Like many of us, NBC is eager for the endless winter to conclude.
For summer, it has a safe collection of reality shows. That includes two returning ones (“America’s Got Talent” and “American Ninja Warrior”), one new one (“Dancing With Myself”) that has people trying to match the moves of Shakira (shown here) and others … and one that’s returning to the network after a decade elsewhere, “Who Do You Think You Are?”
The schedule: Read more…
Surveying the glittery chaos of Oscar night, ABC took a common approach: Declare victory.
The ratings “skyrocketed,” the network said. So did the social-media responses; this was the biggest entertainment special in two years.
That’s true … sort of. I’d also add that the show was an overall success; sucker-punch aside, it had clever hosts (shown here), strong music and, as usual, a few flaws. But first, those numbers: Read more…
Toxic masculinity keeps intruding on life.
It turns athletes into gladiators, politicians into fools, Ukraine into rubble. And now it has distracted from the Academy Award telecast. Read more…
In the aftermath of the Academy Awards, we can still see some of the nominated documentaries.
Short docs? The winner (“The Queen of Basketball”) airs at 6:30 p.m. Monday (March 28) on the NBA channel; another nominee, “When We Were Bullies,” is 9 p.m. Wednesday on HBO.
Feature-length docs? “Writing with Fire” (shown here) has its TV debut at 10 p.m. March 28 on most PBS stations, under the “Independent Lens” umbrella. With that in mind, I’ll rerun a recent story I wrote about “Fire” and “Lens”: Read more…
Did the best song get overlooked for the Oscars?
Some people seem to think so. “Don’t Talk About Bruno” (shown here), from “Elcanto,” wasn’t even nominated — but now it will be performed at the Academy Award ceremony, at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on ABC.
“’Bruno’ is everywhere,” Will Packer, co-producer of the telecast, said at press conference Thursday.
It reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart … the first Disney-animation song to get there since “A Whole New World” in 1993, Ariana Brockington wrote in a Yahoo News story. Even “Let It Go,” which seemed to be omnipresent, only reached No. 5. Read more…
The final piece of the Academy Awards telecast Sunday is finally in place.
The best-song nominees – well, most of them – will be performed during the show. And some major stars — including Beyonce, Billie Eilish (shown here) and Reba McEntire — will sing the Read more…
After three straight flubs, the Academy Award telecast (9 p.m. Sunday, March 27, on ABC) will try get it right – at last.
It will have three hosts (shown here) … and music … and fewer on-air categories. It will hope viewers forget the recent years.
In those three years, Oscars were hostless and joyless. Ratings tumbled. The telecast went from 29.6 million viewers in 2019 to 23.6 million in 2020 and 10.4 million last year. Read more…
A week before the Oscars, we’re finally hearing names of some of the music performers.
That’s a step up from last year, when music – and any entertainment, really – was jettisoned. Music was exiled to the preview portion; comedy was also missing, in a no-host, no-fun night.
This year’s ceremony – 8 p.m. ET Sunday, March 27 on ABC – will have three hosts (comedians Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes and actress Regina Hall) and music from: Read more…
(“Sanditon” is finally back, after a too-long gap. A separate piece here, under “stories,” is a guide to the second season, which starts at 9 p.m. Sunday, March 20, on PBS. Alongside that, however, I thought I should repeat a previous story, talking about the show’s rescue. Here it is, slightly shortened.)
Even before “Sanditon” (shown here) reached America two years ago, PBS had a dilemma.
Like virtually everything on “Masterpiece Theatre,” this was a global project, with a British network paying more and getting it first. And that network had already decided not to do a second season.
“We knew that (it) had been canceled before it even aired on ‘Masterpiece,’” Susanne Simpsons, the “Masterpiece” producer, said in a Television Critics Association virtual press conference. Read more…
At a wobbly time in a 9-year-old’s life, his grandmother has some key words.
“You’ll always be Buddy from Belfast,” she says, “no matter where you go and what you become.”
That line – from Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographic film “Belfast” (shown here) – rings true. And we have to marvel at just what the kid did become.
He became a president, a prime minister and a king. He led armies, solved mysteries, explored Antarctica and created a monster. And two opposite Branagh films are in theaters: Read more…
