Week’s top-10 for Nov. 16: J-Lo, demons and lots of season-openers
1) “American Music Awards,” 8-11 p.m. Sunday, ABC. Ten months ago, Jennifer Lopez teamed with Read more…
Mike Hughes
Best-bets for Nov. 14: COVID conquers football (sometimes)
1) “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “Bull,” 8 and 9 p.m., CBS. This was supposed to be a big night for CBS – a collision between high-scoring Alabama and Louisiana State football teams. But the game was postponed due to COVID at LSU, leaving the network with reruns of unspecified episodes. “Bull” will have its actual season-opener Monday; before that, “NCIS: LA” (shown here) has its second new episode Sunday. Read more…
Best-bets on a Friday the 13th: New “Blacklist,” memories of “Fiddler”
1) “The Blacklist” season-opener, 8 p.m., NBC. For seven seasons, Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader, shown here in a previous episode) has been pointing Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) and the FBI task force toward big-deal villains. Now he has another, named Roanoke, who specializes in extracting people. He also has bigger problems: Keen is finally bonding with Katarina, who is her mother … and a former Soviet spy … and maybe one of the only people who know Red’s true identity. Read more…
Mid-season plans set: from old “Idol” to new “Masked Dancer”
Just as the fall TV shows belatedly arrive, there’s a bonus: Two networks – ABC and Fox – have announced mid-season plans.
For ABC, that ranges from “The Bachelor” on Jan. 4 to “American Idol” on Valentine’s Day. For Fox, it includes January starts for six scripted shows – five of them returning, plus a new comedy that Jim Parsons is producing, with Mayim Bialik (his “Big Bang” wife) as star – along with “Hell’s Kitchen” and the new (shown here) “Masked Dancer.”
Read more…
Best-bets for Nov. 12: The eternal dramas return
1) “Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC) and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (NBC) season-openers, both 9 p.m. The two longest-running scripted shows current on TV collide; both are changing with the times. For “SVU,” starting its 22nd year – an investigation faces community distrust of police, And for “Grey’s”, starting its 17th season (the original cast is shown here), the COVID crisis grows. Things get worse when teens accidentally set a fire; that story starts on the “Station 19” season-opener at 8, then spreads into the two-hour “Grey’s” opener. Read more…
“Fiddler”: A theater giant, molded from tradition
Some of Broadway’s best minds were trying to say what their prospective musical was about.
It had this dairyman … and his daughters … and the czar’s soldiers … and …
But what, director Jerome Robbins asked, was it really about? Finally, someone said it was about tradition. “Write that!” Robbins said.
That story is told in “Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles,” a richly crafted documentary at 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13), on PBS. The film tells of a musical some people felt would fail.
It didn’t. “Fiddler on the Roof” (shown here) won nine Tony awards and ran for 3,242 performances – at the time, the longest-running show in Broadway history. It’s had five New York revivals, six tours and a movie. Read more…
Best-bets for Nov. 11: Three season-openers and a country cascade
1) Country Music Association awards, 8-11 pm., ABC. Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley and others open the show with a salute to the late Charlie Daniels. That starts a night filled with combinations: Hosts Reba McEntire and Darius Rucker perform together; he also links with Lady Antebellum; she joins Thomas Rhett and more. Gabby Barrett sings with Charlie Puth; also performing are Miranda Lanbert, Luke Combs, Eric Church, Maren Morris and more, plus a lifetime award for Charley Pride. Read more…
Trebek was a stately (and silly?) figure
Alex Trebek was the good, grey eminence of game shows– a reassuring sign that there are correct answers and absolute truths.
Trebek died today (Nov. 8) at 80, after almost two years of pancreatic cancer. He had been a TV presence for 58 years – totaling only nine months of joblessness, he said – including the past 36 as the “Jeopardy” host..
“He symbolizes learning and knowledge to (a) second or third generation,” Ken Jennings, one of the show’s all-time champions, told the Television Critics Assocation in January. And he makes “it look effortless,” added Brad Rutter, another all-time champ. “This guy, no matter what he’s going through, just gets better and better.”
There was also a flip side, somewhere under that dignified surface. “I love silliness,” Trebek said. Read more…
Best-bets for Nov. 10: The Tuesday dramas return
1) “NeXt,” 9 p.m., Fox. After being bumped by the elections last week, the Tuesday dramas boom back. “NeXt” is mid-crisis, as connected computers gain power. Shea, a cop, knows that her husband and son are targets. As they try to flee off the grid, she and LeBlanc head to Dartmouth, where this might be based. Late in the hour, LeBlanc (John Slattery) has a great monolog and some powerful moments with a friend (shown here) – confined to a computerized wheelchair – who may be involved. Read more…
Best-bets for Nov. 9: Competitions and a COVID drama
1) “All Rise,” 9 p.m. today, CBS. This episode was a big deal in May — the first one about social-distance, shot via social-distancing. Actors used their own homes, with characters communicating Zoom-style, shown here. (The actors playing Kurt and Rosa are married and did a scene together.) Judge Lola (Simone Missick) presides at the first virtual trial. The case is too simple, but it was an OK try at something others soon did better. Dorian Missick, the star’s husband, adds flavor as a disc jockey. Read more…