Best bets for May 22: New/old Bunkers and Jeffersons

1) “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons,” 8-9:30 p.m., ABC. TV’s first golden age of comedy was propelled by these Norman Lear shows, in 1971 and ’75. Lear, 96, co-produces and co-hosts these live shows, using old scripts. Woody Harrelson and Marisa Tomei play Archie and Edith Bunker, with Ellie Kemper and Ike Barinholtz as their daughter and son-in-law. (The original series, shown here, reruns from 7-10 p.m. ET on digital channel GetTV.) Then Jamie Foxx and Wanda Sykes are George and Louise Jefferson. Read more…

1) “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons,” 8-9:30 p.m., ABC. TV’s first golden age of comedy was propelled by these Norman Lear shows, in 1971 and ’75. Lear, 96, co-produces and co-hosts these live shows, using old scripts. Woody Harrelson and Marisa Tomei play Archie and Edith Bunker, with Ellie Kemper and Ike Barinholtz as their daughter and son-in-law. (The original series, shown here, reruns from 7-10 p.m. ET on digital channel GetTV.) Then Jamie Foxx and Wanda Sykes are George and Louise Jefferson.

2) “My Last Days” season-opener, 8 p.m., CW. For three Wednesdays, Justin Baldoni will fill the CW network. On “Jane the Virgin” (9 p.m.) he’s Rafael, one of Jane’s two true loves; he also creates and hosts these excellent, award-winning films about people facing the end of life. This season’s opener has Jessica Stansell-Aiyegbusi, who went from a foster-care youth to being a mother of five and a mother figure to more. It also has Travis Flores, 28, an author and activist who has cystic fibrosis.

3) “The Amazing Race,” 8 and 9 p.m., CBS. This is the last day of the official season, but you can’t tell that by “Race,” which spans spring and summer. After taking last week off (because of the “Survivor” finale), it still has eight of its 11 duos. Now two new ours are back-to-back.

4) “Brockmire” season-finale, 10 p.m. ET, IFC. One of TV’s most-cynical shows – and most-cynical title characters – has a warm spot after all. Sure, this episode sees both Jim (Hank Azaria) and his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor (the terrific Martha Plimpton) crumble. But now he and his lesbian colleague are under attack; “Brockmire” reaches heights we didn’t know it was capable of.

5) “Whiskey Cavalier” finale, 10 p.m., ABC. This slick show has everything – humor, action, pretty people, complicated plots. That’s everything except enough viewers to survive. This hour – the team is pressured to commit terrorism – is the last new one. Tonight also has the season-finales for “SEAL Team” (10 p.m., CBS) and all three Chicago shows (8-11 p.m., NBC), but they’ll be back in the fall.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *