TV Heartbeat! Orphan Black is back with its own chat show! 12 Monkeys! The Night Manager! And More!

April really is the best month for TV! Outlander returned to record audiences and rave reviews and now Orphan Black is back!

Orphan Back is back for season 4 and, as a bonus, it’s moving nights! The series starts back up this Thursday which means it’s no longer conflicting with Outlander. (Thank you, BBC America!). Even Iceland isn’t remote enough to escape the Neolutionists who find Sarah and drag her back into the rabbit hole.

Orphan Black will be followed up with InnerSpace: After the Black, a post-show chat to digest all the crazy goodness of the most recent episode. After the Black will be hosted by Teddy, Ajay and Morgan, the hosts of Space channel’s InnerSpace. These guys are great moderators so it should be a lot of fun! Tatiana will be their first guest this week.

AMC is importing The Night Manager, a 6 part mini-series starring Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, Olivia Coleman and Tobias Menzies who broke hearts everywhere in last week’s Outlander. Taking place in Egypt, the night manager of a hotel is recruited by intelligence agents to infiltrate an arms dealing network.

HBO debuts one of their big bids for the Emmys with Confirmation which is a dramatization of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice. This hearing was, of course, complicated by accusations of sexual harassment from Anita Hill. The cast includes Wendell Pierce, Kerry Washington, Jennifer Hudson, Jeffrey Wright, Grace Gummer and Erika Christensen.

HBO is also clearing house with finales for Vinyl and Girls on Sunday. They need to make way for Game of Thrones which begins the week after.

12 Monkeys resumes to time trip all over the place. This is not a show where you can casually jump into the second season so binge the first season before you join in on the nuttiness. Read up on what’s ahead for season 2 with my interview with the cast.

Three very different shows will be back for their sophomore seasons: The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Scream and The Good Witch. Gotta love the variety on TV nowadays!

Meanwhile, a bunch of shows are wrapping up their season including My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Supergirl, Better Call Saul and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Supergirl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine are not officially renewed, but are likely to come back.

Bitten signs off for the last time with its series finale. Lots of supernatural shows seem to be moving off air. Goodbye Elena and her hot men…

Wednesday: Face/Off season finale (Syfy), Strong debut (NBC)
Thursday: Orphan Black season premiere (BBC America), After the Black (BBC America), American Grit debut (Fox), Bones returns (Fox)
Friday: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt season premiere (Netflix), Kong: King of the Apes (Netflix), Thunderbirds Are Go! (Amazon)
Saturday: Confirmation (HBO), Beowulf finale (Esquire)
Sunday: Girls season finale (HBO), Vinyl season finale (HBO), Good Witch season premiere (Hallmark), TV Land Icon Awards (TV Land)
Monday: 12 Monkeys season premiere (Syfy), Bitten series finale (Syfy), My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend season finale (The CW), Supergirl season finale (CBS), Better Call Saul season finale (AMC)
Tuesday: Containment debut (The CW), The Night Manager debut (AMC), Brooklyn Nine-Nine season finale (Fox)
Wednesday: Deadbeat debut (Hulu), Scream season premiere (MTV)

Health check

Outlander returned with an outstanding season 2 premiere with double the audience of last year’s premiere and a big jump versus the finale. Starz was hoping for an expanded audience with the show’s availability on DVD and on demand. They definitely got that! This was the network’s biggest premiere ever so nervous fans waiting for an announcement for season 3 should rest easy. Unless the earth explodes, we’re getting a third season! The season 3 announcement should be any day now and the big question is more about how many episodes and if they are splitting Voyager into 2 seasons as Ron Moore originally planned years ago (read about that here.)

The Girlfriend Experience also had a healthy debut for Starz. The series featuring Riley Keough about a high-end escort has its full season available on demand now so you can complete it before Game of Thrones sucks up your Sundays for the next 10 weeks.

Fear the Walking Dead returned to strong ratings, but short of last year’s finale. AMC is still happy with the results and is probably happy enough with tripling the episode count for this season.

Free TV!

Comcast subscribers should note that Watchathon begins on April 18th. This means hundreds of hours of programming will be available for free so it’s a great time to catch up on those premium cable shows, get addicted and then sign up for more!

Stay tuned!