Returning Favorites: ‘Law & Order: SVU’ 20th Season Exclusive

Critics weren’t sure what to make of Dick Wolf’s Law & Order spinoff with a sex-crimes slant when it arrived in 1999. For every “crackling-sharp” and “dead-on,” there was a “formulaic” or “uneasy-making.” But Mariska Hargitay — who has played intrepid NYC cop Olivia Benson, now the lieutenant, since Day 1 — and her Special Victims Unit costars quickly won over fans, and along the way to amassing 434 episodes, she earned eight Emmy nods, winning one.

A producer and occasional director, Hargitay has been greatly affected by SVU’s stories of sexual assault and domestic violence, launching the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004 to help empower survivors. (Her documentary about the backlog of untested DNA rape kits, I Am Evidence, can be seen on HBO Go and HBO Now.)

Ahead of the two-hour episode that opens the milestone 20th season (“Olivia is going to deal with some new things, maybe her own physical limitations,” Hargitay teases), she solves 20 more mysteries about her beloved drama.

In this issue:

• Monday: Freddie Highmore on The Good Doctor, 9-1-1 blazes back into action; Bull gets healthy.
• Tuesday: Intel on This Is Us‘s Big Three; Lethal Weapon welcomes a new face; surviving NCIS‘s cliffhanger; black-ish‘s sunny turn; the Black Lightning gives their best guess to: ‘What’s in the briefcase?’
• Wednesday: SEAL Team faces a loss; one big night of Chicago dramas.
• Thursday: Karen’s next move on Will & Grace; The Good Place‘s reset; a Big Bang Theory farewell.
• Friday: A Blue Bloods wedding looms; Hawaii Five-0 hits 200 episodes; Tim Allen talks his return to Last Man Standing.
• Sunday: Madam Secretary gets presidential; PBS’s Poldark; The Walking Dead‘s new world order; inside Outlander‘s colonial wardrobe.
• Plus: A calendar chock-full of returning series, 2018 Emmy ballot, Anthony Hopkins portrays King Lear and the best of movies, streaming, sports and more.

Fall Preview 2018: Your Complete Guide to Every New Show

No medium has changed more in recent years than television. How we watch: streaming, downloads, the almighty binge. Where we watch: Hello, bottomless pool of Netflix! Even when we watch, with rarely a break between so-called seasons in a nonstop and overwhelming flow of programming.

But as we assess, in our yearly tradition, a heaping new lineup of fall TV, what hasn’t changed is why we watch: The shows that matter are the ones that make us care. Echoing the breakout series from the past two years — NBC’s This Is Us and ABC’s The Good Doctor — the most promising provide strong emotional hooks, in a variety of genres, to help cut through TV’s clutter.

Even comedies can give you a lump in the throat. You’ll have to wait until November for my favorite, Netflix’s The Kominsky Method, but it’s worth it. This marvelously melancholy meditation on aging, from The Big Bang Theory’s Chuck Lorre (a personal best), stars Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin in top form as an acting teacher and legendary Hollywood agent who’ve both seen better days. As these endearing curmudgeons endure loss and life’s humiliating aches and pains, you may not know whether to laugh or cry. (Both responses are acceptable.)

Same goes for Amazon Prime Video’s entrancing romantic comedy Forever, starring Saturday Night Live veterans Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen in a uniquely affecting exploration of love over the very long haul. To say more would give too much away, but I devoured the entire season in a state of dazed bliss. I wish I were as attached to Jim Carrey’s creepily depressed kiddie host from Showtime’s Kidding or Jennifer Garner’s uptight wife in HBO’s off-putting Camping. They and their shows are more unpleasant than amusing.

High-concept dramas with sci-fi leanings also aim for the emotional jugular. NBC’s intriguing Manifest is built around one of those cosmic mysteries you worry will never pay off — what happened to a flight that vanished for five and a half years before landing? — but it’s just as compellingly invested in the impact on the lives forever changed by this weird phenom. Even better is Hulu’s The First, starring an excellent Sean Penn. Grounded in realism, the eight-parter tells of preparations for a manned mission to Mars that’s clouded by tragedy and complicated by all-too-human conflict.

