Month: October 2019

Weekly Previews

Week’s top-10 for Nov. 4: Fox is back; so are musicals

1) “The Resident,” 8 p.m. Tuesday, Fox. When the World Series went a full seven games, we lost two Tuesdays and Wednesdays on Fox. Now they’re back, starting here with airline troubles – a pilot with a drinking problem; a tough flight for Dr. Bell. Some hospital scenes are cliché (the patient resisting treatment) or unlikely (mid-surgery sniping), but the non-medical scenes are excellent: Mina ponders fresh responsibility; The Raptor (Malcolm-Jamal Warner, shown here in a previous episode) hesitantly considers meeting his birth mother. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 31, 2019
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for Nov. 2: Kristen Stewart, all day

1) “Twilight Saga” and/or “Saturday Night Live.” Clearly, this is Kristen Stewart’s day. The entire saga – in which she finds love and/or lust with a vampire and a werewolf – is on the Paramount Network at noon and 3, 6, 9 and 11:30 p.m. And if you skip that last one, you can see her second time as “SNL” host, at 11:29 p.m. on NBC; Coldplay is the music guest. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 31, 2019
Stories

Life after “Thrones”? HBO has epic scale … and Lin-Manuel

(For HBO, this is the post-“Thrones” era. “Game of Thrones” — shown here — is gone; one of its prequels has been nixed. The next epic fantasy? There’s “Watchmen” at 9 p.m. Sunday and now “His Dark Materials,” debuting at 9 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4. Here’s a look at Lin-Manuel Miranda — yes, the “Hamilton” guy — who is the show’s co-star and its superfan.)
By Mike Hughes
Lin-Manuel Miranda was talking to TV critics, which was familiar turf.
He had met the Television Critics Association back in 2013, when he was the co-star of … well, something or other
“The legendary ‘Do No Harm’ … The lowest-rated show in the history of NBC,” Miranda recalled.
Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 31, 2019
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for Nov. 1: The streaming war heats up

1) “The Morning Show,” any time, Apple TV+. A new streaming service is born – with an even newer (and bigger) one looming. Unlike other streamers, Apple doesn’t have a backlog of classic shows. What it has, however, is starpower. “Morning Show” has Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell. Another series — “For All Mankind,” imagining an accelerated NASA – is from Ronald Moore, the “Outlander” and “Battlestar: Galactica” producer. And Disney’s streamer will follow on Nov. 12. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 30, 2019
Stories

A musical surge begins

Every now and then, TV remembers one of its highest callings – to give us full-scale musicals.
Then it forgets again, sometimes for years. But now comes a spurt; there are three musicals in eight days, covering a rich range
On Friday (Nov. 1), PBS has the relentlessly giddy “42nd Street.” The songs are peppy, the dancing is zesty and the story … well, no one tried to improve on the 1933 movie this is based on.
A week later, it has the exact opposite with “The King and I” (shown here). Once you get past the lush music and costumes, you have the serious story of a 19th-century despot. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 29, 2019
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for Oct. 31: Laughs or gore on Halloween

1) “The Good Place,” 9 p.m., NBC. Ratings go down a tad on Halloween, so CBS’ comedies have reruns tonight. Not so with the NBC ones, which are new. “Superstore” and “Perfect Harmony” (8 and 8:30 p.m.) have Halloween episodes, big and busy and intermittently funny. Avoiding the holiday are “Will & Grace” (9:30) and this show, which has lunk-headed Brent writing an awful novel. It’s a clever episode, punctuated by wonderfully stylized moments in which Michael (Ted Danson, shown here) tells the story to Bad Janet. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 29, 2019
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for Oct. 29: Halloween, sitcom-style

1) “The Conners,” 8 p.m., ABC. Back when “Roseanne” was in its prime, the sisters (Roseanne and Jackie) opened the Lunch Box diner. A lot has changed since then – the Roseanne character died, the show changed its name – but now Jackie wants to re-open the diner. Also, Darlene (Sara Gilbert, shown here in a previous episode with John Goodman) tries to straighten out her own life: After secretly dating both David and Ben, she now has neither. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 27, 2019
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for Oct. 28: Judge Lola rises from the norm

1) “All Rise,” 9 p.m., CBS. At its best, this show does it all: It has a serious case-of-the-week, but has time for humor or human drama involving Judge Lola and her colleagues. That’s complicated, though: After rising to its best in its pilot film, it sagged for a couple weeks; now it’s back: A TV star is dead and her assistant is tried for murder. That draws a high-profile lawyer (Jere Burns, right in the photo here) and press coverage that calls Lola “fierce and fabulous.” She is, but this hour also has great moments for the show’s five co-stars. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 26, 2019
News and Quick Comments

Fox maps its post-football life

For the Fox network, this is a tricky question:
What happens when the sports surge ends? What will it be like without the OK ratings from the World Series and the huge numbers from Thursday-night and Sunday-afternoon football?
Now there are answers, adding one old show (Tim Allen’s “Last Man Standing,” shown here) and several new ones, In particular, Fox will use football as a launching pad; for instance: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 25, 2019