Best-bets for Feb. 5: Grammys have rap, rock & Harry Styles

1) Grammy awards, 8-11:30 p.m. ET (5-8:30 p.m. PT),, CBS. Trevor Noah hosts for the third time and Beyonce leads with nine nominations … tying her husband, Jay-Z, as all-time leaders with 88 apiece. Performers include Harry Styles, Bad Bunny, Mary J. Blige, Luke Combs, Lizzo, Sam Smith, Brandi Carlile and many more … including an all-star tribute (organized by Questlove, shown here) to the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop music, dance and art. Read more…

Week’s top-10 for week of Feb. 6: Super Bowl and super Wednesday

1) Super Bowl, 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday, Fox. After leading the regular season with 14-3 records, the Kansas City Chiefs (shown here) and Philadelphia Eagles survived the play-offs. Now they collide, with Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen in the broadcast booth – each working his first Super Bowl. Erin Andrews, doing her fourth Super bowl, will be on the sidelines, with Tom Rinaldi. And at halftime, Rihanna takes over, in a show produced by her mentor, Jay-Z. Read more…

Good news for some shows, limbo for others

As the Fox network nears its Super Bowl spotlight, there’s good and bad news about its future:
— The good: “The Cleaning Lady” (shown here with Elodie Yung) has been renewed for a third season. That could have gone either way; the show has had modest ratings and a serialized story that reached some conclusions as the second season ended.
— Also good: Fox has expanded its agreement to put all of its scripted and reality shows on Hulu, the day after they air.
— And the bad: The spot after the Super Bowl on Feb. 12 – a perfect place to launch a new drama or showcase a fairly new one – will instead go to “Next Level Chef.” Read more…

Best-bets for Feb. 4: epic start for Black History month slate

1) “Malcolm X” (1992), 4:30 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies. During Black History Month, TCM is stuffing Saturdays with key films. That starts with Denzel Washington(shown here) in Spike Lee’s richly crafted epic. It’s followed by the comedy “Cooley High” (1975) at 8 and the moving drama “Sounder” (1972) at 10. There’s more ahead, led by “A Soldier’s Story” on Feb. 11 and “In the Heat of the Night” and “To Sleep With Anger” on Feb. 18. Read more…

Best-bets for Feb. 2: “Flatch” leaves, Reba returns

1) “Welcome to Flatch,” 9:01 p.m., Fox. Here’s the season-finale – and, alas, maybe the series-finale – for this erratic show, which is sometimes funny and always interesting. Tonight, Barb (shown here) and Kelly are determined to prove the town should be the permanent home of the Butter Bust Museum. Also, the pastor has been distracted lately; his assistant, Mandy, is in charge of blessing the town’s animals. At 9:30, “Call Me Kat” has a Smoky Mountains road trip. Read more…

“Ark” tries the youthful lure of space tales

Over the past four decades, Dean Devlin has seen large chunks of show business.
He was an unnoticed TV actor, guesting briefly on “Fame and “Happy Days” and such. He was a movie writer-producer, scoring big with “Independence Day” and “Stargate.” He drew criticism from others (and himself) for special-effects epics … then redeemed himself with “Leverage.”
Still, he said, some emotions persist. He’s felt that on “The Ark” (shown here), which debuts at 10 p.m. Wednesday (Feb. 1), on Syfy: “Walk on the set, you’re suddenly 12 years old again. It’s like, ‘I’m on a spaceship!’” Read more…

Best-bets for Feb. 1: schooltime music and comedy

1) “Schoolhouse Rock! 50th Anniversary Singalong,” 8 p.m., ABC. It’s the fifth round of “Singalong,” which became a pandemic hit. This time, clever songs about grammar, government, math and more are sung by stars. Derek Hough does “Figure 8”; his sister Julianne does “Interplanet Janet.” Others include Black-Eyed Peas, Ne-Yo, Muppets (shown here), Broadway stars and even Shaquille O’Neal, backed by the Boys and Girls Club for “Conjunction Junction.” Read more…

Best-bets for Jan. 31: Hip hop soars; dramas stumble

1) “Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World” opener, 9-10 p.m., PBS. On Aug. 11, 1973, a Jamaican-born teen, dubbed DJ Kool Herc (shown here, later), used turntables and mega-speakers to make his sister’s party festive; hip hop was born. It would be six more years before rap records took off; by then, other hip hop facets – break-dancing, graffiti and DJ’s — had soared. This opener of a four-part film follows the early years of a genre that’s now in its 50th year. Read more…