TV Talk: ‘Sopranos’ meets ‘Batman’ in ‘The Penguin’; Agatha back on Disney+

As a sufferer of superhero fatigue, I skipped the 2022 Robert Pattinson-starring “The Batman” and had no real interest in HBO’s “The Penguin” (9 p.m. today, HBO and Max).

But once I started watching “The Penguin,” it was hard to stop.

Events of “The Batman” get a recap at the start of the series but it’s not necessary to see the film. Batman won’t appear in “The Penguin,” which instead focuses on waddling underworld gangster lacky Oz Cobb (an unrecognizable Colin Farrell), aka The Penguin.

Oz is a rougher, less successful Tony Soprano, and the series hews more closely to the conventions of a Mafia story than it does any superhero tale. It’s pulpier and less sophisticated than a lot of HBO fare, even “House of the Dragon” for goodness’ sake, but there’s ultimately enough psychological complexity to the characters that “The Penguin” doesn’t feel out of place on HBO.

Written by Lauren LeFranc (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “Hemlock Grove”) with the first three episodes directed by Craig Zobel, who made Pittsburgh-filmed “One Dollar” and later “Mare of Easttown,” “The Penguin” stays interesting thanks largely to a litany of episode-ending cliffhangers and its female characters, Cobb adversary and former Arkham Asylum patient Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti, stealing many scenes) and Cobb’s mother, Francis (Deirdre O’Connell, “One Dollar”), who gives off Livia Soprano vibes.

Violent and vicious, this is not a superhero spinoff for children.

As “The Penguin” begins, the Falcone and Maroni crime families are fighting for control of the city and Cobb plays both sides throughout the eight-episode first season. But, really, he’s only out for himself.

Farrell’s body seems to have been absorbed by the Penguin and the voice Farrell projects is unlike any I’ve heard him use in other roles.

Similarly, Milioti, who broke out in the TV comedy “How I Met Your Mother,” seems leaps and bounds removed from the kinds of roles viewers are most accustomed to seeing her in (although dig deep into her IMDB.com page and you’ll see she did appear in three episodes of “The Sopranos” early in her career).

The Cobb-Sofia story, which gets deepened through flashbacks in episode four, is one of three significant relationship stories told throughout the first season. There’s also Cobb’s relationship with his mother and Cobb’s efforts to take a street kid, Vic (Rhenzy Feliz), under his wing.

These three significant Cobb relationships give “The Penguin” a grounded, dramatic spine on which the writers can hang all the back-and-forth crosses, double crosses and gunfights.

In a virtual press conference last week, LeFranc said she approached “The Penguin” thinking about what Cobb wants, where he comes from and what he’s afraid of.

“I wanted to make sure that in this rise-to-power story that there was something greater behind that,” she said. “I don’t think people seek power just to seek power. They seek power because of a deeper want or deeper void inside of them. To me it made a lot of sense to build a mother figure for him and have so much more emotion rooted in that. I thought about this idea that Oz wants to make his mother proud and he needs her love and affection and she’s withholding. I started to ask myself why she would be withholding, and that’s something that we reveal deeper in the season.”

Subsequent episodes of “The Penguin” debut at 9 p.m. Sundays on HBO beginning Sept. 29; the last two episodes of the third season of “Industry” bump back to 10 p.m. for the next two weeks.

‘Agatha All Along’

Disney+’s “WandaVision” is still its best Marvel series as it played with American sitcom conventions decade-by-decade. Sequel series “Agatha All Along,” now streaming, begins by aping crime drama conventions but quickly abandons that quirk to get on with Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) gathering other witches for a trip down The Witches’ Road as she tries to regain the powers Wanda stripped from her at the end of “WandaVision.”

Written by Jac Schaeffer, who was the showrunner on “WandaVision,” “Agatha All Along” lacks the creative spark that made “WandaVision” worth watching. In the new series, the emphasis is more on Wanda’s character and her relationships with fellow witches, particularly Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal and Joe Locke’s mysterious Teen (he has no name; “Teen” is what Agatha calls him).

The presence of Broadway star Patti LuPone ensures there will be a few musical numbers — The Witches’ Road has not one but at least two theme songs by “Frozen” songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who also penned the “Agatha All Along” song in “WandaVision” — but through four episodes made available for review, the fetch quest on the Witches’ Road grows repetitive and dull.

Two “Agatha” episodes are now streaming with the remainder of the nine-episode season dropping weekly on Wednesdays on Disney+ at 9 p.m. ET (the last two episodes debut together Oct. 30).

In a virtual “Agatha” Disney+ press conference last month, Hahn said the themes of the series she hopes viewers take away are the notions that “the community is important and friends are important,” Hahn said. “You can’t do it alone. And that our power is really in who we are. And that our witchiness is our special superpower.”