5 Best Kyle Chandler TV Shows To Watch After Lanterns

• Kyle Chandler has portrayed Hal Jordan in “Lanterns” with a unique and weary take, leading to concerns from the Guardians of the Universe about his moral leanings.
• Chandler’s top-rated TV show on Rotten Tomatoes is “Friday Night Lights,” a critically acclaimed sports drama focusing on the Dillon Panthers high school football team and coach Eric Taylor.
• In “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” Chandler plays powerful investor Bill Gurley, whose skepticism towards Travis Kalanick’s methods causes tension and contributes to the CEO’s ultimate resignation.

Kyle Chandler has been making waves on “Lanterns” as the powerful Hal Jordan, the senior Green Lantern of Earth in the DC Universe. The actor’s weary take is a bold departure from Hal’s traditional depiction, being a scruffy figure whose moral leanings often seem ambiguous. This concerns the Guardians of the Universe enough to task him with training his intended replacement, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). Add Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) in the mix, and the DCU’s Earth corner of the Green Lantern lore is an incredibly interesting (and somewhat catty) place.

Think of Hal Jordan what you will, but Chandler’s down-to-Earth portrayal is great, and there is no doubt many fans will want to see what other shows the actor has graced his presence with over the years. Fortunately, admirers of Chandler’s work have plenty of great projects to pick from. To help with the selection, we have taken the time to put together a list of Kyle Chandler’s five finest non-“Lanterns” TV shows, ranked by their critical appreciation on Rotten Tomatoes.

For this list, we’ve only chosen Chandler’s major starring and supporting roles. As such, you won’t find his admittedly excellent four-episode turn as Dylan Young in “Grey’s Anatomy” here, his one-episode turn as Mitch McLusky on “Mayor of Kingstown,” or the quickly-cancelled legal drama “The Lyon’s Den.”

5. Bloodline

Don’t let its 62% Tomatometer rating fool you — Netflix’s “Bloodline” is a seriously captivating psychological thriller series. Taking place in Florida, the show focuses on the superficially happy and tight-knit Rayburn family that nevertheless has secrets with a capital S. Things soon escalate and big decisions need to be made, and by the ending of “Bloodline,” it’s painfully clear that not nearly all of these decisions are very good.

Kyle Chandler plays John Rayburn, one of the family’s sons who works in law enforcement. His siblings are played by Ben Mendelsohn, Linda Cardellini, and Norbert Leo Butz, while the family’s parents are played by Sam Shepard and Sissy Spacek. Expect plenty of other stars from John Leguizamo to Chloë Sevigny, too.

“Bloodline” toys with deception, timelines, and plenty of plot twists, presenting itself as a fun but intense Rubik’s Cube for the viewer to ponder. The Florida setting provides the perfect background for this captivating 3-season series, and the cast admirably commits to its many twists and turns.

4. Homefront

For those who wish to experience a more youthful Kyle Chandler, look no further than ABC’s “Homefront.” Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick’s entertaining historical drama kicks off in the fall of 1945, and examines the daily lives of the good people of River Run, Ohio.

This period of history marks the end of World War II, of course, which is integral to the central premise of “Homefront.” The show depicts how the post-war landscape of an American small town as the soldiers return to their civilian lives, reclaiming their jobs from the women who have grown accustomed to doing them in the men’s absence. This and many other events soon reveal that life has irrevocably changed for everyone involved, creating plenty of drama. Chandler leads the pack as Jeff Metcalf, a young baseball player who has been dating his big brother Hank’s (David Newsom) fianceé Sarah (Alexandra Wilson) during Hank’s service in the war.

“Homefront” ran from 1991 to 1993. While the show didn’t make it past its sophomore season, it’s well worth watching for fans of Chandler’s early work, with a 67% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

3. Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

“Super Pumped” is Brian Koppelman and David Levien’s anthology show based on real events at the top of major business ventures. The first season is subtitled “The Battle for Uber,” and chronicles the career trajectory of the rideshare juggernaut’s co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick, played here by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Kalanick’s meteoric rise, numerous professional hurdles, and ultimate forced resignation makes for interesting biopic fodder, and the Showtime series has a reasonably solid 68% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Kyle Chandler gets a fascinating main role; Namely, powerful investor Bill Gurley of Benchmark, whose company had a hand in Kalanick’s ultimate ousting. 

Gurley is a major presence from Episode 1, and his skepticism toward Kalanick’s methods causes plenty of tension with both the CEO and Kalanick’s mid-game ally, Arianna Huffington (Uma Thurman). In other words, Chandler gets to play off some seriously committed professionals in a juicy businessman role. What more could you want?

2. Catch-22

It’s tempting to envision Kyle Chandler as John Yossarian when “Catch-22” characters are discussed, but Luke Davies and David Michôd’s 2019 Hulu miniseries adaptation of Joseph Heller’s classic novel gives that role to Christopher Abbott. It actually does one better: The show casts Chandler as the antagonistic and wholly untrustworthy Colonel Cathcart, who constantly moves the goal posts and keeps Yossarian trapped on Pianosa with his ever-rising mission requirements. As tends to be the case, Chandler works well with the rest of the cast.

The casting of the show’s higher-ranking officers is on point across the board. Apart from Chandler, we see George Clooney as Major Scheisskopf, Lewis Pullman as the unfortunately named Major Major Major Major, and Hugh Laurie as Major de Coverley. The story is, of course, familiar to anyone who’s read the book or seen previous adaptations, but the miniseries executes it extremely well. Everyone’s on point here, and the show’s 84% Tomatometer rating proves that this version has legs to spare.

1. Friday Night Lights

Technically, Kyle Chandler’s highest-rated TV show on Rotten Tomatoes is “Star Wars: Visions,” where he voices Professor Mitaka in the episode “T0-B1.” Still, we’re going to skip it, considering it’s a one-episode voice acting gig within a larger series of shorts. Instead, the top spot goes quite justifiably to Chandler’s best-known series, “Friday Night Lights.” 

Peter Berg’s 5-season NBC sports drama focuses on the high school football team of Dillon, Texas — the Dillon Panthers — and its coach, Eric Taylor (Chandler). Eric, his wife Tami (Connie Britton), and their daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden) are the heart of the show, and Eric’s dual position as an outside arrival and a coach in a quirky town that lives and breathes football is integral to the plot.

Over the course of the show, the Taylors preside over a roster full of names that have since become household. The show’s major cast includes Michael B. Jordan, Jesse Plemons, Taylor Kitsch, Minka Kelly, Adrianne Palicki, and Jurnee Smollett, so there’s plenty of talent to match Chandler’s. The show’s hard-hitting storylines are also notoriously deep, with plenty of serious issues wrapped around the surprisingly malleable high school football premise. Critically appreciated and loved by fans, “Friday Night Lights” is the seminal Kyle Chandler show, and has the 97% Tomatometer rating to prove it — not to mention a 2011 Primetime Emmy win for Chandler himself for outstanding lead actor in a drama series.

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Read the original article on Looper.