Day: August 12, 2019

“Baskets” departs with some fun … and despair

In a moment of exasperation, Christine Baskets says what viewers have been thinking:
“Sometimes, I think you just want to fail at life,” she tells her son Chip.
She’s right, you know. That’s what has kept FX’s “Baskets” from being a good show … and, alas, what dragged down the first season of Showtime’s “Kidding.
”Now “Baskets” is wrapping up its fourth and final season. It has a terrific episode (shown here, with Louie Anderson) this Thursday (Aug. 15), then a so-so finale a week later. “Kidding” will start its second season Nov. 2. Read more…

Best-bets for Aug. 14: Troubled teen, privileged pros

1) “David Makes Man” debut, 10 p.m., Oprah Winfrey Network. In books and movies, Winfrey leans toward complex people in depressing circumstances. So it’s logical that she linked with Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose play was the basis for the Oscar-winning “Moonlight.” With his own boyhood as an example, McCraney gives us a brainy 14-year-old (shown here), commuting from a tough housing project to a magnet school. One mentor (Phylicia Rashad) is a teacher, another is imaginary. It’s not an easy story. Read more…