Critic’s Pick: TV Picks: ‘UnReal,’ ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll,’ ‘Treehouse Masters’

“UnReal”—The summer’s most talked-about show came from a surprising source — please welcome Lifetime to the televised revolution. More super-smart satire than spoof, “UnReal” goes behind the scenes of a “Bachelor” ike romance reality show to expose the naked ambition, near-criminal manipulation and personal drama of the people who create it.

It’s a blast. And the fact that “Bachelor” host Chris Harrelson recently threw a major hissy fit about how terrible it is and how no one watches it just proves it’s stellar worth. (Constance Zimmer as the ruthless producer alone makes it worth watching.)

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For the record

10:25 a.m. An earlier version of this post misstated Constance Zimmer’s last name as Zimmerman.

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Here’s how good it is: My husband recently got mad at me when I watched an episode without him. Which brings the number of shows we both can’t wait to watch to three: “Game of Thrones,” “Homeland” and “UnReal.”

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Not bad company, “UnReal.”

Alas, it comes to an end this week, with a finale both of the show and the show-within-a show, so over the top it’s set in London. And if it’s not quite the ticket that Benedict Cumberbatch’s “Hamlet” is, well, it should be. And, mercifully, it has already been renewed for a second season. You can catch up on episodes at mylifetime.com and watch the finale on Lifetime, Monday, 10 p.m.

“Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll”—If you are not a fan of Denis Leary, stop reading here. Although there are many appealing players in this half-hour comedy about an aging and never truly successful rock star coping with an unexpected second chance, it is, essentially, a platform for Leary (who stars, writes and sometimes directs), on which he riffs about rock music, culture, the creative process, aging, addiction and whatever else he feels like riffing on.

Oh, he tries to tie it together with a narrative, but the plot is desultory at best. Johnny Rock (Leary), an early ‘90s bad boy/flameout meets Gigi (Elizabeth Giles), the daughter he never knew he had. She wants to be a rock star too and figures the least Johnny can do is reunite with his cowriter and guitarist, Flash (John Corbett), and the rest of his band to write music for her. (She mysteriously has a bunch of money to fund all this.) The band is one big dysfunctional family that happens to write beautiful music together, when they’re not fighting. And like 768 previous films and series, they only manage to come together around a kid.

Episodes lurch from one jury-rigged situation to another with little or no attempt to create a plausible story arc. But story arc is not what “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” is about. Instead it’s a series of often hilarious diatribes, interspersed with familial meltdown moments and held together with a surprising — and refreshing — glaze of optimistic sweetness. Johnny may be a mess, but he’s an essentially intelligent and good-hearted mess, while Gigi is both bracing and adorable.

For anyone with a teen whose musical taste has been created by Spotify and musical knowledge informed by “American Idol,” “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” could be required family viewing. For everyone else, well, if you like Leary (and I do), the charms of the show far outweigh its raggedness. FX, Thursdays, 10 p.m.

“Treehouse Masters”—My 8-year-old daughter recently added this to her personal DVR queue (which often threatens to take over mine, but only because “Jessie” seems to run on Disney Channel every hour of every day) and it is pretty amazing. For four seasons now, “tree whisperer” Pete Nelson and his crew have traveled the country building treehouses of every shape and size in every sort of ecosystem and tree type.

It’s like “Cribs” meets “This Old House” for kids.

Watching Nelson and his crew spend the sort of money and time on a treehouse that many spend on an actual house is occasionally weird (“Tree Houses of the Rich and Famous”), but the locales are gorgeous, his enthusiasm infectious, the craftsmanship mesmerizing and who doesn’t want a treehouse? I certainly do. Animal Planet, Fridays, 10 p.m.