Mike Hughes

Best-bets for June 20: Janis and Jaws, Minecraft and more

1) “Janis Ian: Breaking Silence,” 9 p.m., PBS. Observing other people’s lives, Ian wrote and sang “Society’s Child” (about inter-racial romance) and the Grammy-winning “At Seventeen” (about a plain teen). Her own love life wasn’t a subject until later, when she discussed her now-wife. This film skillfully blends re-enactments and comments by Ian (shown here), now 74. Read more…

ABC plans a country cascade

For one long, busy evening, TV will break out of its summer slumber.
That’s when ABC has its annual “CMA Fest” concert. Over three hours (8-11 p.m. June 26), it will have 30 songs from country stars, from Adkins and Aldean to Zach Top and Zimmerman.
There will be serious moments (Scotty McCreery singing “Five More Minutes,” for instance), but there will also be Trace Adkins (shown here) singing “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” Country music is like that. Read more…

Best-bets for June 19: new episodes of mystery, drama, cartoons

1) “Poker Face,” Peacock. The lure of a rent-control apartments can inspire many odd choices, including murder. That sets up an exceptionally good episode for Charlie (Natasha Lyonne, shown here in a previous episode). Awkwafina, Alia Shawkat and David Alan Grier are guest stars. Also streaming today is Netflix’s “The Waterfront,” a drama that stars Holt McCallany and Maria Bello. Read more…

Patience and Purvis: kindred spirits, and yet …

These two women seem to have everything in common. They’re young, autistic, heading into new worlds.
And yet, they’re also opposites.
Patience Evans (shown here) is fictional, the compelling central character in “Patience,” at 8 p.m. Sundays on PBS. Ella Maisy Purvis, 22, is the actress who plays her.
“I’m very different from her, but I’m also very similar,” she said, by Zoom. “There are no gray areas with us.”
They offer proof that autism really is a spectrum, and a huge one. Read more…

Best-bets for June 18: comedies (really) and romance

1) “Shifting Gears,” 8-10 p.m., ABC. During a tough time for comedies, this has started well; two comedy pros work with fairly clever scripts. Now here are reruns of the first four episodes. Tim Allen plays an auto-shop owner, widowed and cranky; his estranged daughter (Kat Dennings) arrives with her kids. Soon, he’s at their new school (shown here) and she’s working at the shop. Read more…

Best-bets for June 17: NCIS night, plus fossils and more

1) “NCIS: Sydney,” 10 p,m., CBS. All three NCIS shows have moved to Tuesdays, which will be their night this fall. This rerun, a good one, starts explosively (shown here); then it plunges the Sydney team into the shaky world of conspiracy theories. That follows “NCIS” (a fun “ladies night” turns into work) and “NCIS Origins,” with a mourning Gibbs joining the search for a girl. Read more…

Best-bets for June 16: Dinosaurs roam, athletes leap

1) “Walking With Dinosaurs,” 8-10 p.m., PBS. Back in 1999, this drew praise and enthusiasm. Now it’s been rebooted beautifully, in a three-night series mixing special effects, animatronics and great filming. We see scientists finding bones … then get stories imagining those creatures. This starts (shown here) with a baby triceratops and a 13-foot-high tyrannosaurus. Read more…

“Grantchester” flings Nair into new old worlds

If your mom is a driving instructor and your dad is a driver, there’s a good chance your career will put you in a car.
It worked that way for Rishi Nair (shown here, right), but in a round-about way. As the star of “Grantchester” (9 p.m. Sundays on PBS), he gets to drive a zippy red Triumph convertible.
“I really like it,” he said. “I love the sound of it when I hit the accelerator.”
That vintage car is a part of his introduction to different worlds. Nair is a city guy from London, playing someone at the core of village life. He’s a Hindu, playing a Christian vicar. He’s someone who was born in 1991, stepping back into life in 1961. Read more…