NEW SHOWS
Brooklyn Nine-Nine – “Hostage Situation” (A)
This show just keeps getting better. It starts with Holt breakdancing and only gets better from there, as Boyle and Peralta try to free Boyle’s sperm samples (aka “Boyle Oil” — eww) from his horrible ex-wife (the amazing Kathryn Hahn). Really could not love this episode more.
OLD SHOWS
The Wire (Season 4) – “Boys of Summer” (A-)
As with every season premiere of this show, it’s a pretty leisurely catch-up with characters old and new. The two most fascinating are the enforcers for the Stanfields, who have an easy rapport and time-tested methods for doing gruesome acts. But it also introduces surely the most tragic group of the season: the middle schoolers who are eating popsicles one minute, then delivering beatings the next. Easy prey for the drug dealers to get in their clutches. There’s also a beauty in the banality as director Joe Chappelle shows us parallel scenes of a new teacher orientation and a training to spot terrorist activity.