I am – Hercules!!

Showtime’s “Brotherhood” hasn’t been a winner in the ratings so far, but it's been big with the critics and I'm hopeful it'll find an audience with its third season, launching tonight on Showtime. As the record numbers for “Weeds,” “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” and “Dexter” attest, more people are looking to Showtime for series TV, and the pay channel is airing “Brotherhood” at 8 p.m. Sundays, where it will compete with football, reality shows and cartoons rather than fresh episodes of ABC and CBS’ popular Sunday-night dramas.

The tale of two fast-climbing Rhode Island brothers – one’s a corrupt politician, the other’s a mob boss – “Brotherhood” comes roaring back tonight with both Caffees forced to make bold career moves.

Lead sibs Michael and Tommy are now estranged (though they still manage to appear together at least once an episode). The ne’er-do-well cousin from Ireland still has the hots for the violent, erratic and murderous Michael Caffee’s girl Kath. Powerful and deadly gangster Freddie Cork, betrayed by Michael, is getting out on bail, and none too happy to find Michael has usurped his business. Cop and childhood friend Deco Giggs is offered a new job investigating political corruption. And Tommy’s wife Eileen (Annabeth Gish) is taking a break from drugging and sleeping around to get pregnant with a fourth kid.

Is it as good as “Mad Men” or “The Wire”? Not remotely! But I find it a compelling enough substitute; maybe you will as well.

To anticipate the question, there is a parcel of nudity in the season’s first two episodes, but neither “The X-Files” vet Gish nor “The West Wing’s” Janel Moloney cavort nakedly. For that you’ll have to wait and hope or just get your hands on the first- and second-season DVDs.

Series vet Henry Bromell (“Northern Exposure,” “Chicago Hope,” “Homicide,” “Carnivale”) scripts the season opener, which comes with an ending compelling enough to lure viewers back next Sunday. Series mastermind Blake Masters scripts 3.2, a better installment that follows Michael growing into his new job, Freddie coping with his diminished lifestyle and mother Rose Caffee enduring a vexing tangle with managed health care.

Showtime only ordered eight third-season episodes, so I’m hopeful Masters is packing the episodes tighter than ever.

Entertainment Weekly gives season three an “A-minus” and says:

… If Brotherhood isn't as brilliant as The Wire, it's just as believable. The cast is so solid, you'd never guess they hail from England (Isaacs), Australia (Clarke), Ireland (Flanagan), Hollywood royalty (Gish), and bad teen comedies (the spectacular Embry). They feel like they've always been sitting in this sad little corner of Providence, waiting for the show to start. …

The Associated Press says:

… splendid drama … There’s high-rev conflict and violence in "Brotherhood," and that keeps it exciting. But it’s grounded in realism any viewer will already know and recognize as truth. …

The New York Times says:

… begins its third exceptional season … Among its many virtues, “Brotherhood” isn’t in the business of life lessons.

The Philadelphia Daily News says:

… "Brotherhood," like "The Wire," is a story about how things actually work in places where the politics is nearly always personal and the personal nearly always political. … based on the two episodes I've seen, this season, a rebuilding one for several characters, seems to be taking a less sudsy approach, focusing instead on the devilish details of how the system works (and doesn't) that can only make "Brotherhood's" realpolitik that much more real. …

Variety says:

… a gritty, competently executed, occasionally gripping crime series that never quite rises to the lofty pay TV standards established by "The Sopranos" and "The Wire." …

8 p.m. Sunday. Showtime.

PRICE WAR!!
Samsung Blu-Ray Players: $205.98!!
Sylvania Blu-Ray Players: $207.92!!
(Both Models Play DVDs Too!!)
(Get Four Free WB Blu-Ray
Discs With Purchase!!)