Just how long is Halloween, anyway?
It used to be one day; some cable networks seem to think it’s an entire month. But for most TV viewers, it’s one crowded week: From Oct. 25-31, Halloween overruns our TV sets.
The Disney properties (ABC, Freeform, Disney Channel) lead, but others jump in. Here are some highlights of what’s new; the days listed refer to the 25th through 31st: Read more…
There are some careers that job counselors don’t seem to encourage – cowboys, shepherds and, especially, explorers.
“By middle school and high school,” Albert Lin said, “we’re told that everything has been discovered …. We’ve been to the moon; we’ve been to the bottom of every ocean.”
What’s left? Re-discovery, using modern tools. Lin (shown here “has completely re-invented how we explore, using cutting-edge technology,” said Courteney Monroe, head of the National Geographic Channel.
So now her channel has “Lost Cities with Albert Lin,” a six-week series that crosses the globe. Read more…
TV used to savor anthologies
.There were high-profile, high-prestige ones — “Studio One” and “Playhouse 90” and more. They drew praise and awards; some episodes (“12 Angry Men,” “Requiem For a Heavyweight,” “Days of Wine and Roses”) became acclaimed movies.
Then anthologies faded away … for a while .Now one streamer, Amazon Prime, has been nudging them back. Last year, it had the steeply ambitious “Romanoffs”; that’s been cancelled, but on Friday (Oct. 18) is the splendid “Modern Love” (shown here with Anne Hathaway). Read more…
On the surface, Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn were sort of the same
.They had worn fringed cowgirl suits and worked the fringes of show business. Lynn did juke joints and grange halls; Cline once sang atop the concession stand at a drive-in theater, drawing honks and boos.Both found Nashville fame.
Still, said Callie Khouri, “they were two extremely different people.”
That’s what Khouri savors in movie characters, whether fictional (she wrote “Thelma & Louise”) or real: She directed “Patsy & Loretta” (shown here with Megan Hilty as Cline and Jessie Mueller as Lynn), debuting Oct. 19 on Lifetime. Read more…
For years, neighbors in a Chicago suburb knew they were being watched.
Sometimes it was subtle – an odd car parked outside at all hours, workmen on the phone lines at 3 a.m. Sometimes it wasn’t; men showed up, flashed FBI badges and asked questions for an hour.
“We had all this paranoia in the neighborhood,” recalled Assia Boundaoui (shown here), who has made a PBS film about it. “People didn’t trust each other. We were constantly censoring ourselves.” Read more…
In the new “Nancy Drew” series, Nancy does double duty; she’s a waitress who solves crimes.
That seems like a lot … except to aspiring actors. They’re forever leaping between day jobs – waiters and waitresses, usually – and auditions.
Kennedy McMann (shown here), the new Nancy, varied slightly, working as an afterschool nanny. “I would be, like, ‘Hey, guys, you know what’s a fun playtime? Help me learn my lines.’” Read more…
If consistency is a virtue, then … well, the CW is our most virtuous TV network.
But if variety is the spice of life? This spice rack is almost empty.
The mini-network is in its premiere week now, two weeks after the big guys started. It has two new shows – the impressive “Batwoman” and the not-bad “Nancy Drew” — and lots of same-old.
Many of those shows have followed “Arrow” (shown here), which is starting its final, 10-episode season, “Who would have thought it would spawn six shows, a whole universe?” asked Mark Pedowitz, the CW’s programming chief. Read more…
This really isn’t one of life’s recommended pick-up lines.C
ody and Brandi Rhodes (shown here) met when he said her hair looked awful. “It was not ideal for a first encounter,” he said.
Then again, she admits: “It wasn’t an ideal hairstyle. I did change it.”
Now they’re married and at the core of TV’s latest wrestling surge. (See previous story.) They’re among the founders of All Elite Wrestling, where he’s one of the CEO’s, she’s chief brand officer, both are wrestlers … and neither fits into any loud-lout, dumb-hunk image. Read more…
Cody Rhodes fondly recalls the years when his dad’s crashy/smashy world soared.
That was when Dusty Rhodes was a World Championship Wrestling star. “From 1995 to 2001, it was the highest-rated show on TNT …. It was a crazy time for wrestling,” Cody said.
Now this may be Crazy Time II. Suddenly, wrestlers are filling up our TV sets.
That peaks Friday, when WWE’s “SmackDown” — which was confined to cable for two decades – moves to Fox. It’s a chance for WWE “to be a part of this talented, sports-obsessed network,” said Charlotte Flair (shown here), who (like her dad, Ric Flair) has been a pro-wrestling champion. Read more…
It can be one person’s biggest fear, another’s yummiest delicacy.
It has as many arms as the Beatles, as many hearts as the Three Stooges, as many brains as Albert Einstein. It got here perhaps 300 million years before we did and may remain – thanks to its survival skills – after we’re gone.
It’s the octopus, the subject of the “Nature” season-opener Wednesday (Oct. 2) on PBS. It’s been known as the kraken in Norse mythology … and as Heidi (shown here) in David Scheel’s home.
“Friends (were) very taken with the animal,” Scheel said. “But the notion that it was in my living room was just a little bit odd.” Read more…
