Month: January 2022

Best-bets for Jan. 28: Janet Jackson re-visits triumphs and troubles

1) ”Janet Jackson,” 8-10 p.m., Lifetime and A&E; concludes Saturday. Merely with her music career, Jackson (shown here) would merit a documentary. She’s sold 160 million records; in the U.S., she’s had seven No. 1 albums and 10 No. 1 singles; among women, only Madonna and Mariah Carey have more. She’s also an actress (with an Oscar nomination) and has had a complicated life. She discusses the deaths of Michael and her dad, plus the Super Bowl controversy, three marriages, giving birth at 50 and more. Read more…

She lives (and portrays) a complicated life

TV people seem to be realizing something that others – novelists, therapists, biographers – always knew:
One person can be many things, some of them opposites. “That dichotomy is really in all of us,” Christina Ochoa said.
That’s true of her character in “Promised Land” – a good woman who makes a bad choice in a crisis. It’s true of other characters in the show, at 10 p.m. Mondays on ABC. (The opener reruns at 10 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 27; also, every episode is available on Hulu after airing.)
And it’s especially true of Ochoa (shown here), who often gets roles that match her look. Tall (5-8 ½) and fit, with raven hair and appealing face, she’s starred in “Valor” as a war-veteran helicopter pilot and in “Blood Drive” as a femme fatale race driver; she’s co-starred in “Animal Kingdom” as a cocaine dealer and in “A Million Little Things” as a secretive secretary. Read more…

CBS renews three comedies

In a year when laughs have been rare, here’s good news: CBS has renewed “Ghosts” (shown here), “The Neighborhood” and “Bob (Hearts) Abishola” for next season.
That follows the renewal of “Young Sheldon,” so there are only two CBS comedies to worry about – “The United States of Al” and “B Positive.” Read more…

Best-bets for Jan. 27: positively a comedy night

1) “B Positive,” 9 and 9:30 p.m., CBS. The good news is that we get two episodes of this always-appealing show; the bad is that its future is unclear. “B Positive” will be bumped by a “Celebrity Big Brother” hour next week and by a new comedy (“How We Roll”) on March 31; the rest is pending. The first season introduced the delightful Annaleigh Ashford as Gina, who gave a kidney to a guy she barely knew. In the second, she inherited millions and bought a retirement home; she’s shown here with Linda Lavin, who plays one of the residents. Read more…

Busy times: from Honest Abe to Joe Exotic

You know life is promising when the news ranges from Abraham Lincon to Agatha Raisin, from Meat Loaf to Joe Exotic. All show up in recent announcements about TV; that includes:
— The “Tiger King” mini-series now has a starting date. The eight-hour film begins March 3 on Peacock, under the title “Joe vs. Carole.”
This is the scripted version of a true-life story originally told in a documentary that became a hit during stay-at-home stages, early in the pandemic. Kate McKinnon (shown here) of “Saturday Night Live” plays animal activist Carole Baskin, with John Cameron Mitchell as the self-named Joe Exotic, a private zookeeper eventually convicted of trying to hire someone to kill her. Read more…

Best-bets for Jan. 26: A sci-fi gem returns

1) “Resident Alien” season-opener, 9 p.m., Syfy. This wonderfully weird show mixes solid drama, zesty sci-fi and an abundance of humor. An alien killed Dr. Harry, took over his body and prepared to kill all humans. There were technical woes and he tried to return home, but Max (shown here with him) stowed away and they crashed. Now “Harry” has a concussion and starts babbling the truth – which, of course, everyone ignores. He also think he’s a TV cop. The few humans who know his secret try to help him, with amusing results. Read more…

PBS keeps filling the music gaps

For decades, PBS has had an extra duty: It’s the main link many people have to what’s happening on Broadway and in concert halls, opera houses and more.
But lately, there’s been an added role: It’s been giving us what’s NOT happening there.
As the pandemic shut most things down, PBS kept going. It had music on rooftops, on porches, in vacant rooms and now – quite carefully – in standard concert settings.
That’s led by Luke Frazier and his American Pops Orchestra, who has rushed a dozen concerts, ranging from slim half-hours to an ambitious “Wicked” concert (shown here with Ariana Grande). Read more…

Best-bets for Jan. 25: Messy romances in fiction and fact

1) “Our Kind of People” (shown here) finale, 9 p.m., Fox. Officially, this is just the season-finale, but don’t expect it to return. Ratings have been weak and Fox didn’t order the second half of the season. The good news is that this mostly works well as a series finale; questions are answered, evil is punished, romance messes are bsettled. The bad news is that the final minute thrusts everything into permanent limbo. That’s typical of a show that kept making brash and soapy choices. Read more…

It’s an alien world of wit, weirdness and a talking octopus

It’s probably safe to assume the people of Ladysmith are sane souls, living normal lives. They are, after all, Canadian.
So they may not get many sights like this: “Running down the streets of Ladysmith with an octopus was fun to do,” Alan Tudyk told the Television Critics Association. “I think it was popular with the local residents as well.”
We should probably explain that this was a talking octopus in “Resident Alien” (9 p.m. Wednesdays on Syfy, with the second season starting Jan. 26). We should also explain that Tudyk (shown here) plays an alien who came to Earth, killed a doctor and took his human form. He’s supposed to kill all Earthlings, but …
Well, the show requires a lot of explaining. Suffice it to say that it made sense for Tudyk to run through downtown Ladysmith (a Vancouver Island town of 8,500) with a talking octopus, Read more…

Best-bets for Jan. 24: “Promised,” “‘Piercer,” Playboy

1) “Promised Land” (shown here) debut, 10 p.m., ABC. Amid the sprawling beauty of Sonoma Valley, the haves and have-nots scheme. The Sandovals have a vineyard and a winery; Carlos Rincon has just entered the country with his sisters. John Ortiz stars as the patriarch; better known are Bellamy Young as his antagonist and Christina Ochoa as Veronica. Ochoa starred in “Blood Drive” and “Valor,” then was Renn in “Animal Kingdom” and the secretive secretary in “A Million Little Things.” Read more…