There are few TV series as sumptuously detailed as “Boardwalk Empire” (HBO, 9 p.m.) returning tonight for a third season. The saga of prohibition era boss Nucky Thompson and his Atlantic City picks up right around New Year’s Day 1923, which means a party and quite a lot of the product Thompson retails in.
Right away there’s a new threat in a New York gangster very easily played by Bobby Cannavalle, left. And yet some of the set pieces meant to tell the story are becoming stale: Killing an innocent to underscore toughness, the excesses of celebration.
Enough things have happened between seasons to make the debut interesting beside itself: the composure of the Atlantic City underworld without one of its rising young thugs, the delicate détente between Nucky and Margaret Schroeder after he signed away a fortune to a church.
There are other old characters still to return to the fold, from Nucky’s bother Eli, who took the jail term, to former agent Van Alden, who leads his strange life seemingly far from the action yet seems with the first five episodes anyway, trying to find a way to intersect with his old life.
There is a darkness to the season beyond its grim repercussions and gun battles; the lighting just seems dimmer (or does my set brightness need to be adjusted?). Perhaps adding the chiaroscuro is meant to suggest even further rich detail somewhere beneath the darkness, or is just truer to the time.
“Boardwalk Empire” starts slowly but builds into some terrific episodes that make it one of TV’s best dramas – certainly among the best of the fall.