“Doctor Who” fans may want to tune into the latest TV project of David Tennant, doctor emeritus, putting on a sober voice as military attache at the French embassy in Poland, who falls for a Parisian lawyer for the League of Nations in the build up of World War II, 1933 to 1943 in “Spies of Warsaw” (BBC America, 9 p.m.).
The adaptation of the Alan Furst novel provides fodder for a nice period piece, with big 30s sedans, but it’s a good vehicle for Tennant, too, who drops his natural goofiness for a very stern and quite convincing gravity required for a role. It’s an even more welcome role for Janet Montgomery, the British actress so badly cast as the big-haired lead in the network flop “Made in Jersey.”
They make a smoldering couple and the intrigue around them in the two part miniseries is satisfying fare.
It comes on a night of a second new drama, this one for subscribers of DirecTV, “Rogue” (DirecTV, Audience Channel 239, 9 p.m.).
It stars the sultry Thandie Newton as a cop working deep undercover for a local mobster and drug smuggler in Oakland, who becomes unhinged when her son is victim of a drive-by. Then she goes rogue and continues her cover to get information about the shooting though she’s been found out and the cops have suspended her.
It would have worked better if the picture of Oakland were a tad more realistic. As it is, it seems to be a city without black people. And the mob depiction is a little textbook, though it has some potential in the two sons of the family, one with a treacherously ambitious wife, the other a seeming innocent sprung from jail.
It’s one of those gritty tales that has to hit you over the head that’s its subscriber based, though, throwing in gratuitous sex and making character spew the f-word awkwardly in each speech, whether it’s needed or not.
It’s sort of an interesting show, but definitely not one worth fleeing cable to watch.