News and Quick Comments

News and Quick Comments

Oscar documentaries are on TV now

In the aftermath of the Academy Awards, we can still see some of the nominated documentaries.
Short docs? The winner (“The Queen of Basketball”) airs at 6:30 p.m. Monday (March 28) on the NBA channel; another nominee, “When We Were Bullies,” is 9 p.m. Wednesday on HBO.
Feature-length docs? “Writing with Fire” (shown here) has its TV debut at 10 p.m. March 28 on most PBS stations, under the “Independent Lens” umbrella. With that in mind, I’ll rerun a recent story I wrote about “Fire” and “Lens”: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 28, 2022
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Overlooked “Bruno” crashes the Oscars

Did the best song get overlooked for the Oscars?
Some people seem to think so. “Don’t Talk About Bruno” (shown here), from “Elcanto,” wasn’t even nominated — but now it will be performed at the Academy Award ceremony, at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on ABC.
“’Bruno’ is everywhere,” Will Packer, co-producer of the telecast, said at press conference Thursday.
It reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart … the first Disney-animation song to get there since “A Whole New World” in 1993, Ariana Brockington wrote in a Yahoo News story. Even “Let It Go,” which seemed to be omnipresent, only reached No. 5. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 25, 2022
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Will the Oscars forget (again) to entertain us?

After three straight flubs, the Academy Award telecast (9 p.m. Sunday, March 27, on ABC) will try get it right – at last.
It will have three hosts (shown here) … and music … and fewer on-air categories. It will hope viewers forget the recent years.
In those three years, Oscars were hostless and joyless. Ratings tumbled. The telecast went from 29.6 million viewers in 2019 to 23.6 million in 2020 and 10.4 million last year. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 22, 2022
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Yes, the Oscars will have some music

A week before the Oscars, we’re finally hearing names of some of the music performers.
That’s a step up from last year, when music – and any entertainment, really – was jettisoned. Music was exiled to the preview portion; comedy was also missing, in a no-host, no-fun night.
This year’s ceremony – 8 p.m. ET Sunday, March 27 on ABC – will have three hosts (comedians Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes and actress Regina Hall) and music from: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 19, 2022
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“Sanditon”: PBS gambled on an almost-doomed show

(“Sanditon” is finally back, after a too-long gap. A separate piece here, under “stories,” is a guide to the second season, which starts at 9 p.m. Sunday, March 20, on PBS. Alongside that, however, I thought I should repeat a previous story, talking about the show’s rescue. Here it is, slightly shortened.)
Even before “Sanditon” (shown here) reached America two years ago, PBS had a dilemma.
Like virtually everything on “Masterpiece Theatre,” this was a global project, with a British network paying more and getting it first. And that network had already decided not to do a second season.
“We knew that (it) had been canceled before it even aired on ‘Masterpiece,’” Susanne Simpsons, the “Masterpiece” producer, said in a Television Critics Association virtual press conference. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 16, 2022
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“Belfast”: the making of a movie master

At a wobbly time in a 9-year-old’s life, his grandmother has some key words.
“You’ll always be Buddy from Belfast,” she says, “no matter where you go and what you become.”
That line – from Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographic film “Belfast” (shown here) – rings true. And we have to marvel at just what the kid did become.
He became a president, a prime minister and a king. He led armies, solved mysteries, explored Antarctica and created a monster. And two opposite Branagh films are in theaters: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 14, 2022
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“Snowfall”: drug-dealers, danger and, especially, family

We expect characters to change a bit, to get older and slower and maybe wiser.
Still, few have done it with the dizzying speed of Franklin Saint, the centerpiece of “Snowfall” (shown here). When the series started, he was a brainy teen with a strong college future; in this fifth season, he’s been flying a private plane and ruling a business, turning drug deals into real-estate schemes.
Is anything unchanged? “He still loves his family,” Damson Idris, who plays him, told the Television Critics Association. “Despite the animosity …. family has been the thing that’s kept him afloat.”
That’s clear in the season’s fourth episode, which airs at 10 p.m. Wednesday (March 9) on FX, reruns hourly until 2 a.m., then goes to Hulu. Franklin insists everyone catch the welcome-home dinner for his mother; we find big changes in his: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 7, 2022
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Solitary, solemn Brits keep solving mysteries

As our TV sets fill up with British crime-solvers, some traditions persist.
At home, these people are solemn and solitary. That has continued – with occasional exceptions – from Sherlock Holmes to Hercule Poirot, Inspector Morse and more.
And it’s true of Max Arnold in “The Chelsea Detective” series (shown here), on the Acorn streaming service. “I think he’s a born-again melancholic,” Adrian Scarborough, who plays him, told the Television Critics Association. “Putting him … in the middle of the Thames, on his little houseboat, was very deliberate.”
That’s part of an overload of crime tales from England and its former colonies: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 4, 2022
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PBS plans a Broadway-style surge

PBS continues its solo mission of putting Broadway-type shows on TV.
There’s a small sign of that now, when stations air “An Evening with Lerner and Lehrer” during their pledge drive. (See a separate piece here, under “stories.” A bigger package comes in May, with specials on three Fridays.
Two of those shows were done last year, during a slowdown in the pandemic – a Sutton Foster musical in London (shown here) and an outdoor comedy in New York. The other is a documentary. The shows, under the “Great Performances” banner, are: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / March 2, 2022