In this issue:

• Reboots and More: Magnum P.I. behind the scenes; Murphy Brown‘s leading lady.
• Fish Out of Water: Nathan Fillion briefs us on The Rookie; why you should watch Rel.
• Workplace Dramas: Dick Wolf’s FBI; Tony Danza and Josh Groban talk The Good Cop.
• Ensembles: Meet the pals from A Million Little Things; All American‘s football players; The Cool Kids‘ retirees; and comedy Single Parents.
• Bad Romance: Thriller The Little Drummer Girl; Bravo’s Dirty John.
• Family Fun: Roseanne‘s legacy continues with The Conners; NBC’s I Feel Bad.
• Strange and Unexplained: Analyzing three scary streamers.
• Plus: The year in review, a primetime network schedule and new series calendar, NFL preview, and the best of movies, streaming, sports and more.

Fall Sneak Peek: TV’s New Secret Agent Man, ‘Jack Ryan’

John Krasinski is as smooth as a stirred martini when asked about following in the footsteps of Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine as true-blue CIA hero Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. “What? There have been other people who played the role?” he jokes with mock innocence of the part that originated in a series of books written by Tom Clancy.

But Krasinski is the first to portray the character on TV. The actor, who starred on The Office for nine years before focusing on movies, most recently the hit The Quiet Place, was all in for returning to television.

“When the showrunners [Carlton Cuse and Graham Roland] told me that a series was the only way to really investigate the richness and the detail Tom Clancy wrote with, I thought, ‘That’s a really smart and cool take,’” he says. Krasinski credits his role as a former Navy SEAL in the 2016 film 13 Hours for giving him the confidence to play an action hero — and he was more than game to run, shoot and land punches again. “I thought it was alluring to be able to play in that physical world a little longer.”

Also in this issue:

• Fall Sneak Peek: First looks at new (The Rookie! The Good Cop!) and returning (Outlander! NCIS!) series.
• Stream It!: Netflix’s sci-fi mystery The Innocents; Rosanna Arquette on her sexy YouTube Premium series Sideswiped; CBS All Access’s new drama One Dollar and more.
• Plus: Star Trek news, Lethal Weapon‘s new recruit Seann William Scott, a chat with Betty White, Fear the Walking Dead‘s Maggie Grace and the best of movies, streaming, sports and more.

‘America’s Got Talent’: Summer’s No. 1 Show is Going Live! Plus, Our All-New Streaming Section

It takes guts to stand onstage in a packed theater and put on the performance of a lifetime — especially when America’s Got Talent judges Simon Cowell, Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum, and Mel B are ready to critique your every move. But that’s exactly what these five acts (four of them singers!) did during the Season 13 audition rounds of NBC’s talent-hunting competition.

And they all earned themselves a Golden Buzzer for it, a concept introduced in Season 9, where each judge — plus host Tyra Banks and four guest judges — chooses one outstanding performer to skip straight to the live rounds, which begin August 14. (The live-results shows kick off August 15.)

“There’s always tension when you see somebody doing something really great,” executive producer Sam Donnelly says. “It’s like, ‘Is anyone going to press the Golden Buzzer?!'”

Also in this issue:

• Stream It!: Introducing our brand new section for all your streaming needs. Includes: Ozark‘s dark second round, movies and TV coming to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and Hulu’s Casual. Plus, a guide to streaming and new movie releases calendar.
• Get Shorty: Ray Romano reveals what’s to come for his troubled movie producer.
• Better Call Saul: The transformation into Breaking Bad‘s Saul Goodman continues.
• Plus: San Diego Comic-Con photo highlights, meet NCIS‘s new Abby, a first look at Animal Kingdom‘s season ender and the best of movies, streaming, sports and more.