Oscar winner Alicia Vikander plays a movie star becoming absorbed in her femme fatale role in HBO’s adaptation of the 1996 movie Irma Vep. It’s the beginning of the end as Roswell, New Mexico and In the Dark begin their final seasons on The CW. NBC’s hit American Ninja Warrior launches its 14th edition. Acorn TV makes the entire third season of British procedural London Kills available for binge-watching.
Carole Bethuel/HBO
Irma Vep
Oscar-winning actress Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl) appears to be spoofing her action-hero persona of Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) in the premiere of an intriguing series based on writer-director-creator Olivier Assayas’s own 1996 movie. We first meet American movie star Mira on the last leg of an exhausting global media tour for her Doomsday superhero movie. This brings her to Paris, where she’ll soon start shooting a remake of a classic French silent crime film, Les Vampires, as femme fatale Irma Vep (an anagram for vampire, though think vamp). With her new director (Vincent Macaigne) on anti-depressants, and a co-star confronting intimacy issues with his ex-lover scene partner, the series’ tone is part satire, part immersive behind-the-scenes look at the creative process. Mira’s (note the anagram of Irma) complicated personal life takes on a new dimension when she tries on her Irma Vep cat suit and begins identifying perhaps too closely with the role.
Ursula Coyote/The CW
Roswell, New Mexico
It is no longer business as usual at The CW, where cancellations were rare and shows kept chugging along despite puny linear viewership. With the network’s sale looming, a number of shows were given marching orders last month, resulting in the sci-fi remake’s fourth season becoming its last. The final run begins on a peaceful note with Liz (Jeanine Mason) teaching and alien beau Max (Nathan Parsons) consulting with the police on a bank-robbery spree. But storm clouds on the horizon means new intrigue is on the way. Followed by the Season 4 premiere of In the Dark (9/8c), which likewise is embarking on a fourth, now final, season, with Murphy (Perry Mattfield) not adjusting well to prison life.
Elizabeth Morris/NBC
American Ninja Warrior
For the 14th season of the grueling enduring challenge, the age requirement has again been lowered, so warriors as young as 15 can participate. The action begins with qualifying rounds in San Antonio’s Alamodome, featuring new obstacles including the Salmon Roll, the Serpent and Roller Coaster.
London Kills
All five episodes of the gritty U.K. police drama’s third season are available for binge-watching. It’s hard to stop at just one, as the elite murder investigation squad looks into the fatal stabbing of a young man who turns out to have had access to classified police intelligence. Could the killer be one of their own?
Inside Monday TV:
- Celebrity IOU (9/8c, HGTV): Oscar winner Halle Berry has never forgotten Yvonne, her fifth-grade teacher and mentor, and with the help of Property Brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott, they upgrade the teacher’s 1920s home in Cleveland, Ohio. They even create some custom storage to keep handwritten notes from Yvonne’s other grateful students.
- True Crime Watch: Lifetime launches a “Life & Crime Mondays” franchise with #TextMeWhenYouGetHome (9/8c), telling stories of women who were victimized on what had seemed an ordinary day. Followed by Sleeping with a Killer (10/9c), an import from the U.K. (where it was titled Green Eyed Killers), recounting cases where jealousy leads to bloody tragedy. On the all-crime Investigation Discovery, a sixth season of People Magazine Investigates (9/8c) opens with the “Groene Family Massacre” from 2005, when a triple murder and kidnapping of two young siblings from the same family shatters the lakeside community of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho.
- Miz & Mrs (11/10c, USA Network): A third season of the reality series about married pro wrestlers The Miz and Maryse opens with back-to-back episodes, when WWE star Mike Mizanin is invited to participate in Dancing with the Stars.
