Day: May 1, 2023

“9-1-1” jumps from Fox to ABC

The Fox network will go into next season without two of its top dramas – “The Resident” and “9-1-1.”
For viewers, however, there’s a key difference: “Resident” is apparently finished, but “9-1-1” (shown here) will simply jump to ABC.
Both shows have filmed six seasons and faced the usual tug: Costs nudge up, while ratings stagnate.
Complicating that are two other factors for “9-1-1”; the show is: Read more…

“Sam Now”: a real-life, missing-mom adventure

A quarter-century ago, a cinematic duo was created.
Reed Harkness was then 18 and had just found his dad’s old super-8 camera. Sam Harkness, his half-brother, was 11 and ready for anything.
“He was this very resilient kid,” Reed told the Television Critics Association. “He was always taking falls and then getting right back up again.”
They made goofy films with Sam as The Blue Panther, forever crashing, smashing and surviving. Then they made a dead-serious one about surviving something in real life: When Sam and his older brother Jared were in their early teens, their mother simply vanished.
In a way, Reed “spent 25 years making ‘Sam Now,’” said producer Lois Vossen. Her “Independent Lens” series will show the documentary (shown here) at 10 p.m. next Monday (May 8) on most PBS stations. Read more…

Best-bets for May 3: lots of finales, two of them forever

1) “A Million Little Things” series-finale, 10 p.m., ABC. It isn’t easy building a drama out of regular lives – ones without cops, crooks or courts. “This Is Us” did it brilliantly; “Million” (shown here in an early epiode) has done it fairly well, at a frantic pace. It started with a suicide, then added new crises. One person became paraplegic, two had cancer. There was deceit, despair, Alzheimer’s, more … plus warmth and humor. Now the show ends – as it had planned, it says — after five seasons. Read more…