Best-bets for March 22: Music giants collide

1) Music overload. For the first time this season, the new ratings giant (NBC’s “The Voice”) faces the original one (ABC’s “American Idol,” now on Sundays and Mondays). Both are 8-10 p.,m.; tonight, “Voice” closes its auditions and looks back at highlights; “Idol” is in Hollywood Week, with Ryan Seacrest (shown here) introducing duets. But for truly great singing, catch Cynthia Erivo as Aretha Franklin, in National Geographic’s “Genius.” Sunday’s openers reruns at 6:56 and 8:03, with new hours at 9 and 10; it continues through Wednesday. Read more…

1) Music overload. For the first time this season, the new ratings giant (NBC’s “The Voice”) faces the original one (ABC’s “American Idol,” now on Sundays and Mondays). Both are 8-10 p.,m.; tonight, “Voice” closes its auditions and looks back at highlights; “Idol” is in Hollywood Week, with Ryan Seacrest (shown here) introducing duets. But for truly great singing, catch Cynthia Erivo as Aretha Franklin, in National Geographic’s “Genius.” Sunday’s openers reruns at 6:56 and 8:03, with new hours at 9 and 10; it continues through Wednesday.

2) “Breeders” season-opener, 10 and 10:30 p.m., FX. In its first season, “Breeders” cleverly entwined comedy and drama. Martin Freeman (star of the “Hobbit” movies and the first “Fargo” mini-series) and Daisy Haggard (whose “Back to Life” series has drawn raves) played overwhelmed parents who fretted, grumbled and schemed to get their kids into a good school. Tonight, howeever, it leans heavily to the drama side as their son nears his 13th birthday, in a fog of doubts and dismay.

3) “Bulletproof,” 8 p.m., CW. For two London cops, this South African vacation isn’t going well. After trying to rescue a kidnapped girl, they’ve been arrested and put in a tough prison. This hour, the second of three, has the usual elements – big action, a wild shoot-out, an explosion and some verbal sniping.

4) “Independent Lens,” 10 p.m., PBS (check local listings). Born in Canada (with family roots in Ghana), raised in Mississippi and educated at (among other plases0 Oxford, Joy Buolamwini is an MIT researcher who made a startling discovery: Facial-recognition systems do poorly when viewing Blacks and women. Now those systems have increasing power in many countries. This involving documentary follows Buolamwini and other activists.

5) ALSO: CBS goes all-basketball today, with tournament games at noon, 3:30, 7 and 9:30 p.m. ET. There’s more on TBS (5 and 7:30) and TNT (6 and 8:30). This is also a strong day for streaming at www.acorn.tv: “Bloodlands” is unfolds over four Mondays; today’s hour, the second, ends with a jolt. But all 10 parts of “The Attache” are available at once. It’s the involving story (with English sub-titles) of an Israeli-Moroccan man in Paris with his wife, not knowing French, at a time of terrorist attacks.

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