Don Johnson); and Netflix’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” starring Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as the brothers and Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny as their slain parents. And as “Yellowstone” begins airing its final episodes, Taylor Sheridan will add “Landman” (Nov. 17 on Paramount Plus) — an adaptation of the podcast “Boomtown” starring Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Hamm and Demi Moore — to his empire of neo-westerns. Also ending: “My Brilliant Friend” (the fourth and final season starts Sept. 9 on HBO), FX’s “What We Do in the Shadows” (Oct. 21) and Bridget Everett’s perfect, poignant, unassuming “Somebody Somewhere,” which will begin its third and final season on HBO and Max on Oct. 27.

For the nostalgia files, notable IP resurrections include the second season of the new “Frasier” (Sept. 19 on Paramount Plus) and a new “Dexter” prequel starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Christian Slater (that airs in December on Showtime). And of course there’s Max’s “City of God: The Fight Rages On,” a six-episode series that picks up 20 years after the events depicted in the 2002 film (that premiered Aug. 25). On Oct. 17 alone, CBS viewers can tune into a nostalgic cornucopia featuring the second season of “Elsbeth” (the “Good Wife” spinoff), “George & Mandy’s First Marriage” (Chuck Lorre and company’s new sequel to “Young Sheldon”) and the new, twistier “Matlock,” starring Kathy Bates.

There are some surprising combinations — Sophie Turner playing a glamorous 1980s jewel thief on the CW in “Joan,” Eddie Redmayne playing an assassin and master of disguise in Peacock’s “The Day of the Jackal” opposite Lashana Lynch, and Julie Bowen starring in “Hysteria!,” Peacock’s thriller about the satanic panic. Below are some of the fall’s more promising prospects:

For “English Teacher” (which debuted Monday on FX), Paul Simms (“NewsRadio”) teamed up with Brian Jordan Alvarez, who created the series, to make this delightful dramedy set in Austin. Alvarez stars as a gay high school teacher named Evan Marquez. Evan fields challenges from unreasonable and sometimes bigoted parents, disturbingly perceptive students and supportive colleagues with questionable tactics. In the mold of “Abbott Elementary” but less idealistic.

In “Before” (Oct. 25, Apple TV Plus), Billy Crystal plays a shrink married to Judith Light. Sounds like an ideal Apple TV Plus comedy, right? Well, what if it’s a psychological thriller, Light’s character is dead (suicide), and Crystal’s character, an empiricist obsessed with science, starts hallucinating — and ends up trying to treat a disturbed child (Jacobi Jupe) with whom he shares some kind of terrifying psychic bond? That’s “Before.” TV’s getting weird (Rosie Perez plays the haunted child’s foster mom).

Alfonso Cuarón wrote and directed “Disclaimer,” a miniseries about metanarratives starring Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline. Based on Renée Knight’s novel, the series begins with Blanchett as an award-winning journalist with a worshipful husband (Sacha Baron Cohen) and a son who hates her (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Kline plays a vengeful widower whose wife spent her final years obsessed with their son’s accidental drowning in Italy. A psychological thriller with too many flashbacks and a questionable resolution, but some pretty terrific stuff from Kline, in particular.

As for known quantities: The fourth season of Apple TV Plus’s “Slow Horses,” which premiered Wednesday, finally gets some mileage out a hitherto underused Jonathan Pryce as David Cartwright, a retired spymaster. As Cartwright’s grandson River (Jack Lowden) struggles to save him, he finally receives some of the centrality that the show — which thumbs its nose at various spy thriller clichés — has traditionally withheld. (Saskia Reeves and Gary Oldman remain the show’s chief pleasures.)