Week’s top-10 for Jan. 13: hectic hospital, sweet nature
1) “New Amsterdam” return, 10 p.m. Tuesday, NBC. After a two-month break, this hospital drama Read more…
Year: 2020
Best-bets for Jan. 9: “Good Place” and a good night
1) “The Good Place,” 9 p.m., NBC. One of TV’s best comedies is down to its final four episodes. At times tonight, it does feel like it’s stalled in neutral. Still, the stakes are high: The judge is ready to eliminate all of humanity – as soon as she finds “that clicky people-eliminator thing.” Our heroes (including Ted Danson and Kristen Bell, shown here) need to use brains, passion … and the judge’s obsession with “Justified” and its star, Timothy Olyphant. Read more…
Golden Globes: The fun returns
As the Golden Globes were wrapping up … as viewers were pondering why they’d never heard of the winners before, there was one redeeming thought.
In a way, we were all winners. This one was fun.
The Globes ceremony has always been looser than the others; hey, it serves alcohol.But there’s something more: It has stuck to the notion of having a host.
Lately, we’ve had hostless Oscars (twice) and Emmys. But the Globes had Rickey Gervais (shown here) for the fifth time. He didn’t eat up that much time, but he crackled some good lines that poked at Hollywood. Read more…
Best-bets for Jan. 8: The “Party” is back
1) “Party of Five” (shown here) debut, 9 and 10 p.m., Freeform, rerunning at midnight, then 9 p.m. Thursday, 2 p.m. Friday. The original “Party” – smartly written, beautifully cast – had young siblings orphaned and on their own. Now, 25 years later, this reboot takes a modern twist: The parents, undocumented, are being sent back to Mexico; their kjds’ lives change instantly. A charismatic singer becomes a weary father figure; an A-student becomes an angry rebel. There’s depth and people we care about. Read more…
Best-bets for Jan. 7: Good old “Jeopardy,” good new “Zoey”
1) “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” (shown here) debut, 10 p.m., NBC. Lab accidents used to give a guy spider strength or turn him into a hulk; one even turned him into a car. But this is different: Zoey is listening to music during a brain scan, when an earthquake hits; now she hears people do pop songs that express their emotions. Yes, it’s a silly notion; so were the spider/hulk/car ones. And yes, there’s contrived, too-cute dialog. But the show – which waits until Feb. 16, after tonight – is great fun and Jane Levy is a delight Read more…
Here are Wisconsin’s best and worst
This will be a week that shows the best and the worst of my Wisconsin homeland.
The best, of course, are the Green Bay Packers (shown here with Aaron Rodgers). They host a game at 6:40 p.m. ET Jan. 12, just two steps from the Super Bowl.
And the worst was Joe McCarthy. He was my senator when I was growing up; he was also someone whose lies desroyed lives. A PBS profile (9-11 p.m. Jan. 6) gives full details. Read more…
Austen’s tale is completed … 200 years later
Let’s credit Andrew Davies for consummate patience.
He’s the master adapter, an expert on turning British classics – especially ones by Jane Austen – into TV scripts. But he waited 80-plus years for the ultimate challenge.
That’s “Sanditon” (shown here with Rose Williams and Theo James), which Austen had barely started. “She didn’t really get any further than introducing the characters and the premise. (All of) Jane Austen’s material, I used up in the first half of the first episode,” Davies, 83, told the Television Critics Association in July. Read more…
Best-bets for Jan.6: Love, talent and McCarthyism
1) “The Bachelor” opener, 8-11 p.m., ABC. Following family tradition, Peter Weber is a Delta Airlines pilot: His dad and brother are pilots; his mother is a flight attendant. Now – after finishing third on “The Bachelorette” – Weber, 28, is in control. Among the 30 women (ages 22 to 31) to choose from are three flight attendants, a lawyer, a cattle rancher, a nurse, a radiographer. And, of course, there’s also an NBA dancer, a fashion blogger, Miss Texas USA and Kylie Ramos, an entertainment sales associate, shown here possibly suggesting some entertainment. Read more…
A tradition fades; commercials don’t
So I was watching the Rose Parade — please don’t judge — and kept confronting something odd: Commercials.
Real ones, telling me where to bank, which cell phone to use and, especially. which drugs to take. “How can they have commercials?” someone asked. “Isn’t the whole parade a commercial?”
It is, but there used to be an escape route: When I watched this every year — remember, I asked you not to judge — it was on HGTV, which did it commercial-free; as a bonus, it had announcers who were less likely to gush.
This was a pleasant tradition. Each year, the parade was followed by a full day of specials and season premieres. But this year (shown here), that quietly ended. Read more…
Best-bets for Jan. 5: Gervais’ Golden Globes
1) Golden Globes build-up, E and NBC. The Globes are all about glitter and starpower … which starts early. E has a preview at 4 p.m. ET and red-carpet coverage from 6-8 p.m., with Ryan Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic in charge; it also has an after-show at 11. NBC has its own red-carpet show at 7 p.m. ET… and expects the start of the Globes(at 8) to be fun. Avoiding the dreary, no-host approach of recent Oscars and Emmys, the Globes are bringing back Ricky Gervais (shown here) or his fifth time as host. Read more…