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…
We expect characters to change a bit, to get older and slower and maybe wiser.
Still, few have done it with the dizzying speed of Franklin Saint, the centerpiece of “Snowfall” (shown here). When the series started, he was a brainy teen with a strong college future; in this fifth season, he’s been flying a private plane and ruling a business, turning drug deals into real-estate schemes.
Is anything unchanged? “He still loves his family,” Damson Idris, who plays him, told the Television Critics Association. “Despite the animosity …. family has been the thing that’s kept him afloat.”
That’s clear in the season’s fourth episode, which airs at 10 p.m. Wednesday (March 9) on FX, reruns hourly until 2 a.m., then goes to Hulu. Franklin insists everyone catch the welcome-home dinner for his mother; we find big changes in his: Read more…
As our TV sets fill up with British crime-solvers, some traditions persist.
At home, these people are solemn and solitary. That has continued – with occasional exceptions – from Sherlock Holmes to Hercule Poirot, Inspector Morse and more.
And it’s true of Max Arnold in “The Chelsea Detective” series (shown here), on the Acorn streaming service. “I think he’s a born-again melancholic,” Adrian Scarborough, who plays him, told the Television Critics Association. “Putting him … in the middle of the Thames, on his little houseboat, was very deliberate.”
That’s part of an overload of crime tales from England and its former colonies: Read more…
PBS continues its solo mission of putting Broadway-type shows on TV.
There’s a small sign of that now, when stations air “An Evening with Lerner and Lehrer” during their pledge drive. (See a separate piece here, under “stories.” A bigger package comes in May, with specials on three Fridays.
Two of those shows were done last year, during a slowdown in the pandemic – a Sutton Foster musical in London (shown here) and an outdoor comedy in New York. The other is a documentary. The shows, under the “Great Performances” banner, are: Read more…
For a great feud story, you need two sides that are deep, detailed and interesting.
You need Yankees and Red Sox, Hatfields and McCoys, Lincoln and Douglas, maybe Edison and Tesla. By that standard, “Joe vs. Carole,” which starts Thursday (March 3) on Peacock, falls one short.
For a pretty good story, however, you need only one rich character, in the hands of a gifted actor. That’s what this delivers instantly.
Kate McKinnon (shown here with Kyle MacLachlan) is a delight as Carole Baskin, the animal activist; John Cameron Mitchell survives some overwrought material as Joe Exotic, owner of a touring animal show. Read more…
Hawaiian kids can end up in surprising places – the White House, a Disney cartoon, a football field.
Then there’s Keala Settle, who keeps being surprised. She’s gone from “Greatest Showman” (shown here) to a supporting role in “Murder in Provence,” arriving March 1 on the BritBox streaming service. Read more…
One of TV’s best shows is nearing its “mid-season finale,” getting a fraction of the attention it deserves.
“Resident Alien” (9 p.m. Wednesdays on Syfy) has it all – droll humor, zestful science-fiction, intriguing characters and a talking octopus. Its March 2 episode is another good one, with two more before the show rests after March 16.
Our hero (well, our protagonist) had a simple assignment: Secretly land on Earth, trigger a device to destroy all humans, then return home.
That started smoothly, when he killed a cabin-dwelling loner and assumed his body (shown here). Then the problems began: Part of his kill-everyone device was lost in the crash; he must find or replace it. Also, Harry (the guy whose body he has) was a doctor who suddenly is needed in town. The new “Harry,” a fast learner, had to take over the clinic. Read more…
