Year: 2024

Stories

Work/home balance? Try a coup and a birthday party

For decades, Mariana van Zeller (shown here) has reported about scary people in scary places.
“She really is the bravest person I know,” Courteney Monroe, the president of the National Geographic Channel, told the Television Critics Association.
But she still feels fear and regret. “As a working mom who travels all the time, I live with this eternal guilt of not being there at important moments,“ van Zeller said..
That peaked last summer, in an embattled desert country. The story will be on the season-finale of “Trafficked,” at 9 p.m. Wednesday (March 20) on National Geogeraphic; van Zellar gave the TCA a verbal preview. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 18, 2024
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 20: scary coup, funny turtle and two finales

1) “Wild Cards” season-finale, 8 p.m,, CW. For the new, low-budget version of CW, this has been a bright spot, wth likable people in clever plots. But there are only 10 episodes in the first season and talks have dragged on about a second. Giacomo Gianniotti (shown here) plays a cop, working with a semi-reformed scam artist (the delightful Vanessa Morgan). Now he’s drawn into a case from her shaky past. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 18, 2024
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 19: grim dramas and a St. Patrick’s surprise

1) “Extended Family,” 8:30 p.m., NBC. After a quarter-century as a writer-producer-actor, Mike O’Malley gets to craft the ultimate St. Patrick’s Day episode. Yes, it’s two days late and (sometimes) a tad silly. But ii does double-duty: It has the usual cliches – Jim’s dad (shown here), after all, has an Iriish bar in Boston – but follows with a sharp reality check. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 17, 2024
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 18: a surge of non-fiction

1) “Photographer,,” 8 and 9:21 p.m., National Geographic Channel. After triumphing with “Queens,” Nat Geo again shows it knows great photography. This six-part, three-Monday series starts with Cristina Mittermeier (whose photo is shown here) and Paul Nic, a married duo whose photos make them activists for the ocean. That’s followed by Anand Varma and egg embryo photos. Others will range from fashion to war. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 16, 2024
Stories

Mondays become great-photography day

For fans of great photography, Mondays have become the must-see-TV day. That’s when the National Geographic Channel:
— Had the epic African series “Queens,” which then went to Hulu and Disney+.
— Will have its usual strong coverage on Earth Day, April 22.
— And now has a series, simply called “Photographer.”
In six episodes on three Mondays, the series (also on Disney+) will feature people who share a few traits. They have “dedication and discipline and an audacity to refuse to be held back,” Chai Vasarhelyi, who produces the series with her husband (and fellow photographer) Jimmy Chin, told the Television Critics Association. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 15, 2024
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 17: big day for PBS and basketball

1) “Nolly” opener, 9 p.m., PBS. In real life, “Nolly” Gordon was a British TV pioneer, a talkshow host and program executive with a soap opera built around her. Fame and awards followed. It was a makeshift era, captured brilliantly by writer Russell Davies (“Doctor Who”) and Helena Bonham Carter (shown here). “Nolly” is funny and warm … and then, mid-way in the first of three parts, takes a sudden shift. Read more…

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

Good news: “Snowpiercer” is rescued

Happy endings are possible, it seems, even in the grimmest circumstances. That’s:
— Even in a post-apocalyptic world in which most folks have frozen to death; and
— Even in something that the Discovery people have touched.
In short, “Snowpiercer” (shown here) has been rescued. Its first three seasons will rerun later this year on AMC+; its fourth one will debut early next year on AMC. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 14, 2024
Weekly Previews

Week’s top-10 for March 18: best of basketball and skating

1) Tournament time. College basketball gobbles up our TV time. (Shown here is top-ranked Houston.) On Thursday and Friday, that wll be at noon and 2:30, 7 and 9:30 p.m., ET on CBS; 12:30, 3, 7:30 and 10 p.m. on TruTV; 1:30, 4, 6:45 and 9:15 p.m. on TNT; and 2 a.m. and 4:30, 7:15 and 9:45 on TBS. (Many CBS shows – soaps, Thursday comedies and Friday cops – step aside.) Then a new round comes Saturday and Sunday. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 14, 2024
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for March 16: Awardees soar; Pac-10 crumbles

1) “NAACP Image Awards,” 8-10 p.m., CBS, BET and VH1. Queen Latiifah returns as host, with special honors for musicians (New Edition, Frankie Beverly), designer June Ambrose and 25-year-old poet Amanda Gorman. There are awards for TV, music, books and movies – with best-picture nominees “American Fiction,” “Rustin,” “Oppenheimer,” “They Cloned Tyrone” and the vibrant “The Color Purple” (shown here). Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 14, 2024
Stories

Opposite lives? Well, maybe not

There are roughly 3.7 zillion different routes to being an actor. At first glance, the stars of PBS’ new Alice & Jack” seem to have taken opposite ones.
For Domhnall Gleeson, 40, it looks quick and obvious. His dad, Brendan Gleeson, is a prominent actor, complete with an Oscar nomination (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), five Golden Globe nominations and a Harry Potter role, as Mad-Eye Moody.
And Andrea Riseborough, 42? Her parents were a car salesman and a secretary.
Now they trace 15 years of a sometimes-romance, in a six-parter that debuts at 10 p.m. Sunday (March 17), after the season-opener of “Call the Midwife” and the start of Helena Bonham Carter’s “Nolly.” But their careers aren’t as opposite as they seem. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 13, 2024