1) “Big Brother,” 8 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, CBS. In its 28th summer, the show has its 1,000th episode. That’s on Thursday and includes references to the past. (Shown here is Barrett Pfeiffer in the Aug. 19 episode.) Now “BB” trails only Ed Sullivan’s 1,068 episodes among primetime entertainment shows (anthologies excluded). Others include “Funniest Videos,” 835; and “The Simpsons,” 808. Read more…
Two first-year shows jumped to the top of this year’s Television Critics Association awards.
“Heated Rivalry” (shown here) was named program of the year; “Widow’s Bay” won for best comedy and for best new show.
Freshman shows also won the awards for individuals in a comedy (Kate O’Flynn in “Widow’s Bay”) and drama (Rhea Seahorn in “Pluribus”).
The list does have some familiar names, however: “The Pitt” repeated as best drama; “Traitors” had its third straight reality-show win. And for the fifth time, a Ken Burns film — this time “The American Revolution” — won for news and-information. Read more…
1) “The Run For a Million,” 8-10 p.m., CBS. Two pieces of rodeo life overlap. On CW (7:30-10 p.m.), it’s NBR bull-riding. (An NBR event is shown here.) And on CBS, 16 horse-riders try elaborate courses, competing for $1 million, The latter is produced by Taylor Sheridan, who does both fiction (“Yellowstone,” “Dutton Ranch”) and non-fiction (“The Road,” “Pure Grit,” “The Last Cowboy”). Read more…
1) “Conan O’Brien Must Go” season-opener, 9 p.m., HBO, rerunning at 11:03. After two streaming-only seasons on Max, the travel series adds HBO. First, the previous seven episodes air, starting with Norway at 4 p.m. Then comes this new one, in India, where (shown here) a 6-foot-4 redhead might stand out. The next three Fridays visit the Netherlands, Morocco and the Philippines. Read more…
1) “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951), 8 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies. This may be the best-acted movie ever. It won Oscars for Vivien Leigh (shown here), Kim Hunter and Karl Malden. There were 11 nominations over all, including ones for best picture and for the searingly brilliant work of Marlon Brando (shown here), whose films are on TCM all day today. Read more…
If you’re keeping track of new shows on broadcast-TV channels this fall, here’s a surprise:
The tiny CW network is third on the list, topping both ABC and Fox.
That’s because CW will have one new show — “Private Eyes West Coast” (shown here), announced today (Aug. 17). ABC and Fox will have none until mid-season. Read more…
1) “The Lion” opener, 9 and 10 p.m., National Geographic. Brilliantly crafted, this is an epic two-week, four-hour documentary. Jon Favreau, who directed the non-cartoon “Lion King,” produced it; Hans Zimmer — who won an Oscar for the animated “Lion King” — did the music. (The photo here is not from the film, however.) For four years, a crew got great footage of a young cub’s rise to power. Read more…
The Disney+ people plan to stuff autumn with fantasy and science-fiction,
That starts Sept. 2, with the Mandalorian movie (shown here). It will be followed by series with Vision (Oct. 14), Percy Jackson (Nov. 20) and Ahsoka (Jan. 20).
All will be on the streaming channel, which already has one season of “Ahsoka,” two of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” and three of “The Mandalorian,” plus the “WandaVision” series and its spin-off. Read more…
1) “America’s Got Talent,” 8-10 p.m., NBC. The live shows finally begin, with 11 acts performing on the next four Tuesdays (with results Wednesday). Today has four music acts (Ashford Sanders, Brook Lynn, Luke Taleno, ComUNITY Choir), comedian Cris Sosa, two magic acts, two dance acts, a dog act and (shown here in an outdoor performance) the Jesse White Tumbling Team. Read more…
After 11 weeks of whoops and buzzers and such, “America’s Got Talent” finally has the line-up for its live shows.
Beginning Aug. 18, acts will perform on four Tuesdays — 11 per week, but 10 on Sept. 8. Viewers will vote, then will learn the next day who made it to the semi-finals, Sept. 15.
Almost half the acts –19 of 43 — are musicians, but the rest are scattered.
There are six dance acts, including dancing dogs, dancing robots and light-up dancers. There are five magic acts, four comedians and a contortionist, plus aerialists (shown here is Veronica Goroshkova, who performs Aug. 25), acrobats and more, including two guys who swallow swords. Read more…
Best-bets for Aug. 22: cowboys or comedy 
Best-bets for Aug. 21: Conan goes; kids vanish 
Best-bets for Aug. 20: a great night for movies 
