TV Talk: ‘Evil' returns for season 2 on a new platform

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

It’s a topsy-turvy TV world these days with shows moving from linear networks to streaming services and sometimes back again, especially if it’s a Discovery Networks show.

Now CBS has joined the chaos, moving “SEAL Team” (after a few new episodes air on CBS this fall) and “Evil” to Paramount+. All of these moves are, at root, financial in nature, an effort to shuffle expensive shows to outlets that are corporate priorities and therefore better able to absorb a hefty price tag.

But it also shows a weakening of the broadcast ecosystem when a show as smartly written, clever and creative as “Evil” gets ported over to a streamer and replaced on the CBS lineup by yet another bland iteration of “FBI” or “NCIS.”

“Evil” was the one prestige drama CBS had going and now it’s gone from CBS. I appreciate the desire to protect “Evil” by shifting it to an outlet where serialized shows typically find more success, but it also means the audience for that type of series may not watch CBS much for the foreseeable future.

I’m also not convinced “Evil” would have been a ratings bust in its second season on CBS especially after the show gained a new audience when season one streamed on Netflix last fall. (The CW’s “All American” saw its linear TV ratings grow after previous seasons streamed on Netflix.)

Season two of “Evil,” streaming Sunday on Paramount+, picks up right where season one ended and appears to quickly and definitively answer the question of whether or not forensic psychologist Kristin Bouchard (Katja Herbers) murdered a serial killer after the man threatened to harm her daughters. (If the answer holds and the show doesn’t later do a bait-and-switch, that may also be a reason ViacomCBS execs sent the show to Paramount+)

While this ongoing story simmers through the first four episodes of season two made available for review, “Evil” continues to balance it against case-of-the-week plots.

In the first episode the bishop (Peter Scolari) tasks Roman Catholic priest-in-training David (Mike Colter), skeptic Ben (Aasif Mandvi) and Kristen with exorcising a demon from a high-dollar church donor, sinister Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), who spent season one creeping on Kristen and dating her mother (Christine Lahti) to further insinuate himself into Kristen’s life.

“Evil” is the rare show that’s both frequently scary — one jump-scare was enough that my reaction scared my dog sitting next to me on the couch — but in a generally sophisticated way. It’s not gruesome like “Hannibal” and the weekly cases keep “Evil” from spinning off into murky mythology. The move to Paramount+ presumably happened late in the game because episodes generally run a network-standard 42 minutes; the only thing you wouldn’t hear on CBS is one f-bomb that pretty clearly was added to the season two premiere in post-production.

Series writers/creators Michelle and Robert King have had their share of creative misses (“Braindead,” “Your Honor”) but the first two episodes of “Evil” feel of a piece with their other Paramount+ series, “The Good Fight,” returning for a new season June 24.

Episodes three and four of “Evil’s” second season, particularly three, are less commendable, splitting up the lead trio for too long and sending characters on paths that lack clear motivation. (The investigators-who-go-it-alone-when-they-should-know-better trope also gets deployed.) The Kings were overseeing multiple series at the same time in a covid environment so a slippage in quality isn’t too surprising. Fingers crossed that future episodes get “Evil” back on its mostly excellent, malevolent track.