Year: 2022

Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 10: Be positive about this star’s funny show

1) “B Positive” season-finale, 9 p.m., CBS. One of TV’s best – and most undernoticed – comedies wraps its second season. As Gina, Annaleigh Ashford brings a Lucy-like touch, mixing intelligence with a random/vague outlook. On Broadway, Ashford has had two Tony nominations and a win (shown here); on TV, the Emmys and others have ignored her. This season, Gina bought the retirement home where she used to work; tonight, she considers selling it. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 8, 2022
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 9: opening night for “Survivor,” more

1) “Survivor” opener (shown here), 8-10 p.m., CBS. It’s the 42nd edition, ranging from a 19-year-old Ivy League student to a 58-year-old retired firefighter. There are 18 people in all, some coming from light-hearted jobs – a waitress, a pageant coach, a fitness consultant. Others include a therapist, a veterinarian, a data scientist and a Yale Law School grad, working as a clerk for a judge. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 7, 2022
News and Quick Comments

“Snowfall”: drug-dealers, danger and, especially, family

We expect characters to change a bit, to get older and slower and maybe wiser.
Still, few have done it with the dizzying speed of Franklin Saint, the centerpiece of “Snowfall” (shown here). When the series started, he was a brainy teen with a strong college future; in this fifth season, he’s been flying a private plane and ruling a business, turning drug deals into real-estate schemes.
Is anything unchanged? “He still loves his family,” Damson Idris, who plays him, told the Television Critics Association. “Despite the animosity …. family has been the thing that’s kept him afloat.”
That’s clear in the season’s fourth episode, which airs at 10 p.m. Wednesday (March 9) on FX, reruns hourly until 2 a.m., then goes to Hulu. Franklin insists everyone catch the welcome-home dinner for his mother; we find big changes in his: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 7, 2022
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 8: We may love hating Pam

1) “The Thing About Pam” opener, 10:01 p.m., NBC. After playing a beloved person (Judy Garland), Renee Zellweger deftly pivots to play a behated (or some such word) one. In small-town Missouri, Pam Hupp injected herself into people’s lives; sometimes, they ended up dead and she ended up with money. It’s a story that has fascinated true-crime buffs; now Zellweger (shown here) buries herself in prosthetics, accent and a richly hate-able persona. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 6, 2022
Stories

From podcast to ‘Pam’: a true-crime obsession

For Renee Zellweger, this began as a mercy mission for her dog. Then it led to a dream role.
Now she stars in NBC’s “The Thing About Pam” (shown here). It airs at 10:01 p.m. on six Tuesdays, starting March 8), eyeing murder cases that center on Pam Hupp.
“I binged the podcast, actually, when I was driving up and down the freeway, going to take my dog to get his hip replaced in San Francisco,” Zellweger told the Television Critics Association. “I couldn’t believe it …. It was like these escalating absurdities.”
Soon, she wanted to portray Hupp; producer Chris McCumber said that got his attention. “When a two-time Oscar-winner calls and says, ‘I’m obsessed with this story and I want to play Pam and I want to produce, ‘you say ‘Yes.’” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 5, 2022
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 7: high stakes for Thony and Shaun

1) ”The Cleaning Lady,” 9 p.m., Fox. A week from the season-finale, this tangled tale gains speed. Thony (shown here) is a doctor in the Philippines, but can’t get a transplant for her son there. In Las Vegas, she worked as a cleaner … then met some mobsters. One got her to Mexico for the transplant … but was nearly killed and can’t get her back to the U.S.. Then there’s the FBI guy who considers her an informant. It’s a good episode, setting up a better one next week. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 5, 2022
News and Quick Comments

Solitary, solemn Brits keep solving mysteries

As our TV sets fill up with British crime-solvers, some traditions persist.
At home, these people are solemn and solitary. That has continued – with occasional exceptions – from Sherlock Holmes to Hercule Poirot, Inspector Morse and more.
And it’s true of Max Arnold in “The Chelsea Detective” series (shown here), on the Acorn streaming service. “I think he’s a born-again melancholic,” Adrian Scarborough, who plays him, told the Television Critics Association. “Putting him … in the middle of the Thames, on his little houseboat, was very deliberate.”
That’s part of an overload of crime tales from England and its former colonies: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 4, 2022
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 6: a magic night, despite killers and zombies

1) “Winning Time: The Rise of the Los Angeles Lakers” debut, 9 p.m., HBO, rerunning at 10 and 11:30. In 1979, pro basketball was sagging; even with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Norm Nixon and a winning team, Los Angeles fans shrugged. Then Jerry Buss – who didn’t have the money – bought the team; he added flair, fun and Laker Girls. He also overruled his crabby coach and drafted Magic Johnson. (Shown here are John C. Reilly and Quincy Isaiah as Buss and Johnson.) It’s a fun story, jauntily told in this scripted mini-series. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 4, 2022
Weekly Previews

Week’s top 10 for March 7: Reality shows start and end

1) “Survivor” opener (shown here), 8-10 p.m. Wednesday, CBS. The 42nd edition has 18 contestants, ranging from a 19-year-old Ivy League student to a 58-year-old retired firefighter. As usual, there are people with light-hearted jobs – waitress, pageant coach, fitness consultant. But there’s also a data scientist, a therapist, a veterinarian and a Yale Law School grad. One person is listed as a stay-at-home dad, another (who’s also a Black Studies teacher) as a stay-at-home mom. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 3, 2022
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 5: A “Star Wars” guy hosts “SNL”

.1) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. After its Olympic break, “SNL” was in top form last week. It started with an emotional Ukraine chorus, followed with a sharp John Mullaly monolog, then had neatly offbeat sketches. Now Oscar Isaac – the Guatemalan native who plays Poe Damera (show here) in “Star Wars” films – has his first turn as host. Charli XCX has her second (and first in eight years) as music guest. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 3, 2022