Month: April 2021

1) “American Masters,” 9-11 p.m., PBS. A great week of Burns brothers biographies concludes. For three nights, we had Ken Burns’ “Hemingway”; now here’s a beautifully crafted Ric Burns film: In 2015, Oliver Sacks (shown here), 81, learned he was dying of cancer. He spent 80 hours with Burns, who added other interviews. We see the gentle neurologist (depicted in the movie “Awakenings”) who was also a champion weightlifter, an amphetamine addict and someone who painfully buried his homosexuality. Read more…

1) “Rebel” debut, 10 p.m., ABC. Erin Brockovich (shown here) was a law-office clerk – a former beauty-pageant winner, with no legal training – when she confronted a utility giant. Using savvy and social skills, she helped get a $333 million settlement. That was back 1993; the “Erin Brockovich” movie arrived seven years later, with Julia Roberts winning an Academy Award. Now Brockovich is one of the producers of this series, with Katey Sagal playing someone a lot like her. Read more…

1) “Kung Fu” debut, 8 p.m., CW. This reboots the 1972 series, but borrows only the basic notion: A Chinese-American studies at a monastery in China, then returns home after a teacher is slain. This time, there’s a modern spin: It’s an all-woman monastery; Nicky (shown here in a rendering) returns to San Francisco with stunning skills and a hint of the supernatural. The visuals and fights are spectacular, but “Kung Fu” also has balance: Nicky’s brother, sister and ex-boyfriend are far from her martial-arts world, adding human depth. Read more…

1) “Young Rock,” 8 p.m., NBC. After several misfires, this show comes up with a slick and funny episode. It flashes back to when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (shown here nowadays) was a college football player … and to when action films dominated the box office. Now he has an on-campus mission that rivals the ordeals of Stallone and Schwarzenegger. That’s joined by two sub-plots, one so-so (Johnson’s grandmother returns) and one quite good (in the future, he chooses a pun-afflicted vice-presidential candidate). Read more…

1) “Hemingway” debut, 8-10 p.m., PBS, rerunning at 10; continues through Wednesday. Here is one of the best shows of this season – or any season. Ken Burns (shown here) is at his best when tracing a big and complicated life … and few lives were bigger or more complex that Ernest Hemingway’s. He was brash and macho, yet insecure. He told about (and sometimes exaggerated) great adventures, but he also wrote fiction slowly and carefully, in a no-frills style that created classics. Read more…