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"Digital Spy presents Remote Patrol - a new weekly column from New York-based TV critic Bruce Fretts, taking a look at what&amp;#039;s hot right now in US television. Fretts is a veteran of both Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide Magazine, where he penned the wildly popular &amp;#039;Cheers &amp;amp; Jeers&amp;#039; column for ten years. RECTIFY AND THE VIRTUES OF SLOW TV  &amp;quot;When did TV-watching become a competition?&amp;quot; I asked last week in my post about binge-viewing Orange Is the New Black. Now that many of you have no doubt sped through all 13 new episodes of Netflix&amp;#039;s criminally addictive prison dramedy, may I recommend the TV equivalent of methadone? That would be season two of Sundance Channel&amp;#039;s mesmerizing, molasses-paced drama Rectify, ambling out of the gate next Thursday, June 19, at 9pm. After last year&amp;#039;s hypnotic six-episode first season ended on a tantalisingly torturous cliffhanger, the story picks up only moments later. Daniel Holden (the amazing Aden Young) has been released after serving 18 years on Death Row for a crime he may not have committed: the murder of his high-school sweetheart. Tentatively re-entering life in his small - and largely small-minded - Georgia town, he&amp;#039;s soon attacked by local thugs who still believe he&amp;#039;s guilty and beat him within an inch of his death.  Season one occurred over a matter of days, which seemed appropriate for the story of a man who doesn&amp;#039;t know what to do with himself after having nothing but a short amount of hard time on his hands. The narrative took several bracingly surreal detours, like a riveting episode in which Daniel hit the road with a mystery driver (Deadwood survivor W Earl Brown) who may or may not have been imaginary. The show also took its sweet time to dig deep into the lives of Daniel&amp;#039;s family: his fiercely loyal sister (Abigail Spencer, a revelation), profoundly conflicted mother (J Smith-Cameron), confused stepfather (Bruce McKinnon), simmering half-brother (Clayne Crawford), and infatuated half-sister-in-law (Adelaide Clemens). But the multi-layered characters didn&amp;#039;t stop there. Others, like Daniel&amp;#039;s lawyer (Luke Kirby) - who&amp;#039;s also his sister&amp;#039;s lover - as well as a politically ambitious persecutor (Michael O&amp;#039;Neill) and Daniel&amp;#039;s surprisingly sensitive Death Row buddy (Johnny Ray Gill) were given oodles of screen time to explore their complex backstories.  These fascinating figures and more are all back for the second season, at least in Daniel&amp;#039;s mind, as he lies in a medically induced coma and recollections mix with hallucinations. The protagonist doesn&amp;#039;t wake up during the entire first hour, so some might complain the story is progressing too glacially. But not me. Of course, I was lucky enough to receive screeners of the new season&amp;#039;s first three episodes, so I was able to fast-forward straight to the second installment, when Daniel is up and around. Yet, thankfully, the &amp;quot;action&amp;quot; continues to creep along - there&amp;#039;s a subplot about Daniel&amp;#039;s half-brother trying to convince his dad to expand their family tyre business into rims that proves unexpectedly gripping. In an era when too many shows burn through plotlines like there&amp;#039;s literally no tomorrow (Homeland springs to mind - it had to kill off one of its main characters after only three seasons because his story had run its course), the loping gait of Rectify feels like a much-needed breather. Breakneck new dramas like TNT&amp;#039;s viral-outbreak saga The Last Ship and USA&amp;#039;s adrenaline-fuelled medical opus Rush make you wonder how they&amp;#039;re ever going to be able to keep up the exhaustingly pulse-pounding pace.  What Rectify so satisfyingly demonstrates is that it doesn&amp;#039;t matter how fast or slow a TV series moves as long as you care about the characters. And I care deeply about everybody on this show. I don&amp;#039;t know if Daniel is guilty or innocent, and it doesn&amp;#039;t matter to me because he&amp;#039;s so believably human, as is the entire town around him. That&amp;#039;s testimony to the skill of creator Ray McKinnon, himself an expertly accomplished actor (Deadwood, Sons of Anarchy) as well as an Oscar-winning short filmmaker. He took home an Academy Award in 2002 for The Accountant, along with his late wife, actress Lisa Blount, and Walton Goggins, a veteran of The Shield and Justified, two other cable classics that have marched to the (off)beat of their own drums. Season two of Rectify has expanded to 10 episodes, and I look forward to spending the rest of my summer watching it unfold at its own masterfully measured pace. That is, unless Sundance Channel wants to send me more screeners to devour... "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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