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HBO, Sundays, 9 p.m.
HBO’s latest newest prestige drama was created by Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese and it focuses on the 1970s music business in New York. With that pedigree, it shouldn’t be surprising that the show is full of drugs, sex, violence, raw rock and roll and sublime R&B. Bobby Cannavale is the anti-heroic record exec Richie Finestra, Olivia Wilde is his wife Devon, Ray Romano is his right-hand man Zak, Ato Essandoh is the first artist Richie signed and betrayed and Juno Temple is an eager assistant desperate to become an A&R executive in Richie’s company. The tornado of cocaine and bad choices begins with Richie hitting bottom and ends with him having some sort of epiphany. In the pilot, the violence was hard to take and so was the sexist use of the female characters to highlight the era’s sexism, but the potential of the series to chronicle one of the most exciting times in music history is truly great.
