If this is a time of underemployment, no one has told John Legend.
He’s about to have a special – this one on Father’s Day. It’s approximately his one-zillionth appearance since the COVID shutdown began. Read more…
Mae West strolled into a Hollywood that wasn’t ready for her.
This was a place that preferred women to be young, thin and quiet. She was none of those.
West (shown here) was 39, buxom and brassy. “I don’t allow myself any negative thinking,” she would explain later.
Now a documentary – “Mae West: Dirty Blonde” – debuts at 8 p.m. Tuesday (June 16), launching what Paula Kerger, the PBS president, calls an “effort to highlight trailblazing women this summer.” Read more…
1) “Songland” season-finale, 10 p.m. today, NBC. Four songwriters pitch songs to Usher (shown here) … who can sometimes mean a route to the top. He’s had 18 top-10 singles on the Billboard chart, half of them reaching No.1. Many lingered; for more than half of 2004 (28 of 52 weeks), an Usher song was No. 1. He also had two seasons on “The Voice,” coaching a champion (Josh Kaufman) and a runner-up. Now he’ll hear the pitches and choose three of the four songs for refining. Then he’ll pick one to record. Read more…
1) “Grantchester” season-opener, 9 p.m., PBS. Like most English villages, it seems, Grantchester has pleasant people, idyllic settings … and lots of murder. Fortunately, it also has a crimesolving vicar and his weary friend the cop. Their domain includes Cambridge University, where tonight they visit parties (shown here) and find beautiful students keeping ugly secrets. The whole thing gets solved quite easily, giving the show more time to work on lots of character details. The result is fairly entertaining, in a quietly classy way. Read more…
1) “The Last Dance,” 8 and 9 p.m., ABC. This acclaimed documentary series (originally on ESPN) concludes next week, with Michael Jordan (shown here) and the Chicago Bulls going for their final championship. First, this detour: At 30, Jordan found his life overloaded – three straight championships, the Olympics, gambling accusations and the murder of his father. He played minor-league baseball, quit basketball for a year-and-a-half … then returned to try to save the Bulls’ season. Read more…
For the second time in eight days, TV will rerun an in-depth look at the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
On June 8, PBS had “Twilight, Los Angeles”; from 8-10 p.m. next Tuesday (June 16), ABC will have “Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992″ (shown here). Read more…
As TV’s summer takes hold, we covet the few places that have plenty of new shows.
There are the streamers and the premium cable channels of course. There are games on ABC, reality competitions on NBC, quirks on CW, news everywhere. And, especially, there’s PBS.
PBS had already planned a cascade of women’s-rights shows, leading to Aug. 26, the 100th anniversary of the right to vote. It has quickly injected coverage of COVID-19 and of race relations. And it also has what it does best – elegantly crafted British shows each Sunday.
That starts this week (June 14, check local listings), with a 1-2-3 touch: At 8 p.m., a portrait of Prince Albert; at 9, the season-opener of “Grantchester” (shown here); at 10, the debut of “Beecham House.” Read more…
1) “Prideland” and “The Lavender Scare,” 9 and 10 p.m., PBS (check local listings). Here’s a reverse time machine, showing us attitudes toward gays, present and past. First, Dyllon Burnside (“Pose”) journeys through his native South — he’s shown here in Texas — and finds a get-along mood. The early segments are bland, but then a church-school teacher in Mississippi passionately recalls her adjustment to learning her sons are gay. Contrast that with “Lavender,” a chilling account of an era when the federal government fired all gays. Read more…
1) “Man With a Plan” series finale, 8:31 p.m., CBS. When Matt LeBlanc’s “Friends” ended its 10-year run, it was a big deal, a time for mourning. When his “Plan” ends a four-year run … it’s sorta worth noting. This is an adequate comedy, with LeBlanc in the cliched role of a semi-bumbling husband and dad. Tonight, he plans to surprise his wife (Liza Snyder, they’re shown here in a previous episode) on their 20th anniversary, re-creating their honeymoon. Read more…
Two longtime best friends, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King (shown here), will be back-to-back on Tuesday.
By switching channels, viewers can catch their takes on the current racial crisis. That includes:
– 9 p.m.: Winfrey hosts “Where Do We Go From Here?” That’s on her own Oprah Winfrey Network and on others – Discovery, HGTV, TLC, Food, etc. – in the Discovery cable group.
– 10 p.m.: King hosts “Justice For All,” on CBS. It will also be on BET and CBSN, the news streaming service. Read more…
