Day: March 13, 2020

Stock crashes are fun … in fiction

This is the sort of timing that no one could plan – we hope.
Showtime had set Sunday, March 15, as the season-opener of “Black Monday” (shown here). That’s a loose drama-comedy, centering on the 1987 stock market crash.
Then, on March 13, newspaper headlines proclaimed the worst Wall Street crash since 1987. Hey, all we know is that the fictional crash is a lot more fun than the real one. Read more…

Virus spurs network schedule changes

As the coronavirus impact grows, TV is making quick adjustments.
CBS and ABC are filling the voids left by canceled basketball games. That means more reruns, plus spreading the two-hour “Hawaii Five-0” (shown here) finale over two weeks.
And PBS has a helpful reminder: We’ve been through much worse. Changes include: Read more…

Best-bets for March 15: Basketball dies; androids don’t

1) “Westworld” season-opener, 9 p.m., HBO. This show takes its time. It was 16 months between the end of the first season and the start of the second … and another 20 months after the second. “Westworld” has drawn praise– 41 Emmy nominations, with seven wins – and confusion. Now the sentient androids have escaped. Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood, shown here in a previous season) is in futuristic Los Angeles with a guy (Aaron Paul); Maeve (Emmy-winner Thandie Newton) is in a different park, based on Fascist Italy. Read more…

Week’s top-10 for March 16: More “Blacklist,” less basketball

1) The Blacklist” return, 8 and 9 p.m. Friday, NBC. After three months on the shelf, this smart, twisty show has episodes that are opposites, despite some common threads. Both involve a valuable gold box; both link Red (James Spader, shown here in a previous episode) with an imposing blonde – Gillian Alexy the first hour, Joely Redgrave the second. But that first hour is a clever art-theft tale; the second throws logic aside, for a fun yarn. In the Agatha Christie style, people are in a mansion on a dark and stormy night, with no escape and much death. Read more…