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Jordan brought an impish charm to TV

(Finding Leslie Jordan’s final TV work on Fox has been a bit tricky. His “Call Me Kat” episode, on Nov. 3, was bumped by the World Series; so was his visit to “The Masked Singer” on Nov. 2. The latter was rescheduled for 8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6 … but will be bumped again, if the Series goes to seven games. Meanwhile, here’s the story I wrote after Jordan died in a car accident.)
When Leslie Jordan first got there, Hollywood knew what a star should look like.
That was 40 years ago, when TV was dominated by Tom Selleck and Selleck types. A star would be 6-foot-4, handsome, a lades man, with a Midwestern-type voice.
And Jordan (shown here), who died Monday (Oct. 24) at 67, was the exact opposite. He was 4-foot-11, gay, with an impish charm and a pronounced Tennessee accent. “I realized that my job was the funny guy that comes in with the zingers,” he told the Television Critics Association in 2018. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / November 4, 2022

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It was another great Tuesday for TV doctors

There was a brief time when Thursdays were overloaded with great medical dramas. “ER” and “Chicago Hope” collided.
And now? Tuesdays are the time for very good – and, at times, great – ones.
Last week (Oct. 25), it was “The Resident” with one of its best episodes, complete with a wedding and a crisis. This week (Nov. 1), “New Amsterdam” (shown here) soars.
The two don’t directly compete anyway; “Resident” is usually 8 p.m. on Fox, “New Amsterdam” is 10 p.m. on NBC. That’s especially true this week, because the World Series has taken over Fox; “Resident” fans might seek out “New Amsterdam” to fill their no-doctors-tonight void. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 31, 2022

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“Doctor Who” streams into the future

For people who want ther shows to be offbeat, off-kilter and other-worldly, here are two pieces of good (sort of) news:
— “Doctor Who” will be around for a long time … albeit a bit harder to find. When it finally returns (in November of 2023), it will be on the Disney+ streaming service.
— And “Miracle Workers” has another season set. That starts at10 p.m. Jan. 23 on TBS, with Daniel Radcliffe and Geraldine Viswanathan in, the network says, “a dystopian future full of radioactive mutants, killer robots and a tyrannical homeowner’s association.”
“Who” has been around since 1963 (with long pauses) and has had 13 people starring as The Doctor. The current one, Jodie Whittaker, was the first female Doctor; David Tennant, who was the 10th Doctor, will do some specials, before Ncuti Gatwa becomes the show’s first Black star. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 27, 2022

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100th “Resident” (Oct. 25) is a winner

It took 100 episodes to get there, but “The Resident” is where it should be. So, at last, is Dr. Bell.
In short, the episode (shown here) that airs tonight (8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27, on Fox) is surprisingly good. It’s:
— The third-best “Resident” episode yet. The only ones better were a clever Halloween-out-of-town hour, a few years back, and a post-pandemic season-opener.
— And the second-best broadcast-TV hour I’ve seen this fall, topped only by the second episode of ABC’s “Alaska Daily. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 25, 2022

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PBS views the growing evidence of war crimes

Alongside the agony of war in Ukraine (shown here), there’s another process: documenting war crimes.
The result, said Tom Jennings – director of a “Frontline” report at 10 p.m. Tuesday (Oct. 25) on PBS – will be a tribunal that “will essentially be a new Nuremberg: Nuremberg 2.0.”
That, however, would be a long time from now. Raney Aronson-Rath, the “Frontline” producer, points to the successful conviction of Ratko Mladic, a Bosnian general. That “took over five years – just the trial …. Collecting of evidence before that was multiple years.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 21, 2022

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Marathon will offer decades of Lansbury

Long before Angela Lansbury solved murders on TV, she had a vibrant movie career.
That started 40 years before “Murder, She Wrote,” when the teen-aged Lansbury drew an Academy Award nomination for “Gasligh.” (show here, behind Oscar-winner Ingrid Bergman. She would get another nomination the next year (for “The Picture of Dorian Gray”) and another 17 years later, for her chilling maternity in “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Now all three films are part of a 24-hour tribute to Lansbury that Turner Classic Movies has set for Nov. 21. She died Tuesday, five days shy of her 97th birthday; see separate commetary here. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 15, 2022

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Angela and Elizabeth: two grand, 96-year journeys

Two grand Englishwomen had almost parallel lives.
Angela Lansbury and Queen Elizabeth both died at 96. Lansbury was born a half-year earlier and died a month later – Tuesday (Oct. 11), five days shy of her 97th birthday.
They did meet, at Windsor Castle. That was in 2014 (shown here), when Lansbury – then doing a play in London – officially became a Dame.
Both women had a refreshing mixture of intelligence and diligence. And neither mastered the notion of retiring: Elizabeth held her job for 70 years; Lansbury was a working actress for 77. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 12, 2022

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From teen Clark to Grandpa Sam

Tom Welling, once a teen-aged Clark Kent, is about to play a great-grandfather. Well, sort of.
Welling (shown here) will join “The Winchesters” (8 p.m. Tuesdays on CW) later this year. He’ll play Samuel Campbell, the gruff and distant father of Mary Campbell.
Since the show is a prequel, fans know the rest: Mary married John Winchester and begat Sam and Dean Winchester, the demon-hunting heroes in 15 seasons of “Supernatural.” That means Welling’s character is the future grandfather of Sam and Dean and great-grandfather of Dean II and Emma. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 10, 2022

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Hill was the voice of Bosch, Reacher, Wallander, more

Dick Hill was many things – a great stage actor, a powerful singer and, I’m told, a splendid painter. He also did the New York Times crossword puzzle each day, in ink.
But Hill — who died Oct. 4 at 75 — may be best-known for something else — as a great narrator.
That’s his voice – a rich baritone – transforming into Jack Reacher and Harry Bosch aad Kurt Wallander and more. He narrated audio books by Dave Barry, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Dean Koontz, Ed McBain, Pat Conroy, Nora Roberts, Anne McCaffrey (shown here), Arthur C. Clarke, Clive Barker and more, including memoirs and such by Bobby Knight, Bill Walsh and Tim Conway.
He also did Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Pynchon (all 53 hours of “Against the Day”) and Nathaniel Hawthorne, plus Plato, Kafka, and Dostoevsky. In all, he did more than 1,000 books, winning three Audie awards, a Golden Voice and more. And this was just an accidental sideline. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 8, 2022

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Fox fuss: A reality guy takes over

It’s not quite a sign of the apocalypse, but it might be close:
A reality-TV guy has been put in charge of the Fox network.
Rob Wade – who supervised Fox’s reality shows and specials – takes over as the CEO, it was announced today (Oct. 6). He replaces Charlie Collier, who moved on to run Roku, after a run in which a few scripted shows — “The Simpsons” (shown here) and “9-1-1” — prospered and most wobbled. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 7, 2022