Year: 2025

Best-bets for Sept. 11: fun shows and grim history

1) 9/ll films. There have been some bracing documentaries about the Sept. 11 attacks (shown here). Now, 24 years later, those films rerun on History (7 a.m. to 4 a.m.) and National Geographic (8 a.m. to 2:30 a.m.) Especially powerful are History’s “102 Minutes That Changed America” (10:04 p.m.) and Geographic’s “9/11: One Day in America” (8 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.). Read more…

Season preview, cable & streaming: big, busy line-up

(Here’s the second of three season-preview stories. This one focuses on cable and streamers.)
As the big TV networks keep trimming down, others — streamers and a few cable networks — are bulking up.
It all evens out … except that viewers have to juggle and pay for lots of separate things.
Right now, there’s a flurry of returning cable-or-streaming shows, starting with the brilliant “Only Murders in the Building” (shown here), Tuesdays on Hulu. This time, the sorta-sleuths try to see who killed the doorman.
Other key returners include “Reasonable Doubt” (Hulu, Sept. 18), “The Morning Show” (Apple TV+, Sept. 19), “Tulsa King” (Paramount+, Sept. 21), “Slow Horses” (Apple TV+, Sept. 24), “Billy the Kid” (MGM+. Sept. 28), “Loot” (Apple, Oct. 15), “The Diplomat” (Netflix, Oct. 18), “Palm Royale” (Apple, Nov. 12) and more.
But this list involves new shows. Here’s a sampling of scripted series and mini-series on this cable or streaming this fall: Read more…

Season preview, broadcast: a lively little bunch

(This starts a three-story preview of the new season. For this story, we survey new shows on the broadcast networks; next is a cable/streaming round-up.)

It’s almost time for the fall TV season to arrive.
And don’t worry: There aren’t many new shows to keep track of.
If you add up all the new ones on the four big networks, you have three dramas (each of them a spin-off), three game or competition shows and one comedy.
Yes, one comedy (“DMV,” shown here). Let’s hope you don’t need a lot of laughs. Read more…

Best-bets for Sept. 10: Seasons end; seasons start

1) “MasterChef,” 8 p.m., Fox. After choosing its three finalists last week, the show now pauses. This episode (which reruns on Friday) offers season highlights, plus profiles of the remaining duos. Two are married — Zach and Michelle Lamb and (shown here) Rachel Sanchez and Julio Figuerdo; Jessica Bosworth and Jesse Rosenwald have been together for eight years Read more…

Best-bets for Sept. 9: funk, murder and aliens

1) “America’s Got Talent,” 8-10 p.m., NBC. The final eleven acts vie for the last four spots in the semi-finals. Ages range from 10 (in the Birmingham Youth Choir) to 66 (in the Funkateers dancers, shown here). There are four more music acts and another dance one, plus a magician, a bodybuilder, acrobats and a laser act. We’ll get the results Wednesday. Read more…

Best-bets for Sept. 8: Monday football returns

1) Football, 8 p.m. ET, ABC, ESPN, ESPN2. “Monday Night Football” was an ABC bedrock for 35 years. It slid over to ESPN for 14 years, then returned to help ABC during the pandemic, the strikes and general hard times. Now it’s on both networks, starting with the Minnesota Vikings (shown here in a previous season), 14-3 during the regular season last year, at the Chicago Bears, 5-12. Read more…

Best-bets for Sept. 7: MTV music — Mariah & more

1) “MTV Video Music Awards,” 8 p.m. ET, CBS, MTV and Paramount+. After 40 years on MTV, this adds CBS, with LL Cool J hosting. There are special awards for Mariah Carey (shown here) and Ricky Martin. They’ll perform, as will Post Malone, Jelly Roll, Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Tate McRae and more, including an Ozzy Osbourne tribute with Steve Tyler and Joe Perry. Read more…

Best-bets for Sept. 6: romance, crime and football

1) “The Groomsmen: First Look” (shown here), 8-10 p.m., Hallmark. Here’s the start of an ambitious trilogy that helped launch the Hallmark+ streamer last year. Pete, a pediatrician, meets Chelsea, a doctor. She lives overseas, so they don’t feel this could work. His friends, Danny and Jackson; disagree; over the next two Saturdays, they’ll have their own romance movies. Read more…

News: 30-year crossover, Tracy Morgan comedy, more

Here’s new turf for a TV crossover — a mystery that spans three decades.
That will happen Nov. 11, when CBS juggles the order of two shows.
“NCIS: Origins” (shown here), which usually follows “NCIS,” this time will air first. The show follows Gibbs’ early years, starting in 1991; he’ll face a mystery … that will then be tackled by the “NCIS” crew, in modern times.
That was one of several moves announced by CBS. Others include: Read more…

Week’s top 10 for Sept. 8: Emmys, “Murders” and such

1) Emmy Awards, 8-11 p.m. ET Sunday, CBS, rerunning at 8. Nate Burgatze hosts on CBS … which has few nominations, except for reality shows and Stephen Colbert. Apple TV+ has two best-comedy nominees (“Shrinking,” shown here, and “The Studio”) and two for drama (“Severance,” “Slow Horses”). HBO has “White Lotus” and “The Last of Us,” plus two more on Max. Read more…