3 'best’ and ‘worst' new TV shows for families this fall: Parents Television Council

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Tuesday, October 01, 2019

3 Worst Shows of Fall 2019

“Prodigal Son” 

Fox’s new crime drama series premiered last Monday. “Prodigal Son” focuses on character Malcolm Bright (played by Tom Payne), whose father was an infamous serial killer known as “The Surgeon." The father was responsible for 23 murders. 

“Malcolm turned his father in, but continued to visit — and learn from — Martin throughout childhood and into his years studying psychology at Harvard,” Gildemeister wrote. “Now, Malcolm walks a tightrope between his work with the police and the dark world of his father, who repeatedly tells Malcolm, ‘There’s so much more I can teach you about murder … because we’re the same, you and I.’

Gildemeister slammed the show as another attempt by the entertainment industry to “glorify serial killers.” He argued that the show seeks to entertain people with a “sick, psychopathic sadism.”

“And, like its sister series, 'Prodigal Son' doesn’t stint on the gore,” Gildemeister added. “[I]n the first episode alone, viewers see dozens of severed heads pickled in glass jars by a killer; several people bloodily shot to death; a slow-motion re-enaction of a murder by lethal injection; multiple references to BDSM, ‘doms and subs,’ and torture; and the program’s hero Malcolm saving an innocent victim from an exploding bomb … by chopping off the victim’s hand with an axe.”

Gildemeister also stressed that the show’s theme of child abuse is “darker than those found on other shows.”

He concluded that the show is “not appropriate for children or teens.”