Year: 2022

Weekly Previews

Week’s top 10 for Aug. 8: A time for finales, debuts, returns

1) “So You Think You Can Dance” finale, 9 p.m. Wednesday, Fox. Only two dancers remain, bringing opposite styles. Keaton Kermode, 20, is husky by dance standards; growing up in an Indiana town of 542, he was a 190-pound running back and safety in football. Alexis Warr, 21, trained at the same Utah dance studio as Derek Hough, then backed him on tour. Keaton is mainly a contemporary dancer; Warr wants to be the show’s first ballroom champ. They’re shown here, dancing together. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 4, 2022
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for Aug. 6: Lots of movies, including a gem

1) “Belfast” (2021), 8 p.m., HBO. When Kenneth Branagh was 9, his family left Ireland to escape the Protestant-Catholic hatred. In England, he mastered Shakespeare as an actor, writer (seven movie adaptations) and director. Now here’s his first original movie script, a black-and-white masterpiece (shown here) about his youth. Branagh won an Oscar for his script and was nominated as a director. There were six more nominations, including best picture. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 4, 2022
Stories

Stay or go? The question propels a strong series

Sterlin Harjo had achieved an elusive goal – being an independent filmmaker.
Alongside the usual projects (documentaries, shorts, a few TV episodes), he had made three scripted movies. Each, he said, got “good reviews from the critics who saw it – which are, like, maybe five.”
Then “Reservation Dogs” (shown here) happened … and the number was much higher than five. “The first season was featured on more than 80 critics’ year-end best lists,” said John Solberg of FX,
FX makes the show – with an all-Native cast and crew — for Hulu, which has just started streaming the second season. The first won awards — including Peabody and American Film Institute– and is nominated for two more (best comedy and best new show) by the Television Critics Association. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 4, 2022
News and Quick Comments

Disney+ is ready to dance … and to hulk up

“Dancing With the Stars” will be back soon … albeit a bit harder to find.
The show has set Sept. 19 as its debut date on the Disney+ streaming service. That follows 30 seasons on ABC.
It arrives alongside other Disney+ shows, some scripted (“She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” shown here in its previous comic-book form, and the second “Mighty Ducks” season) and some with star explorers, young (Bertie Gregory) and not (James Cameron). The schedule, announced today, includes: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 3, 2022
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for Aug. 5: Good deeds and killer campers

1) “Killer Camp” season-opener, 8 p.m., CW. It’s been an odd ride for this goofy (but fun) reality show, which uses tropes of old horror films. CW aired the British original (shown here) in the summer of 2020, then made its own season. It aired two episodes last October, finding few viewers; now it tries again: This second-season opener sees 15 campers arrive. A “counselor” explains that one will be “killed” each week … and one camper is a ringer, helping the killer. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 3, 2022
Stories

FX conquers our inner demon

As the summer slows down, people start looking for TV shows – preferably ones with scripts and plots and characters and such.
Not to worry; a surge of FX productions is coming, ranging from  a demonic animate show (shown here) to a therapist held  hostage. “We’re just about doubling the output,” John Landgraf told the Television Critics Association.
Landgraf used to oversee shows for one channel, FX. Some of them – “Fargo,” “Pose,” “Justified,” “Sons of Anarchy”– became classics. Now he pushes shows in three directions; the surge includes: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 3, 2022
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for Aug. 4: lots of comedy plus (?!?) football

1) Football, 8:05 p.m. ET, NBC, pre-game at 7. Wait — it’s fall football time already? The winter sports (basketball, hockey) only ended six weeks ago … baseball is barely at its mid-point … but here we are with football’s pre-season opener, the Hall of Fame game. The Las Vegas Raiders (10-7 last year) face the Jacksonville Jaguars (3-14), who have had two straight No. 1 draft choices – quarterback Trevor Lawrence (shown here) and defensive end Travon Walker. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 2, 2022
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for Aug. 3: music, dance, rescued plants

1) “CMA Fest,” 8-11 p.m., ABC. For the first time in three years, Nashville had its four-day mega-fest; here are highlights. One host (Dierks Bentley) performs with Billy Ray Cyrus (shown here), the other (Elle King) with Ashley McBryde. Other match-ups have Wynonna Judd and Carly Pearce, Lady A and Breland, Zac Brown Band and Darius Rucker. Also performing: Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Kelsea Ballerini, Thomas Rhett, Kane Brown, more. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / August 1, 2022
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for Aug. 2: a vampiric sort of farce

1) “What We Do in the Shadows,” 10 p.m., FX, rerunning at 10:34 and 11:08. The plot is familiar: An important visitor is coming; an odd family tries to seem normal. But this family has three vampires, a wise aide (shown here) and a lad who emerged from the chest cavity of a late colleague and keeps growing rapidly. Now a private-school official visits. “Shadows” ditches its usual droll style and offers a vampire version of a wild (and funny) drawing-room farce. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 31, 2022
News and Quick Comments

“Dogs” is back, with lives scrambled

For most of its first season (a good one), “Reservation Dogs” (shown here) was an us-vs.-the-world tale.
Then the “us” imploded. That sets up the two intriguing episodes that arrive Wednesday (Aug. 3) on Hulu, to open the second season.
This is a modest show that has drawn a surge of praise. It already has Peabody and American Film Institute awards; in the upcoming Television Critics Association awards, it’s nominated for best comedy and best new show. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 30, 2022