Stories

Restrained Brits seethe (a little) in “Roadkill”

As our political season winds down, we can settle back and watch a different one.
This one is fictional … and British … and sometimes rather subtle.
“We are a more restrained country, in many ways,” Hugh Laurie (shown here) said in a virtual session with the Television Critics Association. “I think the fun for an actor is to allow the audience an opportunity to decipher things, rather than simply present them in bold captions.”
He does that in “Roadkill,” a “Masterpiece” drama starting at 9 p.m. Sunday (Nov. 1) on PBS. Throughout the four episodes, we’re not sure what to think of Peter Laurence, the politician he plays. He’s a member of the Conservative Party, which has ruled England for 45 years – lately, with people from upscale backgrounds. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 28, 2020

Stories

Amid the inferno: animal-rescue heroics

Adrina Selles was getting used to this: Fires (shown here) raged through the Australian bush country, endangering her animal-rehab center.
“We were threatened on four different occasions, from four different directions,” Selles – featured in a “Nature” film at 8 p.m. Wednesday (Oct. 28) on PBS – recalled. “We had to evacuate each time.”
Then came the big one – a massive, New Year’s Eve blaze that would consume 46 million acres.
“We thought we were going to lose the whole property,” she told the Television Critics Association. She couldn’t protect the 15 joeys (young kangaroos) in her care. “We just had to open the gates and (hope they would) find shelter.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 26, 2020

Stories

“Undoing”: Lies, murder and a secretive Hugh

As a director, Susanne Bier has been busy muddying the images of stately Englishmen.
First, she cast Hugh Laurie as a cruel arms dealer in “The Night Manager.” Now she has Hugh Grant as a husband clinging to secrets – possibly murder – in “The Undoing,” at 9 p.m. Sundays on HBO.
“I just go for Hughs,” she joked. Such casting can be calculated … or whimsy. There’s “an element of intuitive sense,” she told the Television Critics Association in January. “There is a certain matchmaking fun about it.”
One match was already in place: Nicole Kidman (shown here with Grant) would star and David E. Kelley would produce and write the scripts, adapting a novel. That combination worked for “Big Little Lies,” which drew eight Emmys (including best mini-series and best actress, for Kidman) and eight more nominations. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 23, 2020

Stories

“The Conners” return with pandemic pain and laughs

When we last saw the Conner family, lives were in a familiar state of tatters.
Dan (John Goodman) saw his drywall business stumbling and his home was foreclosure. One daughter, Darlene (Sarah Gilbert, shown here with Goodman) struggled to start a local magazine; another, Becky, tried to cope with belated motherhood.
Could anything else go wrong? Definitely. “The characters were built for disaster,” producer-writer Bruce Helford said in a virtual session with the Television Critics Association..
The “Conners” season-finale aired in May, but was taped before the virus shutdown. Now the show is back, at 9 p.m. Wednesdays; its return (Oct. 21) makes ABC the first network this season with a non-rerun night of situation comedies. And yes, the pandemic is instantly reflected. As Helford put it: “A family that knows how to get through hard times … is thrown a curve like never before. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 20, 2020

Stories

Jones finds sweeping success via offbeat route

This isn’t the way it’s supposed to go, you know.
The break-out talents from “Saturday Night Live” are supposed to become movie stars. They’re not supposed to host a game show where people racie frantically down grocery-store aisles.
But there is Leslie Jones (shown here), hosting and producing “Supermarket Sweep,” which debuts at 8 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 18) on ABC. That’s not the usual post-”SNL” route. “They have a formula for how everybody is supposed to make it,” Jone said in a recent Television Critics virtual session. But “I had to make everyone realize the formula doesn’t work for me.”
Nothing does. She was 47 before she ever reached “SNL,” 49 before she got her one big movie role (the “Ghostbusters” reboot), 51 when she left the show, did a stand-up comedy special … and then grabbed a show she had watched long ago. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 15, 2020

Stories

Yola inhabits the soulful Sister Rosetta

It was a time before Elvis or Aretha, a time when “rock” and “soul” were mostly just nouns.
That was when Sister Rosetta Tharpe brought a rocking, soulful feel to gospel music. Now she’s getting fresh attention, via PBS and, eventually, a Baz Luhrmann movie.
“Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s contribution to music – specifically to the creation of rock-and-roll – (was) very central to my music taste,” said Yola (shown here), the singer who gets two chances to inhabit Tharpe.
The first is on “Grammy Salute to Music Legends,” at 9 p.m. Friday (Oct. 16) on PBS. Yola sings Tharpe’s powerhouse, “Up Above My Head, I Hear Music in the Air.” And the second will be in a movie … well, sometime. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 14, 2020

Stories

Anthology TV makes a soulful return

In TV’s early years, anthologies thrived.
They were inconsistent, but we forgot the bad moments and savored the good ones – “Twilight Zone” or “Hitchcock” or tales that became movies, from “12 Angry Men” to “Requiem For a Heavyweight.”
And now – thanks to streaming or cable – they’ve made a mild comeback. AMC’s “Soulmates” (10 p.m. on six Mondays), shown here with Charlie Heaton and Malin Akerman, joins a mini-trend that has included “Modern Love,” “The Romanoffs” and “Black Mirror” … from a “Soulmates” writer-producer. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 4, 2020

Stories

Comedy Store has launched generations of stars

For a generation of comedians, the challenge was the same:
Do an open-mike set at the Comedy Store. Do your best; hope club-owner Mitzi Shore (shown here with Jay Leno and Garry Shandling) like you.
For Bill Burr, that went one way: “She (said), ‘He’s not ready,’” he told the Television Critics Association last month. “I heard her say it in the m the middle of my set.” Burr soon moved to New York. Years later, he returned while building a vibrant comedy career.
For Mike Bender – who has made a documentary series about the club – it went the other way. He was just 18, a boyish-looking redhead from near Detroit, when he tried the Comedy Store. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 2, 2020

Stories

Fear and fun propel an animated “Black-ish”

Fear can be a great motivator, we’re told. And now it’s giving us a primetime, animated special (shown here).
That’s the second of two “Black-ish” specials that will follow basketball (at about 10 and 10:30 p.m.) Sunday on ABC. The idea came when “Black-ish” found itself off the fall schedule.
“We were trying to figure out a way to still have a presence, especially in an election year,” producer Kenya Barris said, in a virtual session this week with the Television Critics Association.
An election-themed special would be good, people agreed … except for one problem. “I was not ready,” said Tracee Ellis Ross, one of the stars. “(I was) terrified to go back to work and be on a set.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 1, 2020