Day: April 7, 2025

Acorn adds three continents of crimesolving

The Acorn streamer – specializing in British-type mysteries – has a busy stretch of shows and news.
For now, it has three movie-length episodes of “The Chelsea Detective” (shown here in a previous season). After that are six episodes of the long-running “Brokenwood Mysteries.”
And further away? Acorn has signed Brooke Shields for a series that – in a break from Acorn tradition –will be set in the U.S. Read more…

Best-bets for April 9: fun crime, serious musicals

1) “Good Cop/Bad Cop” season-finale, 9 p.m., CW. This first season has been way too short (eight episodes), but sharp and fun. Far from her role as Blair Waldorf in “Gossip Girl,” Leighton Meester plays a savvy cop, working with her smart-but-loopy brother (Luke Cook, shown here with Meester) for their dad, the police chief. Now an old case could rip the small town apart. Read more…

Out of the gloom came a comedy golden age

(This is the 14th chapter of the book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” To read at all (so far) in order, click “News and Quick Comments” and scroll to the headline that starts, “The Book.”)

At times, TV people decide that situation comedies are doomed. One such time came seven years before “Seinfeld” (shown here) would start a comedy comeback.
In the 1984-85 season, “Dallas” and “Dynasty” were at the top; two more soaps (“Knots Landing” and “Falcon Crest”) were in the top 10. Viewers watched light action (“A-Team,” “Magnum,” “Riptide”), but not comedies: Read more…