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Spies, tweens and Stetsons: 8 TV shows to watch for this winter

Justified
Community
Downton Abbey
Bunheads
The Americans
The Carrie Diaries

January is a tricky time for TV. We’re suffering through the mid-season hiatuses of our primetime favorites, yet many cable offerings return in the new year, and 2013 already boasts a slew of programming to get you through the winter doldrums.

So before you spend January blowing through your entire Netflix queue, brush up on these mid-season TV arrivals.

Downton Abbey
January 6, PBS: 8 pm

After all the war and tragedy that befell season two of this UK import, it seems that happiness may be on the horizon for season three. But if we’ve learned anything from this period drama, the whole happiness thing doesn’t always work out. At season two’s end, Sybil settled with Chauffer Branson, Lavinnia became a non-issue, Anna had some brief wedded bliss with her Mistah Bates, and poor William is no longer. The cast has hinted that a wedding will take place, but will cousins Matthew and Mary be the ones walking down the aisle? Also, Free Bates.

Bunheads
January 7, ABC Family: 8 pm

This quirky comedy reeled us in with its offbeat first season. Penned by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, this tale of a small-town dance studio is back for more, picking up just months after Sutton Foster’s Michelle left her Vegas showgirl gig to marry the ill-fated Hubble. With her status at the dance studio uncertain, will the witty banter go by the wayside? We think not.

Justified
January 8, FX: 9 pm

Timothy Olyphant is back for another season of perfectly tailored jeans and derailing vigilantes. When we left the cowboy hat-wearing U.S. Marshal, he and ex-wife Winona called it quits once again, Boyd Crowder is more or less behind all nefarious goings-on in Harlan, and Dickie Bennett is mad as hell. This season, Olyphant’s Raylan Givens tackles a 30-year-old cold case and a riddle that echoes all the way back to his boyhood and his father.

Girls
January 13, HBO: 8 pm

Lena Dunham’s polarizing comedy returns for a second season, with a whole new batch of first-world problems presenting themselves in the lives of Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna. When we left the twentysomethings, Adam was giving Hannah a dose of some serious real talk, Jessa hastily married guest star Chris O’Dowd, Marnie continued to be whiny and Shoshanna finally got some. Season two finds Hannah on her own, ready to meet a man who isn’t a total creep. Will she find him? Probably not. But it’s funnier that way.

The Carrie Diaries
January 14, The CW: 7 pm

This highly anticipated Sex and the City prequel series follows the life and times of Carrie Bradshaw at the tender age of 16 — bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and eager to start her life in the Big Apple. Now that Gossip Girl is no longer, look for Carrie to fill the sharply dressed void left by Blair, Serena and the gang.

The Americans
January 30, FX: 9 pm

Felicity is back! Keri Russell returns to TV in this drama set in the 1980s portraying one-half of a married couple of KGB spies posing as Americans. The parents of two get their world rocked when an FBI agent moves in next door, as they covertly collaborate with a network of spies and informants under their control. Complicating their relationship even further is Phillip's (Brothers and Sisters star Matthew Rhys) growing sense of affinity for America's values and way of life.

Community
February 7, NBC: 7 pm

The band of Greendale misfits returns for another semester, minus Chevy Chase, and under new creative direction. Will the new season promise as much cult fare as the previous? With a show that’s gone 8-bit, explored the darkest timelines and introduced us to Inspector Spacetime, it’s hard to say. Regardless of its seemingly doomed Friday night time slot, there are sure to be plenty of quirks in store for this NBC fave.

The Walking Dead
February 10, AMC: 8 pm

The Walking Dead finally kicked things up a notch in season three. And by the end of the show’s winter finale, the governor’s daughter and prisoner Oscar died at the siege on Woodbury, and brothers Daryl and Meryl Dixon were reunited but had to face off in a death match. With a ton of new characters, and fresh new alliances starting to form, the conclusion to last season’s cliffhanger is sure to bring more apocalyptic zombie doom. And, sans Lori, which is upsetting to no one.

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Movie Review

Jessica Chastain drama Dreams stumbles through steamy romance

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

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Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

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