Fuller House
Season premiere Friday | Netflix
‘Merica has made plenty of egregious, perverse and downright stoopid decisions this year. One of the most catastrophic, soul-destroying acts was to make Netflix’s Full House reboot Fuller House a hit back in February. Which means the laugh-tracked atrocity is back for a second season within the calendar year, further cementing 2016 as just the worst. Bob Saget, John Stamos, Dave Coulier and Lori Laughlin will again recur, because paychecks, but Fuller House is still about the even-less-interesting next gen of Candice Cameron Bure, Jodi Sweetin and the other one, while the Olsen twins remain conspicuously absent.
The White Rabbit Project
Debuts Friday | Netflix
Missing Mythbusters? Can you say that five times fast? The White Rabbit Project re-teams myth-busting alumni Tori Belleci, Kari Byron, and Grant Imahar for a new series deconstructing events from pop culture, science and history. That includes jailbreaks, superpower technology, heists, World War II weaponry, and why the hell the Discovery channel fired the Build Team trio from Mythbusters two years ago (OK, probably not the last one). Speed, flames, explosions, shots and science—it hasn’t been outlawed yet!—converge for what should be an entertaining, if not educational, ride. Maybe next season they can explain Westworld.
Star
STAR: L-R: Jude Demorest, Ryan Destiny and Brittany O’Grady in STAR coming soon to FOX. �2016 Fox Broadcasting Co. CR: FOX
Debuts Wednesday 8 pm | Fox
This certainly sounds familiar: “Star (Jude Demorest), a tough-as-nails young woman who came up in the foster-care system, tracks down her sister, Simone (Brittany O’Grady), and her Instagram bestie, Alexandra (Ryan Destiny), and together, the trio journeys to Atlanta with the hope of becoming music superstars.” A little TLC, a little Destiny’s Child, a whole lotta Empire (Star is produced by Lee Daniels), and a cast that includes Queen Latifah, Benjamin Bratt and Lenny Kravitz, all add up to what could be a winter sleeper hit for Fox. The snag: Star relies more on music and heartstring-tugging than the over-the-top soap opera fireworks of Empire, so it’s going to need more (and better) songs to go the distance. But then again, they said that about Lenny Kravitz, too.
Bill Frost writes about television for Salt Lake City Weekly.
