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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
It’s always handy when job-preparation involves bar-hopping.
That was the case for Emilia Jones, as she prepared for “Task” the intense, seven-week mini-series that stars Mark Ruffalo (shown here) and debuts at 9 p.m. Sunday (Sept. 7) on HBO.
Jones (23 and the star of the Oscar-winning “Coda”) is from England, where people seem to have an entirely different approach to words. Now she was playing someone rooted in the blue-collar traditions of small-town Pennsylvania. With dialect coach Susanne Sulby, she was on a mission.
“Two weeks before we started shooting, Susanne and I would go around bars and listen,” she said by Zoom. That soon felt natural. “It’s really fun; it’s not just an accent, it’s like an energy.” Read more…
Let’s call this “Dancing With the Sorta-Stars.”
When “Dancing With the Stars” starts its season (Sept. 16 on ABC and Disney+), it will have a few actual stars (Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles, shown here, for instance) and a lot of others. That includes influencers, reality-show people, former teen actors and the brothers of Zac Efron and Bindi Irwin. Read more…
Back in the days of “The Office,” Michael Scott gave a talk at a college.
“Paper will always be important,” he said (or some such thing). “Write that down.”
That brought some dutiful click-click-clicks. Students were writing it down on their computers, with no paper in sight.
It was a sign of things to come — including the sometimes-terrific “The Paper” (shown here), which debuts its entire 10-episode season Thursday (Sept. 4) on Peacock. Read more…
