Fall TV premieres continue with ‘Disclaimer,’ ‘Day of the Jackal,’ ‘Creep Tapes’

My look at fall TV’s premieres continues into November with a trio of streaming offerings. Although these series have several episodes out now (I miss the days of savoring one episode per week), I’m looking at only the debut episodes here.

‘Disclaimer’

I was excited for “Disclaimer” (Apple TV Plus), bolstered by a stylish writer-director (Alfonso Cuaron), an actress who rarely misses (Cate Blanchett) and an intriguing brain-teaser. Catherine (Blanchett) reads a novel that happens to exactly match with her life.

The show looks nice as it splits between present day and some ephemeral time in the past that a web search tells me is the 1990s. Most of the characters are unlikeable, though, including Catherine, an absent mother to her young-adult son. Sacha Baron Cohen plays her husband in one of his “Wait, that’s Sacha Baron Cohen?!” roles. I guess I picture him as Borat.

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Kevin Kline plays Stephen, the distributor of that mysterious novel (actually written by his late wife). In flashbacks to the 1990s we see Stephen’s since-deceased son Jonathan (Louis Partridge) and his girlfriend treating the world like it’s their oyster. When we meet them they’re having sex in a train compartment, annoying the ticket-taker and the viewer with their self-centeredness. To be fair, the duo gets smacked back to reality, and Jonathan no doubt becomes sympathetic with time.

I had mistakenly thought the flashbacks were to a young Stephen in roughly the 1970s, till looking it up. That’s my fault, but the fact remains that these people aren’t likeable enough to make their stories worth unraveling. And I had assumed a metaphysical angle to the mystery; I’m a little disappointed it’s just an extremely stylish time-hopping soap about rival families and internal family feuds.

2.5 stars

‘The Day of the Jackal’

A better combination of look and story is showrunner-writer Ronan Bennett’s “The Day of the Jackal” (Peacock), which modernizes the 1973 film in the ways you’d expect. The original gets style out of being absent of style: It’s a deliciously cold cat-and-mouse game between a sniper killer and a government intelligence agent.

In this version, too, we’re not asked to absorb the politics in detail, which is a good choice. (Northern Irishman Bennett does touch on his state’s issues, though, for those who want to go there.) We go deeper into the lives of the Jackal (Eddie Redmayne) and British intelligence agent Bianca (Lashana Lynch), codename Nadine. The relationship stuff is to be expected, especially Bianca’s work-life-balance.

Also expected is the Jackal’s skill with a sniper rifle, as well as breaking it down and hiding it in his suitcase. But this is more interesting than character relationships. Redmayne (“Fantastic Beasts”) is just that good; the Jackal is a contract killer worth rooting for (in the context of this fiction).

Bianca in particular is leading us down side plots: Force Person D to contact Person C in order to get information about Person B, who will lead to Person A. I’m tempted to continue with this glossy series, but I don’t know if I have the energy to take all these detours on the journey back to Plot A.

3.5 stars

‘The Creep Tapes’

Speaking of expanded stories but moving far away from the gloss, writer-actor Mark Duplass – who has maintained a foot both in mainstream and DIY storytelling – gives us more of his pet-project franchise with “The Creep Tapes” (Shudder, AMC Plus). The found-footage horror films “Creep” (2015) and “Creep 2” (2017) are skillful slices of awkward-social-interaction horror, forebearers of what has become a popular subgenre. Both are worth checking out.

The first episode of “Tapes” finds Duplass’ character – who we know from the films is named Josef but who always uses an alias – simply doing his thing again: luring a videographer to his remote home with a $1K payout for an evening of improv shooting, then murdering him. The episode is hurt by Duplass doing exactly what we know he’s gonna do: being creepy around the guy and extending the awkward visit with cash, bad weather and brief moments of almost-normality.

The actor is good at this odd type of acting, but episode one features no twist to distinguish itself from the films and is closer to dull than terrifying. I assume Duplass and director Patrick Brice (also back from the films) simply love making this brand of pitch-black horror comedy.

But the jokes aren’t good (an example: his alias here is “Jeff Daniels”). And without telling us the narrative reason for this series’ existence (I guess we’re just going through the killer’s VHS shelf), it’s hard to invest in more than one tape.

2 stars