New TV season
Justin Bartha, 37, has a big supporting role in the new Fox comedy series “Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life.” The title character is a young man in search of his first job after college. Bartha (“National Treasure” movies) plays Cooper’s 40-year-old brother, who is married and has two kids. The show premiered on Jan. 3, with new episodes airing at 8:30 p.m. Sundays.
The sci-fi action series “Second Chance” began on Fox on Jan. 13 (new episodes air at 9 p.m. Wednesdays). It was created by Rand Ravich, 53 (“The Astronaut’s Wife”), a Solomon Schechter Day School grad. It stars British Jewish actor Robert Kazinsky, 32, in his first major American role. Kazinsky plays Jimmy Pritchard, a Seattle police detective who died at age 75 after a corruption scandal forced him to retire, and who is brought back to life as a 32-year-old with a new purpose. But Pritchard is still haunted by the old temptations. Here are two reasons to like Kazinsky: His original last name is Appleby, but he took as his stage name the more Jewish-sounding Kazinsky, his grandfather’s middle name. That might be a first. He also speaks Hebrew and has appeared in Israeli TV ads.
The USA network series “Colony” is set in a horrible future, with Earth invaded by outer space baddies. (New episodes air at 10 p.m. Thursdays.) The action is set in Los Angeles, where the alien occupiers, who appear in human form, have walled off the city and are “culling off” the physically unfit. The series centers on William and Katie Bowman, a married couple who are secret members of the resistance movement, and their two children. There are many human collaborators, including Alan Snyder, who is a local governor and a total tool of the invaders. Playing Snyder is veteran character actor Peter Jacobson, 50, who played Dr. Chris Taub for five years on “House.”
The CW series “Legends of Tomorrow” premiered on Jan. 21. The complex series premise begins with character Rip Hunter going back in time and assembling a team of superheroes to battle the ageless supervillain Vandal Savage. (The late Jacob “Jack” Miller created the Rip Hunter character in a 1959 D.C. comic). “Legends” co-stars Victor Garber, 66, as a physicist who is also one half of the superhero Firestorm.
At the movies
Lauren Cohan, 34, known for her role as Maggie Green, the pretty farmer’s daughter on the hit series “The Walking Dead,” continues in the horror genre in the new film “The Boy.” She plays Greta, a young American woman who takes a job as a nanny in a remote English village, only to discover that the family’s 8-year-old is a life-size doll that the parents care for just like a real boy as a way to cope with their son’s death. Cohan’s Anglo-American background might have helped her snag the role: Born in New Jersey to non-Jewish En glish parents, she was raised by her American Jewish stepfather. Her mother converted to Judaism, as did Cohan when she was 5, and she later had a bat mitzvah. Her mother and stepfather moved to the U.K. when she 13 and she lived there until she finished college.
Another British Jew, Dan Mazer, 44, is the director of the comedy “Dirty Grandpa.” Mazer co-wrote Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Ali G” and “Borat” films. Zac Efron plays an attorney on the cusp of marrying his boss’ daughter (Zoey Deutch, 21) and thereby getting fast-tracked to a partnership. However, he’s tricked into driving his foul-mouthed grandfather (Robert De Niro) to Daytona for spring break, and the hijinks they get into endanger the future of his career. Adam Pally (“The Mindy Project”), 33, has a supporting role.
Columnist Nate Bloom, an Oaklander, can be reached at [email protected].