1) “Tough as Nails” finale, 8 p.m., CBS. The final four compete for the top prize of $200,000 and a truck. There’s Sarah Burkett, 41, a pipe welder; Scott Henry, 44, a construction superintendent; “Swifty” Sanders (shown here), 43, a steelworker; and “Zeus” Ontai, 29, a lineworker. The others stick around for the team competition; Ontai is on part of one team, with the other finalists on the other. Read more…
Scattered around Hollywood, it seems, are warehouses (or hard drives) stuffed with scripts.
They’ve been purchased and pondered and then ignored. Few survive; one exception is the “Big Shot” series, which starts streaming Friday (April 16) on the Disney+ service.
“When Disney+ started, they … said, ‘Have you seen any scripts over the years that didn’t get made that you might like?’” John Stamos (shown here) – who stars as a guy who was once big in men’s college basketball, but now coaches high school girls – told the Television Critics Association. Read more…
1) “Prodigal Son” return, 9 p.m., Fox. Here’s talent from all over the British Isles. Tom Payne (from England) stars, with Michael Sheen (Wales) as his dad, who’s a doctor and a convicted serial killer. Now Catherine Zeta-Jones (also Wales) has joined the cast as the prison doctor. And Alan Cumming (Scotland) arrives as a British detective. Cumming (showh nere with Bellamy Young) has an over-the-top style that dominates, but the hour ends with a great scene between Sheen and Zeta-Jones. Read more…
1) “Breeders,” 10 p.m., FX, rerunning at 11:04. Last week’s episode (rerunning ar 10:31) found Ally (Daisy Haggard) reluctant to tell Paul (Martin Freeman) she’s pregnant. Tonight, they hesitantly ponder their future. These are people in their 40s; it’s already been difficult to raise two children (shown here in a previous flashback), with a new crisis arriving tonight. The result subtly mixes dabs of comedy and drama. Read more…
It took a mere half-century for two sorta-neighbors to meet and work together.
That’s on “Prodigal Son” (9 p.m. Tuesdays on Fox), which has just returned from a month-long break. Michael Sheen co-stars and Catherine Zeta-Jones has joined the cast; they play doctors at a prison (shown here), with a key difference: She’s an employee, he’s a prisoner.
Here are two people who grew up in the same southwestern area of Wales, at the same time, yet never quite met. “We actually have childhood friends” in common, Zeta-Jones told the Television Critics Association. “My mom and dad know his dad.” And yet, they’d “never met before; I’d admired (him) from a distance.”
That distance was about 5,000 miles. Zeta-Jones, 51, became a Hollywood star – an Oscar-winner (“Chicago”), married to an Oscar-winner (Michael Douglas) – while Sheen, 52, was starring in British theater and TV. Read more…
1) “The Nevers” (shown here) debut, 9 p.m., HBO. Victorian-era society seems far removed from fantasy horror. Still, 19th-century England gave us Frankenstein and Hyde and Jack the Ripper and more. And now it’s the backdrop for a cosmic event, leaving many people (women, mostly) as “the touched.” An orphanage patron (Olivia Williams) shelters them, a brothel owner (James Norton) pursues them and a cop (Ben Chaplin) feels torn. Read more…
1) Academy of Country Music awards, 8-11 p.m. Sunday, CBS. In September, the long-delayed 2020 awards had a social-distance plan that worked: Performances (including Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, shown here) were at three spot0s – Opry, Ryman and Bluebird – and most nominees were there live. Now, just seven months later, the 2021 awards repeat that plan. Hosts Keith Urban and Mickey Guyton perform; so do Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood, Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Dierks Bentley, Kelsea Ballerini, Luke Bryan, Kane Brown and more. Read more…
1) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. Carey Mulligan makes her “SNL” debut as host, with Kid Cudi as music guest. Mulligan has her second Academy Award nomination (this time for “Promising Young Woman,” shown here), a decade after being nominated for “An Education.” And on April 25, she’ll be featured in the final episode of PBS’ “My Grandparents’ War” documentary series. Read more…
Will summertime TV become a blur of reality and reruns?
Well, mostly. Fox, however, will try some scripted shows – two cartoons– including the new “Housebroken” (shown here) — on Mondays and, sometime in August, a new version of “Fantasy Island.”
The Fox news came shortly after ABC announced an ambitious summer plan, filling five nights with reality (including “Bachelorette”), games and quirks. Fox’s plan, with more coming, has: Read more…
After losing much of last summer to the pandemic, the networks aren’t ready to do it again.
ABC has announced a line-up that has four full nights of non-reruns – or more, if you add in news and sports. That includes a quick return of “The Bachelorette” (now with Katie Thurston, shown here), a slow return of “Bachelor in Paradise” and a flood of games, quirks and reality. Read more…
