1) “Wizards Beyond Waverly Place” season-finale, 8 p.m., Disney Channel. Billie, the teen witch, always seems to have trouble, but this is a big one: She has disappeared; so has the son of Justin, her wizardry instructor. (Justin is shown here, with the kids, in a previous episode.) And one more complication: A villain might take over the world. Read more…
CBS has a fresh way to launch a music talent show.
Very simply, it will use the stars from other networks’ shows.
“The Road,” this fall, will feature Keith Urban (shown here) (previously on “American Idol,” and Blake Shelton, previously on “The Voice.” Shelton will produce it with Taylor Sheridan, the “Yellowstone” creator, and others. Read more…
There was a time when networks froze in the shadow of the Oscars.
Academy Award night on ABC drew swarms. Some 39 million viewers watched “Annie Hall” win best-picture in 1978 … 48 million watched “Forrest Gump” win in ‘95 … 55 million watched “Titanic” win in ‘98.
Other networks ducked away, sometimes offering reruns or bad movies or such … but not any more. Flip the dial Sunday (March 2) and you’ll find strong choices everywhere. Read more…
The Academy Awards will have a different approach to music this year.
Gone are the separate performances – some good, some bad – of the five nominated songs. Instead, the show will have what it calls music celebrating filmmaking and its legends.
Performing that night (7 p.m. ET Sunday, March 2, on ABC) are:
Read more…
1) “Ghosts,” 8:30 p.m., CBS. Isaac has been grumbling about history’s cruel twist: The world forgot him … but gave his nemesis (Alexander Hamilton) a hit musical. Now flashbacks (shown here) tell us how their rivalry began. Hamilton is played by Nat Faxon, an Oscar-winning writer (“The Descendants”) who plays Jackie’s husband in “The Conners.” Read more…
1) “Survivor” opener (shown here), 8-10 p.m., CBS. This network really likes fire folks. “Fire Country” is one of its top shows; Tom Westman (a firefighter, then 40) was one of its most skilled “Survivor” champions. Now the show has two firefighters, a captain, 45, and a lieutenant, 55. Others, on a Fiji island, range from a doctoral student, 24, to a surgeon, 46. Read more…
1) “Eyes On the Prize III,” 9-11 p.m., HBO. Over the next three nights, this civil rights documentary will take us from 1977 and community activists to 2015 and Black Lives Matter. One note: Spike Lee complained that the original “Eyes” only had eight minutes on Malcolm X; now HBO has Lee’s brilliant “Malcolm X” (1992, shown here), at 5:35 p.m. Read more…
1) “The Bachelor,” 8-10 p.m., ABC. Only seven women remain, including a lawyer, a tech engineer, a venture capitalist and a pediatric speech therapist. Tonight, Grant Ellis (shown here) takes them to Edinburgh, for a Scottish fair, a helicopter ride and more. Read more…
In a TV world where shows can vanish quickly, there’s some good news:
CBS has renewed nine more of its shows for next season. Also, PBS has renewed “Miss Scarlet” for a sixth season.
The CBS moves follow four previous renewals, plus three new shows. Two of the new ones are spin-offs (including “Sheriff Country,” shown here); this is not a network for chaotic change. Read more…
(This is the sixth chapter of a book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” For the previous chapters, scroll down under “stories.”)
As the 1951 season began, TV had a split personality.
Yes, there were promising signs from Sid Caesar, Ed Sullivan and lots of live dramas But there were also remnants of TV’s primitive start.
Look around prime time that fall and you’d find wrestling (twice) and boxing (twice). You’d find the “Georgetown University Forum” and “Johns Hopkins Science Review”; “Youth on the March” and “American Youth Forum.” You’d find “Marshall Plan in Action,” “Film Filler” and “Lessons in Safety.”
And into that shaky field – on Oct. 15, 1951 – “I Love Lucy” (shown here) debuted. It instantly fulfilled “every promise of the often harassed new medium,” a Hollywood Reporter critic wrote, adding: “It should bounce to the top of the rating heap in no time.“ Read more…
