1) “The Americas” return, 8 and 9 p.m. NBC. Next week, NBC starts filling Thursdays with big, British-American documentaries — the new “Surviving Earth” at 8 p.m. and reruns of the splendid “Americas” at 9. Filling those spots this week are “fun facts” variations of two hours: We visit the warmth of Mexico (shown here), then reach the frozen Arctic. Read more…
1) “Brilliant Minds,” 8 p.m., NBC. For its final six episodes, this wades into heavy turf. Sofia seems real to Dr. Wolf, but others feel he’s imagining her. Now he’s admitted himself into a psych institution, while his colleagues (shown here) handle a tough case at the hospital. Pivotal and emotional events follow. Read more…
As June arrives, we start scrambling around the TV universe.
Broadcast networks are sinking into a summer of reruns and reality. If we want more … well, that’s why the world invented streaming and cable.
Some shows, listed below, offer the full range. One (“Little House on the Prairie”) takes us back to the frontier; others — including new “Simpsons” episodes and a “Big Bang Theory” spin-off (shown here) — fling us into alternate worlds.
There are shows produced by Barack Obama (who was elected president) and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (who was arrested, as a teen, for drug-dealing) and Mindy Kaling (who was Kelly in “The Office”).
In short, there’s a lot. This sampling leans heavily on the start of the summer, with more announcements expected. Read more…
1) “America’s Got Talent” season-opener, 8-10 p.m., NBC. A Nigerian-born engineer dances without music; a Chinese engineer (shown here) dances without humans; Canadians dance with dogs. There’s much more, including a Cuban-born rapper, a French comedian and also some Americans who, like the others, have talent. It’s an impressive (and sometimes emotional) start. Read more…
1) “Bring Me the Beauties” opener, 9 p.m., HBO. Hoyt Richards is a Princeton grad who was called the first male supermodel. He worked for elite brands (Versace, Lauren, Cartier, etc), made a fortune … and gave it to a cult. This three-parter starts on a busy documentary day: At 8 and 9, ABC reruns films on Richard Simmons and on Kennedy conspiracy theories. Read more…
1) “The Audacity” season-finale, 9-10:29 p.m., AMC, repeating at 11:06. At a tech showcase, Duncan (shown here) plans to unveil his data-mining scheme, PINATA (Privacy Is Not A Thing Anymore). At the same time, his wife and daughter have a big school event. There are pivotal moments here, especially after a school stunt goes bad. It adds up to a great (but incomplete) finish. Read more…
1) “America’s Got Talent” season-opener, 8-10 p.m. Tuesday, NBC. The ratings leader is back, ready to spend most of the summer on auditions. The panel — Simon Cowell (shown here), Sofia Vergara, Howie Mandel and Mel B — will see lots of acts, some of them weird and most of them talented. On Aug. 18, they’ll finally shift to live shows, with viewers voting, Read more…
1) “Beverly Hills Cop” (1984, shown here) and its sequel (1987), 6 and 8:15 p.m., Sundance. On Sunday, Netflix will add this year’s ceremony, with the America Film Institute giving Eddie Murphy its Lifetime Achievement Award. First, here are two of his best films, skillfully mixing action, intensity and big, Murphy-style humor. Read more…
Strolling through a broadcast museum recently, I was struck by:
1) The immense role of late-night TV; and
2) How odd it is that CBS shed its late-night role. By dumping Stephen Colbert, it abandoned a slot it had struggled to get.
For CBS, late-night had long been a serious void. It was the “empty piece of the jigsaw puzzle that’s glared at us over the decades,” Howard Stringer, the network president, once told reporters.
That void was filled by David Letterman in 1993 and then by Colbert in 2015. For 33 years, CBS had a piece of what NBC has had almost forever. Read more…
1) “Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy,” 9-11 p.m., PBS. This joyous journey includes, as some people put it, everyone except Cole Porter. It traces the Gershwins, Lerner and Loewe, Kander and Ebb, Comden and Green, Rodgers and Hart and then Hammerstein (raised Protestant, with Jewish roots). It savors Sondheim and Bernstein (including this scene from the movie of their “West Side Story”) and more greats. Read more…
