OK, it’s time for a mid-course correction.
When the season started, I picked “Perfect Harmony” as the best new situation comedy. That was based on the near-perfect pilot film, with a prickly Princeton prof (well, ex-prof) taking over the choir at a small Kentucky church.
“Harmony” (8:30 p.m. Thursdays on NBC) remains a good show, but it’s no longer my No. 1. CBS’ “Bob (Hearts) Abishola” (shown here) keeps sneaking up on me in sly ways. Read more…
An amiable anomaly returns tonight (Dec. 2).
“Making It” is a low-cost, low-stress show about ordinary – well, semi-ordinary – people who make things. They use wood … or balloons or noodles or electrical wires or whatever.
This show could easily be ignored, tucked in the cable crevices where how-to shows belong. Instead, it gets a prime spot – 10 p.m. Dec. 2-5 and 8-9, then 9-11 p.m. Dec. 10 – on NBC
Yes.the network that has gave us “Seinfeld,” ““ER” an.d “West Wing” is giving eight primetime hours to a show that includes the artistic use of noodles. And somehow, that makes sense. Read more…
Each December, our TV expectations become lower or looser.
We expect a few specks of greatness – Charlie Brown and the Grinch, mostly – and lots of pleasantly adequate shows. So this is a surprise: In a five-day stretch, three terrific shows will arrive.
One of those — the much-honored “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (shown here) — was expected; the others weren’t.
“The Moodys” is a comedy-drama mini-series, on a network (Fox) that’s been comedy-deprived lately. “Work in Progress” is a low-budget series with high-IQ scripts. Let’s view all three chronologically: Read more…
The Rebecca Eaton era is ending at “Masterpiece.” It has been … well, mostly masterful.
At its peak, it has provided some of the finest moments on television – “Downton Abbey” (shown here), “Prime Suspect,” “Wallander,” “Sherlock” and more, including “Little Women” and “Bleak House” reboots.
At its low point, it’s merely been bland, such as the recent “The Chaperone.” Then it has bounced back.
PBS announced recently that Eaton, 72, is being “promoted” to “executive-producer-at-large.” She’ll work at developing new drama projects, while also fundraising for The Masterpiece Trust, which has raised $20 million since she launched it eight years ago. Read more…
“The Chaperone” reaches PBS Sunday, delivering a tad of “Downton Abbey” prestige. It arrives much later than expected.
Back in 2013, plans were announced for the movie. Based on a novel, it would have a script by “Downton” creator Julian Fellowes; Elizabeth McGovern (Cora in “Downton”) would star, with her husband Simon Curtis (“Cranford”) directing.
And then – like so many indie projects – it lingered. Read more…
Today’s good-bad news is basic: “Back to Life” will be back to life, for a second season.
Showtime made the announcement today (Tuesday), ahead of the superb first-season finale, at 10 and .10:30 p.m. Sunday (Nov. 24). Read more…
It’s almost time for Christmas to take over our TV sets.
That starts at 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning, as the parade begins. It continues for four flashy weeks.
With that in mind, I’ve put together a mega-list of Christmas show, beginning Nov. 28. We’ll do them by category, starting (logically) with parades:
Nov. 28: “Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade,” 9 a.m. to noon, NBC and CBS. The parade (shown here from a previous year) has 11 bands, 1,200 cheerleaders and dancers and 1,000 clowns, plus balloons and 26 floats – many with performers, including Celine Dion, Chicago, Ciara, Black Eyed Peas, Lea Michele, Billy Porter and Idina Menzel. The networks also bring in separate performers, usually in the first hour Read more…
As “Weekend Update” ended on “Saturday Night Live,” this memorial photo of Rick Ludwin was shown.
That must have confused viewers. Who, exactly, was Rick Ludwin? And why didn’t he look like the sort of people – musicians and actors and such – that “SNL” usually memorializes?
Ludwin was an NBC executive for 32 years, including key decades as head of latenight and variety shows. He left in 2012, after a falling-out with Jay Leno, and died of organ failure on Nov. 10 at 71.
He was the one permanent force at a network that kept changing. He was, after all, the guy who had saved “Seinfeld.” Read more…
Now we’re reached the big-money phase of the streaming era.
Disney dollars are involved; so are Apple bucks. Both invade the Netflix empire.
But while they collide, let’s remember the smaller guys. In a moment, I’ll focus on the amiable Acorn. Read more…
The “Preppy Murder” documentary tells us a lot about life in the 1980’s … and maybe about life now.
That starts with the fact that the case drew such fevered attention. “Before O.J. Simpson, this was the trial of the century,” tabloid reporter Steve Dunleavy says in “The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park,” a compelling, three-night cable documentary that starts Wednesday (Nov. 13).
And that was partly for the same reason the Simpson case drew such attention: The victim was young, female and attractive; the suspect (shown here) looked more like a hero than a villain.
“If something happened in Central Park to a white person, you paid attention,” said Magee Hickey, who covered the 1986 case for a New York TV station. Read more…
