Best-bets for April 15: NBA, FBI and Ana
1) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. Ana de Armas has done excellent work in Read more…
Month: April 2023
One more marvelous season
By now, TV viewers might decide that only the good die young.
This spring, some of the best shows are leaving voluntarily. HBO’s “Succession” will depart after just 39 episodes; PBS’ “Sanditon” will leave after 20. “Alice,” alas, had 192.
Now let’s add one more to the list: “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (shown here) is starting its fifth and final season on Amazon Prime. It has three episodes April 14, then adds one each Friday, through May 26.
That will make 43 episodes in five seasons. We would have preferred 143, but great shows obsess on quality; bad ones just keep puttering along. Read more…
Best-bets for April 14: “Mrs. Maisel” is still marvelous
1) “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” season-opener, Amazon Prime. A great show starts its final season with broad strokes. First is a fascinating flashforward to Esther as a young woman; then we’re back to the 1950s and her mom Midge (shown here in a previous episode) in despair, her comedy career sputtering. Her agent must move quickly, focusing on a latenight show. There’s an odd Thanksgiving and, as usual, crackling-good dialog. Read more…
Want a good story? View the sideline players
When most folks watch the news, they focus on the key players.
Some writers, however, eye the people on the side. That’s what led to “The Good Wife” and now to “The Last Thing He Told Me” (shown here), a sometimes-compelling Jennifer Garner mini-series that starts Friday (April 14) on Apple TV+. Consider:
— Michelle and Robert King were intrigued by all the women who manage to seem stoic as their husbands are charged with evil deeds. That led to “The Good Wife,” which had a seven-year run.
— Laura Dave was watching a TV interview, with Linda Lay defending her husband, Enron chief Kenneth Lay. She envisioned a story about a woman “who believes that the world is telling her one thing and yet she knows, in her soul, who she has married,” she told the Television Critics Association. Read more…
Best-bets for April 13: double “Anatomy,” returning “Sheldon”
1) “Grey’s Anatomy,” 9 and 10 p.m., ABC. Earlier this year, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) – the central character for 18-plus seasons – departed. Now Maggie Pierce, Meredith’s half-sister and the head of cardio-thoracic surgery, leaves after nine years. She and Winston Ngu decide the future of their wobbly marriage. (They’re shown here.) That’s in a busy, two-episode night: Jo faces a tough diagnosis, Levi helps a patient celebrate a milestone and the Amelia/Kai relationship is tested. Read more…
Best-bets for April 12: busy birds, sober human
1) “Nature: The Hummingbird Effect,” 8 p.m., PBS. Costa Rica is barely the size of West Virginia, but it has more than 50 hummingbird species, some with specialized beaks Their perpetual mission is to pollinate the verdant forests. This hour is filled with gorgeous footage, both of the hummingbirds (one is shown here, not from the show) and of the vibrant animal kingdom they help sustain. Read more…
Best-bets for April 11: fun and games … or wartime memories
1) “My Grandparents’ War” season-opener, 9 p.m., PBS. Each week during the first season, a British celebrity learned about a grandparent or two who did something intriguing during World War II. Now the show hits a four-bagger: Kit Harington (shown here), of “Game of Thrones,” learns about all four grandparents. Both couples met during the war; one stuck together afterward and the other was fractured by battlefield memories. It’s an involving hour. Read more…
Best-bets for April 10: A big day in “The Neighborhood”
1) “The Neighborhood,” 8 p.m., CBS. It’s the 100th episode of a show that often seems loud and blunt – especially compared to the superb “Bob (Hearts) Abioshola” thtat follows – but has good intentions. Originally about distrusting the white newcomers to a Black neighborhood, it’s now about neighborly friendship. Jerry O’Connell (shown here) guests, in a story about getting tickets to “The Talk.”
Read more…
PBS this summer: mysteries, music, more
As long as there’s a PBS, summertime viewers won’t be confined to reruns, reality and game shows.
The network will have new mystery episodes on Sundays this summer, including “Grantchester,” the final season of “Endeavour” (shown here) and two new arrivals. It will also have an opera, a symphony, a Little Richard profile and the annual 4th-of-July mega-concert.
Viewers looking for new, scripted shows in the summer often turn to cable or streaming networks, or to CW, which will have new “Nancy Drew” and “Riverdale” episodes through Aug. 23.
But the bigger broadcast networks have resisted. For instance: Read more…
A neighborly world turns 100
In the past – or maybe it was in fiction, or in Canada – neighbors’ interlocked.
Lives were spent on the front porch and the front lawn, Everyone knew everyone.
That’s the world that exists in “The Neighborhood” (shown here) which has its 100th episode at 8 p.m. Monday (April 10) on CBS. Some of the stars recall it from their childhoods.
For Max Greenfield, 43, that was in Dobbs Ferry, population 11,000, in New York’s upscale Westchester County. “We definitely knew our neighbors,” told the Television Critics Association. “You were able to walk around town. It felt like I had a lot more freedom back then.” Read more…