Year: 2020

Best-bets for May 13: “Survivor” gets a champion of champions

1) “Survivor” finale, 8-11 p.m., CBS. Surviving in a field of previous winners are two cops (Tony Vlachos, 45, and Sarah Lacina, 34) and an ex-Marine (Ben Driebergen, 36). They face the edition’s oldest person (Denise Stapley, 48), one of the youngest (Michele Fitzgerald, a travel consultant, 29) and one more, with Nick Wilson (shown here) as the newest member of the jury. Lacina and Stapley are both from Iowa, but Stapley is said to be the state’s only certified sex consultant. The final hour – including results and follow-up – will be done long-distance. Read more…

It’s a scandalous tale of Di and lies, Elvis and Trump

When Elvis Presley died in 1977, the differences in news coverage were cavernous.
ABC and NBC led their newscasts with the story and had latenight specials. CBS started with a long Panama Canal piece, then did just 70 seconds on Presley. “Our job is not to respond to public taste,” Richard Salant, its news chief, told reporters.
And the National Enquirer? By the time those newscasts started, “there were six Enquirer reporters in the air for Memphis with $50,000 in cash,” said Mark Landsman, director of “Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer,” the fascinating documentary that debuts Sunday (May 17) on CNN. Read more…

Best-bets for May 12: Let’s visit happier days

1) “The Happy Days of Garry Marshall,” 8-10 p.m. ABC. For two years, Marshall had TV’s two most-watched shows, “Happy Days” (shown here) and “Laverne and Shirley”; the next year, he had three of the top four, adding “Mork & Mindy.” He went on to movies and more, dying in 2016 at 81. Some of his top stars – Penny Marshall (his sister) and Robin Williams – have died, but others gather here, including Ron Howard, Henry Winkler, Pam Dawber and (from “Pretty Woman”) Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Read more…

Best-bets for May 11: Britton’s back, “Asian” compels

1) “9-1-1” season-finale, 8 p.m., Fox. The series started with terrific work from Connie Britton as Maddie, a passionate 9-1-1 operator. She left – Britton had only planned to do one season – but returns two years later for this guest shot. Maddie (shown here) was one of the victims, when a train plunged off the tracks; people race to the rescue, including her ex-lover Buck. Then the second “9-1-1: Lone Star” episode reruns at 9:01. Read more…

Week’s top-10 for May 11: Finales and a potent documentary

1) “Asian Americans,” 8-10 p.m. today and 8-11 p.m. Tuesday, PBS. Spanning centuries, here is a richly researched story of pain and (eventually) triumph. Americans needed Chinese workers to build the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s, then hit them with the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. In the 1940s, they sent 120,000 Japanese (the majority of them U.S. citizens) to internment camps. These stories are told vividly Monday. Tuesday includes triumphs and the rise of activist movements (shown here). Read more…

Best-bets for May 10: Mother’s Day (revised)

1) Mother’s Day movies, cable. Is this our revisionist view of motherhood? FX has “Bad Moms” (2016, shown here) at 8 and 10 p.m.; Lifetime includes “Mommy Group Murders” (2018) at 4 p.m. and “Mommy Is a Murderer” (2020) at 8. Moms come across much better in “I Remember Mama,” at 8 p.m. ET on Turner Classic Movies. Irene Dunne and three of her co-stars received Academy Award nominations. Read more…

Documentary has pain and triumph

As Mike Nakayuma tells it, enlisting in the military “was not a deeply thought-out decision.”
Soon he was in Vietnam, heading into the jungle to induce firefights. A month away from going home, he was seriously wounded. “I thought, ‘I’m going to die.’” he says in “Asians Americans,” the compelling, five-hour documentary Monday and Tuesday (May 11-12) on PBS.
At the field hospital, the others were treated; he asked when it would be his turn. “They said, ‘Oh, you should have told us you were American. We thought you were a Gook.’” Read more…

COVID isolation spurs drama, comedy

The COVID-19 shutdown may have a dramatic effect on love, lust and life.
Now TV is jumping in with shows from the producers of “Good Trouble” (shownn here) and “Orange is the New Black.” Both will be taped in the actors’ homes, using remote technology – a method that’s been tried for drama (“All Rise”), comedy (“Parks and Recreation Reunion,” “Saturday Night Live”) and music. They are: Read more…