1) “All Creatures Great and Small” season-opener, 9 p.m., PBS. The sweet, village-veterinarian life will be shaken in this excellent season. Tristan has left for World War II and James, who’s talkimg with Helen (they’re shown here) about having a baby, might be next. Siegfried will soon hire a bookkeeper and a young vet. Tonight brings gentler problems, including a stray dog and a sort-of-stray boy. Read more…
1) Football. The week starts and ends with big games. Today, the college season has its national championship at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN and ESPN2, with a pregame show at 7. Michigan (shown here) and Washington – undefeated and ranked No. 1 and 2 – collide. Then the pros start their month-long playoffs. There are two games Saturday and three on Sunday, plus one more on Monday, Jan. 15.
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For TV, this is the post-strike time when dramas gradually return.
A few arrive soon; NBC has “La Brea” on Jan. 9 and the Chicago shows on Jan. 17. Others will be much later — “Grey’s Anatomy,” March 14;“9-1-1: Lone Star” next fall.
But for viewers in a real hurry, there’s PBS. In one burst Sunday (Jan. 7), it has two season-openers (“Miss Scarlet and the Duke” and “All Creatures Great and Small”) and a series debut (“Funny Woman,” shown here).
As it happens, all three improve as their six-Sunday season advances. “Miss Scarlet” starts quite poorly, then rights itself. “Funny Woman” goes from OK to quite good. “All Creatures” starts at very good … then gets even better. Let’s look: Read more…
1) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. After a busy spurt, with eight new episodes in 10 weeks, “SNL” is on a month-long break. It has reruns tonight (Jason Momoa, shown here with Chloe Fineman, hosts, with Tate McCrae as music guest) and next week, before returning to a new episode Jan. 20, with Jack Elordi and Renee Rapp. Read more…
At times, it seemed like Hollywood had made its last musical.
The genre felt wobbly and weary. And then …
Well, then we got bursts like this, with two big-deal musicals side-by-side in theaters. They are opposites: “Wonka” starts in a place of joy, “The Color Purple” (shown here) in a place of despair. Yet they both stir us, musically and emotionally. Read more…
1) “Greatest @Home Videos,” 8 p.m., CBS. Born amid the pandemic’s burst of online originality, this has its 10th special. It’s the second with an award-show theme. Cedric the Entertainer picks the best videos from around the world, settles on a top two and lets viewers choose. Max Greenfield, who stars with him in “The Neighborhood” (shown here) shows up as “verifier of the results of stuff.” Read more…
1) “The Conners,” 8:30 and 9 p.m.,, CW. This is a first: A show that still has new episodes on one broadcast network will have reruns on another. “The Conners” (shown here) starts its sixth season Feb. 7 on ABC, but now it reruns its first season here. That starts with some terrific episodes – the first with the family impacted by Roseanne’s death, the second with David (Johnny Galecki) visiting. Read more…
1) “Magnum P.I.” finale, 9 and 10 p.m., NBC. This often juggles opposites — a sleek crime tale and a clumsy drama. That’s true in the first hour, with a clever crime scheme sharing time with a flat phone-hotline story. But the second hour (shown here) handles personal stories briskly and focuses on the crime. With one flaw – this guy was foolish to hire Magnum – it’s a winner, a good way to end the series. Read more…
1) “Only Murders in the Building,” 9-11 p.m., ABC. For three seasons on Hulu (with a fourth coming), this has combined murder mysteries with quietly clever glimpses of eccentric New Yorkers. Now the first season reruns over four Tuesdays on ABC. A has-been actor and a never-was director (played by Steve Martin and Martin Short) link with a neighbor (Selena Gomez, they’re shown here) for a true-crime podcast. Read more…
Tom Smothers (shown here) was many things – a clever comedian, an adequate singer, a great finder of new talent and new ideas.
He was also a champion gymnast and, much later, a yo-yo master.
Still, Smothers – who died Tuesday (Dec. 26) at 86 – will be remembered mainly as the guy who nudged American TV into the modern world. And that was partly by accident. Read more…
