Best-bets for June 22: low-budget fun, high-class farewell

1) “Wellington Paranormal” season-opener, 9 and 9:30 p.m., CW. You’d expect Americans to ignore this – a micro-budgeted New Zealand show with thick accents and unknown stars (shown here). But it’s from Jemaine Clement and Taika Waiti (the “What We Do in the Shadows” creators); filled with their slow, dry wit. Clement wrote and directed the second episode, with his “Flight of the Conchords” colleague, Rhys Darby, as a park ranger. The first episode has an invisible man – an elusive target.; the second has a woods creature. Both have funny moments. Read more…

1) “Wellington Paranormal” season-opener, 9 and 9:30 p.m., CW. You’d expect Americans to ignore this – a micro-budgeted New Zealand show with thick accents and unknown stars (shown here). But it’s from Jemaine Clement and Taika Waiti (the “What We Do in the Shadows” creators); filled with their slow, dry wit. Clement wrote and directed the second episode, with his “Flight of the Conchords” colleague, Rhys Darby, as a park ranger. The first episode has an invisible man – an elusive target.; the second has a woods creature. Both have funny moments.

2) “One Last Time: Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga in Concert,” 10 p.m., CBS. One of the greatest moments of the past season – or of any season – reruns. Alzheimer’s disease had taken most of Bennett’s memories, but not his music; on his 95th birthday, he sang beautifully. Gaga was his opening act and both brought terrific jazz combos. They closed the night together, with “Lady is a Tramp,” “Love for Sale” and “Anything Goes.” Before that, Bennett had soared, from “Fly Me to the Moon” to “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

3) “Planet California” opener, 10 p.m., PBS. Far from the throngs of 40 million Californians, we get great glimpses of a natural world. Some moments – Yosemite waterfalls, redwood giants – are gorgeous. Some are somber: California’s six biggest wildfires happened in recent years; they took some sequoia trees that had been around since the time of Jesus. And some are just odd: We see newts a mating foursome – three guys and one girl, in a tight embrace.

4) “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” any time, Disney+. It’s a key week in the theaters-vs.-streamers war – two big movies streaming, shortly after their big-screen debuts. “Doctor Strange” opened less than seven weeks ago; “Downton Abbey: A New Era” reaches Peacock on Friday, after just five weeks. “Downton” has done OK, topping $40 million in the U.S. and $80 million worldwide, but “Strange” has topped that tenfold. A billion-dollar (almost) epic is being rushed to our homes.

5) ALSO: Hockey’s Stanley Cup finals continue, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, with the Tampa Bay Lighting hosting the Colorado Avalanche. Reality shows collide, when CBS reruns two editions of “The Price is Right at Night,”at 8 and 9 p.m.; they face new hours of Fox’s “MasterChef” (the season’s first “mystery box challenge”) and “So You Think You Can Dance” (trimming from 12 to the top 10). Also at 8 p.m., CW has a new “Flash” and PBS reruns “Sharks of Hawaii,” getting a jump on next month’s “Shark Week” and “Sharkfest.”

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