Month: June 2024

News and Quick Comments

Tonys: high-octane, high-spirited fun

OK, that was a reminder that award shows can, on occasion, be really good.
The Tony Award show was high-octane, high-spirited and mostly very entertaining. It started with two big production numbers – one with Alicia Keys joining the music from her “Hell’s Kitchen” – and ended with a moderate surpise: “The Outsiders,” (shown here) not “Hell’s Kitchen,” was for best musical.
The rest offered few surprises. Of course, “Stereophonic” – most nominated play in Tony history – won for best play. Of course, “Merrily We Roll Along” – finally repairing a show that Stephen Sondheim never quite fixed – won for best revival, alongside two of its stars.
But the real surprise was how the show kept soaring. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 17, 2024
Daily Best Bets

Best bets for June 18: disco, diving, Doc & Don

1) “Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution” opener, 9 p.m., PBS. On the surface, disco was all flash and fun. At its core, this documentary says, were gays battered by bias and forming an alternate world. The next couple Tuesdays may get to the fun part – remember Travolta (shown here), BeeGees, etc.? – but this opener offers a fairly somber view of the early days. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 16, 2024
Stories

A longtime love for (and worry about) oceans

In Shailene Woodley’s sunny childhood, water was a pleasant distraction.
She grew up in upscale Simi Valley, taking family trips to nearby Malibu. “We would often camp near the ocean,” she told the Television Critics Association. “And because my parents weren’t afraid of water, they taught my brother and I to be very brave and respectful of the ocean.”
At 32, she’s a movie star (“Divergent,” “The Fault in Our Stars”), a TV star (“Big Little Lies”), a surfer and an ocean advocate. That’s what brings her back to TV, for “Hope in the Water” (shown here) at 9 p.m. Wednesdays on PBS. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 16, 2024
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for June 17: an Aussie, New Zealand night

1) American Film Institute lifetime award, 10 p.m., TNT. The first 48 winners have included lots of Americans and Englishmen, plus ones from Germany, Scotland, Austria-Hungary and the Bahamas … but none from Australia. Now that’s rectified. Nicole Kidman (shown here) did Aussie TV at 16; 40 years later, she has an Oscar (“The Hours”), an Emmy and more. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 15, 2024
News and Quick Comments

With the right heroine, “Bridgerton” soars

OK, I’ll admit that I once had misgivings about “Bridgerton.”
When the show arrived – on Christmas Day, 2020 – I said the show is “part classy Jane Austen and part tawdry Harlequin novel.”
It still is, but the classy side keeps gaining. This third season – which released its second half on Netflix Thursday (June 13), four-weeks after its first half – is a delight, partly because of the surprising choice (shown here) of whom to focus on.
(One caution: I won’t spoil anything that happens in this second half. I will, however, talk about things that preceded it. If you haven’t seen the first half — or the first two seasons — stop reading and start watching.) Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 14, 2024
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for June 16: Tonys and lots of dramas

1) Tony Awards, 8-11 p.m., CBS. We can expect lots of vibrant music numbers – from the host (Ariana DeBose), the five nominated musicals (led by Alicia Keys’ “Hell’s Kitchen,” shown here, with 13 nominations) and three of the nominated revivals – of “Cabaret,” “Tommy” and “Merrily We Roll Along.” There’s more, including plays and (unlike last year, during the strikes) a script. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 14, 2024
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for June 15: swimming stars and singing Barnum

1) Olympic swimming trials, 11 a.m., Peacock; 6:30 p.m., USA; 8 p.m., NBC. The Olympics are still six weeks away, but they’re already gobbling up TV time. For Americans, swimming — with stars like Katie Ledecky (shown here), already with seven gold medals — is especially popular. Trials continue through June 23; track-and-field starts June 21, with gymnastics June 27. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 13, 2024
Stories

It’s time for size-and-spectacle, season two

This is a question many of us might ponder: What is it like to ride one of Hollywood’s make-believe dragons?
“It’s just like riding a dragon in real life,” Eve Best semi-explained. “It’s deeply uncomfortable.”
She should know. She’s Princess Rhaenys in “House of the Dragon” (shown here), the “Game of Thrones” prequel that starts its second at 9 p.m. Sunday (June 16) on HBO and Max. Late in the first season, she had a dragon-riding escape that fans considered spectacular.
Best will have to take their word for it. “I’ve never seen it (the show),” she claimed, in that dry, British way. “I heard it’s fantastic.”
And the new season could be bigger. It has “two sequences that outstrip the size and spectacle of anything in Season One,” said producer Ryan Condal, Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 12, 2024