Last Night's TV: Scream Queens, Limitless, The Muppets, and More (SPOILERS!)

VIEW IN BROWSER THIS ISSUE: Scream Queens, Limitless, NCIS, The Muppets, Fresh Off the Boat TOP MOMENT OF THE NIGHT Scream Queens is Comedic Horror Hopped Up on Ralph Lauren FOX BECAUSE: It's Glee meets American (Rocky) Horror Story -- after months of ads featuring beautiful people with their beautiful hands covered in blood, Ryan Murphy's homicidal love child is finally here. And boy was it homicidal! There were no less than five alleged deaths on the premiere of Scream Queens and one very important non-death. If we've said it once we've said it a thousand times: Keep ya effin' eye on Nick Jonas. Final question: Which one of those beautiful children was born in that nasty Kappa Kappa Tau bathtub?! READ OUR RECAP Limitless CBS WHAT HAPPENED: Limitless marks the second new film-to-TV adaptation in the last two days following Monday night's Minority Report premiere. Is Limitless more successful? Eh. It has an equally promising lead actor (one day your time will come Meagan Good... one day) in Jake McDorman with a similarly Sci-Fi Lite premise: As with Bradley Cooper's character in the big screen original, McDorman's Brian Finch is given access to a little clear pill that unlocks all the hidden knowledge in his heretofore underachieving mind. The drug (NZT) gives Brian seemingly -- ahem -- limitless abilities, both mental and physical, but as EW recapper Devan Coggan points out, "Brian doesn't actually have any physical superpowers; instead, he just knows exactly how to maximize the strength he already has." One strength: Senator Bradley Cooper as a recurring mentor and Jennifer Carpenter as his newly found FBI confidante who's going to help him figure out how the hell he's connected to this drug. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: And so it is: Bold premise... fairly standard procedural execution. A "special" person gets an FBI handler and together, with their yin-and-yang personalities (and probs some will-they-won't-they chemistry), they work on weekly cases, likely saving the world ten times over. Vulture says, "It seems like the creators of Limitless ... saw the movie and decided that the film's premise was... unlimitable." Or more likely, they were watching The Blacklist and thought, "Hey, we could do this, but with that Bradley Cooper movie from a few years ago that was a little better than everyone thought it would be." None of this is to say that made-for-TV-Limitless is a procedural that can't work -- oh, it can work. With the right actors and writers, which Limitless just might have, the options can be... well, you get it. READ OUR RECAP NCIS CBS WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: Amidst all these new series with their pilot mysteries and enigmatic leads and Nick Jonases, it's nice to know that you can sit back, relax, and watch the 13th season premiere of trusty NCIS. But much like Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs and a certain Little Engine, this is one series that just keeps on chuggin'. Chuggin' successfully. As if 55 million international weekly viewers weren't enough, Tuesday night's premiere introduces Jon Cryer -- who knows a little something about bringing in a huge audience on CBS -- as the hyper-chatty Dr. Taft, the surgeon who's operating on the bullet wounds inflicted in last season's finale. While Gibbs' subconscious talks to his long-dead daughter in surgery, DiNozzo, who blames himself for being distracted by Budd's taunting when Gibbs got shot last season, catches up with Budd again in Shanghai. And this time when he starts in on one of his grandiose monologues, DiNozzo just shoots him in the leg. We'll let EW recapper Sara Netzley handle this one for you: "First pumps! Fist pumps all around for DiNozzo shooting the Euro-snoot in the chest!" WHAT HAPPENED: But in comparison to the dark days Gibbs is going through, taking Budd down is kind of a minor victory. Cryer was an excellent addition to Tuesday night's premiere, making for some truly layered scenes, like the last of the episode when he tells Gibbs that he has two types of patients: the ones who revere him for saving their lives, and the ones who despise him. Though Gibbs doesn't say that he despises his surgeon savior, as TV Line observes, "Gibbs' face suggests he nonetheless feels adrift, searching for his purpose, old or new, in the wake of his latest scare." Dr. Taft may have just discovered a profoundly conflicted third brand of near-death survivor. READ OUR RECAP The Muppets ABC WHAT HAPPENED: The Muppets is really going for it you guys -- all out, full-fledged mockumentary, starring an all-felt, full-classic Muppets cast. The Muppets is a behind-the-scenes look at the whole furry crew running a late-night talk show "with enough relationship and work problems to look more like the staff of Dunder Mifflin," says EW recapper Jonathon Dornbush -- or even more aspirational considering the premise, like the gang from 30 Rock. And we must say, the casting is perfect. Kermit does his best deadpan Liz Lemon as the EP, Miss Piggy is the host, of course, and Fozzie is the audience warm-up comedian who gets the line of the night: "When your online profile says 'bear searching for love,' you get a lot of wrong responses. Not wrong. Just...wrong for me." WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: People are... liking it! Kind of. A Muppets TV show for adults seems like a risky move, and it is, but it's also working a little more than expected, though with plenty of potential for improvement. Of the mockumentary format, The A.V. Club says, "It's the trappings of the genre that end up being the series' greatest strength as well as its greatest weakness." The premiere has its funny moments, but it could use more heart. For true Muppets fans, there's one opinion that matters most though; Jim Henson's daughter, Lisa Henson, who runs The Jim Henson Company, told Variety that she tries not to guess at what her father would have thought, but in her opinion, "I feel like [The Muppets series creator] Bill Prady is picking up literally where my father left off." READ OUR RECAP One More Thing... Fresh Off the Boat Is "Fresh as Hell" ABC PUMP IT UP: In case you somehow missed the outsider family sitcom that took fans and critics by storm in its premiere season, it's time to catch up. Season 2 of Fresh Off the Boat is here and you could be marinating meat or driving with all the time you're wasting not watching it. In Tuesday's premiere, the Huangs continue to tackle the subtle issues of an immigrant family like slowing down for vacations and stealing hotel toiletries -- they're complimentary! -- while the series continues to remind us of all the best mid-'90s trends: Reebok Pumps, MTV VJs, a Lamar Burton Reading Rainbow shirt, and of course, the yellow suit from The Mask. READ OUR RECAP Also Check Out... Recommended by Copyright © 2015 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved. WANT MORE? To subscribe to any of EW.com's email products, please click here. PRIVACY POLICY Please click here for our privacy policy. For further communication, please click here Your California Privacy Rights Entertainment Weekly Customer Service ATTENTION: CONSUMER AFFAIRS 3000 University Center Drive Tampa, FL 33612-6408 You are receiving this email because you are a friend of Entertainment Weekly. To unsubscribe from these updates, please click here.