Another canceled TV show has been rescued, this time by a three-way coalition.
“All Rise” (shown here) was dropped by CBS after two seasons. In the new plan:
– Those seasons will rerun on both HBO Max and Hulu, beginning Dec. 1.
– They’ll also rerun on the Oprah Winfrey Network. All three – OWN, HBO Max and Hulu – will then add a new, 20-episode season. Read more…
“Call the Midwife” is back, with a gentle journey through history – human history, medical history, even fashion history.
Yes, fashions. This series (8 p.m. Sundays, PBS) was set in 1957, then advanced one year each season. The new season (starting Oct. 3) is in 1966 – the Beatles era, when London’s “Carnaby Street” look was starting to catch on.
That’s especially clear in the fourth episode (Oct. 24), when young actress Megan Cusack arrives, playing a nursing student. She’s shown here in her uniform, but at dinner, she surprises others – including the nuns — with her flashy dress.
“It truly does feel like a costume,” Cusack told the Television Critics Association. “When you put it on, you are getting into that era and that vibe and the fact that she likes to stand out.” Read more…
1) “The Kennedy Center at 50,” 9-10:30 p.m., PBS. Fifty years (and 23 days) ago, the center opened, offering an elegant home for … almost everything. Now it has a 50t-birthday celebration, on the same night as Disney World (shown here). This concert ranges from classical to hip hop. There are splendid moments from Kelli O’Hara, Dianne Reeves, violinist Raymond Chen and more. Joshua Henry opens the show with a passionate “A Change is Gonna Come” and closes it – joined by Common and a chorus – by turning “Glory” into one of the greatest TV moments of 2021. Read more…
1) “Station 19” and “Grey’s Anatomy” season-openers, 8 and 9 p.m., ABC. It’s a crossover night, starting with personal problems at the firehouse. Just as Maya was marrying Carina (shown here) at the end of last season, she learned she’d been fired as captain; Andy blamed her own husband, Sullivan. Those issues and others are interrupted by crises at a festival. That takes us to the hospital, with its own woes. Bailey has trouble hiring doctors; Meredith, whose late mother lingers in her mind, meets a guy who knew her. Read more…
Chances are, few Black girls in Canton, Michigan, envision figure-skating careers.
Even fewer, perhaps, dream of moving South and being an executive for an upstart wrestling group.
Brandi Rhodes has done both. She’s also a wrestler, a new mom and a star (with her husband Cody, sown here) in “Rhodes to the Top,” a reality show that airs after wrestling, at 10 p.m. Wednesdays on TNT.
“The biggest surprise to me about wrestling is how engrossed you become in it …. I’m consumed by it,” she told the Television Critics Association. Read more…
1) “Big Brother” finale, 9-11 p.m., CBS. The last remnants of summer TV are finally fading; after tonight, only “Bachelor in Paradise” will linger on the big networks. “Big Brother” started with 16 people and is now down to three – Xavier Prather, 27, a lawyer; Derek Frazier, 29, a safety officer; and Azah Awasum (shown here), 30, a sales diector. Tonight, one of them gets $750,000. Read more…
As NBC’s “La Brea” begins, the world crumbles.
A giant sinkhole develops in Los Angeles. Buildings fall; people flee. Some escape, others plunge into a giant netherworld (shown here), where ancient creatures loom. And viewers are left with key questions:
Are there really sinkholes in Los Angeles? Do extinct animals really roam under the earth? And – most importantly – can we ever trust NBC to finish what it started?
The answers are yes and no and absolutely not. Let’s take that last one first: Read more…
1) “The Resident,” 8 p.m., Fox. This strong hour starts with one crisis and ends with another. As last week’s season-opener ended, a blind man wandered into a room that had a gas leak, then collapsed; Devon (shown here, left, in a previous episode) found him there, at the end of his shift, then also collapsed. That’s where we start this hour – which ends by introducing a fresh jolt. In between is a so-so story about Billie’s secret past. Read more…
Ry Russo-Young was a fairly successful director, making scripted movies about fictional people.
Still, she realized that one of the best stories involved real people – her and her two moms. The result is “Nuclear Family” (shown here), an HBO documentary with new episodes on Sundays, rerunning almost daily.
It’s a story that goes back 40 years, to a time before gay marriages and gay parents. Sandy Russo and Robin Young defied tradition: Using different male donors, each gave birth. Read more…
1) “American Experience: Citizen Hearst,” 9-11 p.m. PBS; concludes Tuesday. William Randolph Hearst stormed into a stodgy newspaper world. He had money (thanks to an obliging mother), ambition and imagination – sometimes too much of all three. His papers had sharp writing and human-interest stories; at times, they also tended to exaggerate. Hearst built a castle, dated a movie star, had fancy dinner parties (shown here) ran for office; he built an epic life that crumbled during the Depression. Here’s a fascinating portrait. Read more…
