This has, apparently, been a fun pandemic. Online, anyway.
CBS’ second at-home videos special (8 p.m. Friday, July 24) does the same as the first, only more so. It has a dizzying collection of videos people created at home.
(Shown here is one family’s “Les Miserables” take-off.) Read more…
1) “Great Performances: She Loves Me,” 9 p.m., PBS. At work, these two battle and bicker; at home, each has an anonymous pen pal … unaware they’re writing to each other. Yes, that sounds familiar. The story has become three movies, a play and this musical … which reached Broadway three times. This is the third one – light comedy, vibrant music, Tony-winning set and Tony-nominated performances by Zachary Levi and Laura Benanti (they’re shown here) and Jane Krakowski. It starts a five-Friday stretch of theater reruns. Read more…
1) “Blindspot” series finale, 9 p.m., NBC. Jane Doe (and the world) have been teetering for two weeks. NBC scheduled the 100th and final episode for last Thursday, then delayed it a week. That left Jane (Jaimie Alexander, show here) – who has already lost her memories once — in a room with a ZIP bomb that saps all memories. The team has stopped the evil FBI chief, who promptly killed herself. But Ivy is still out there with more ZIPs. Remember when there were hardly any evil women on TV (or, maybe, in life)? Read more…
As TV networks’ fall plans sputter, there’s a counterpoint:
PBS still has big plans for the season. That includes concerts (including Lea Salonga, shown here, and Wynton Marsalis), dramas (including Hugh Laurie), politics (including general rage), nature and whimsy.
Well, not a lot of whimsy. (This is PBS, after all.) But it will air “History of Zombies” on the eve of Halloween and visit “Santa’s Wild Home” before Christmas; it will also have a jazz tribute to “Sesame Street,” visit tropical islands and board the queen’s plane. Read more…
1) “Corporate” (shown here) season-opener, 10:30 p.m., Comedy Central. Two delightful TV take-offs propel this half-hour. One is a sci-fi show that tries too hard, with sudden plot twists. The other is a kids’ cartoon that doesn’t try at all; it just keeps singing “pickles for breakfast.” Now that they own some TV shows, these fictional people try a corporate approach: Just survey viewers and give them what they want. It’s a flawed plan, they learn: Good TV is often much more – giving us what we didn’t know we wanted. Read more…
1) “World of Dance,” 10 p.m., NBC. “America’s Got Talent” is pausing for a “best of auditions” special from 8-10 p.m., but “Dance” booms ahead. This is the first half of its junior-division “duels,” including a classic mismatch — Savannah Manzel (shown here), 9, facing a large teen group. (You can guess who gets the focus and sympathy.) Other duels are more fair: The two callback survivors – The Young Cast and grvmnt – compete; MDC3 – with a terrific variation on a romantic triangle – faces Chibi Unity. Read more…
John Lewis, one of the towering figures in American history, will be remembered in two Sunday-morning reruns on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Lewis died Friday at 80, after a six-month struggle with cancer. The son of Alabama sharecroppers, he played a key role in the civil-rights movements, from Selma (he’s shown here revisiting the site) to the March on Washington, where he was a keynote speaker at 23. He was a congressman from Georgia for more than 30 years.
The specials will be at 11 a.m. on the next two Sundays (July 19 and 26); they are: Read more…
In a theater-less season – no Broadway, no summer-stock musicals, nothing — we need a break.
Fortunately, PBS is trying. In a five-Friday stretch, it will give us Broadway-style reruns.
That includes two musicals (“She Loves Me” (shown here) and “The King and I”), two plays (“Present Laughter” and “Much Ado About Nothing”) and a making-of film (“In the Heights”). It’s sort of a history of theater – from Shakespeare to Miranda. Here’s a rundown, with shows at 9 p.m. (check local listings): Read more…
1) “The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons – Ever!” 8-11 p.m., ABC. Then again, maybe tonight should be re-titled “The Worst Seasons – Ever!!!” They focus, alas, on Brad Womack (shown here with Emily Maynard). In 2007, he dated 25 bright and beautiful women, including two nurses and four realtors … then rejected them all. In 2011 he returned, chagrined and ready to marry and settle down. He dated 30 beauties, from a Rockette to a funeral director, chose one … and had broken up with her before the episodes finished airing. Read more…
From classrooms to farm fields, the pandemic is having a disproportionate effect on Latinos.
Now two documentaries – one streaming, the other on PBS – look at that. They are:
– “Pandemia: Latinos in Crisis,” at 9 p.m. ET Sunday (July 19) on CBSN, the digital news service run by CBS. It’s also available any time at www.cbsnews.com/pandemia.
– “Frontline: COVID’S Hidden Toll” (shown here) at 10 p.m. Tuesday (July 21) on PBS. Read more…
