As the virus shut down large chunks of life, Michael Colbert was sure of two things.
Yes, there would still be Memorial Day, even without some of the parades and picnics and such.
And the night before that, there would be the annual “National Memorial Day Concert” (shown here from a previous year); that’s at 8 and 9:30 p.m. May 24 on most PBS stations. “We need to have our rituals,” Colbert said. Read more…
The CW network has a fresh plan for stocking a fall schedule in the age of COVID:
It will simply wait. It will have a patchwork of acquired shows this fall and hold back the main ones – “Flash” and “Batwoman” (shown here) and “Riverdale” and such – until January. Read more…
TV networks have reached a fresh phase. We’ll call it “involuntary stability.”
Gone (for now) are the quick cancellations. Viewers may like this phase; networks try to seem happy.
When CBS announced that it has renewed 23 shows, Kelly Kahl, its entertainment president, said the network is in an “incredibly stable position.”
Then Fox was the first network to set its fall schedule (including Kim Catrall’s “Filthy Rich,” shown here). Charlie Collier, its entertainment CEO, talked of “relative stability”; Marianne Gambelli, its advertising president, praised “consistency” and “stability.” Read more…
When Elvis Presley died in 1977, the differences in news coverage were cavernous.
ABC and NBC led their newscasts with the story and had latenight specials. CBS started with a long Panama Canal piece, then did just 70 seconds on Presley. “Our job is not to respond to public taste,” Richard Salant, its news chief, told reporters.
And the National Enquirer? By the time those newscasts started, “there were six Enquirer reporters in the air for Memphis with $50,000 in cash,” said Mark Landsman, director of “Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer,” the fascinating documentary that debuts Sunday (May 17) on CNN. Read more…
As Mike Nakayuma tells it, enlisting in the military “was not a deeply thought-out decision.”
Soon he was in Vietnam, heading into the jungle to induce firefights. A month away from going home, he was seriously wounded. “I thought, ‘I’m going to die.’” he says in “Asians Americans,” the compelling, five-hour documentary Monday and Tuesday (May 11-12) on PBS.
At the field hospital, the others were treated; he asked when it would be his turn. “They said, ‘Oh, you should have told us you were American. We thought you were a Gook.’” Read more…
There’s a reason we need all those big-deal cable and streaming mini-series.
They let Marvel stars remind us that they’re also serious actors. Now we have:
– Chris Evans in “Defending Jacob,” which is halfway through its eight-episode run on Apple TV+. He plays an assistant district attorney whose teen son becomes a murder suspect.
– Mark Ruffalo in “I Know This Much is True,” a six-parter that starts Sunday on HBO. With the help of editing, he plays twins (shown here). One of them is schizophrenic … which is not to be confused with when Paul Rudd recently played a guy and his clone in “Living With Yourself” on Netflix. Read more…
Any experiment – Wright Brothers’ flight, man on the moon, mixing chocolate with marshmallow – will have its problems.
Let’s think of the upcoming “All Rise” episode (son here) — 9 p.m. Monday, May 4, on CBS — that way. It’s flawed, but fascinating.
As COVID-19 struck, productions shut down and actors were sent home. Then came the idea of concocting an episode that could be done from their homes … representing the characters’ homes. Read more…
For four noisy – and kind of cheerful – decades, there was nothing presidential about George W. Bush.
Often, “he would be drinking, carousing and having fun,” Charlie Younger, a boyhood friend, says in s new PBS documentary.
He made friends easily, but stumbled at work and at life. One night, he got a driving-under-the-influence ticket; another, he crashed his car into garbage cans and challenged his father to a fight.
But then came the flip side. That’s what makes the film – “American Experience: George W. Bush,” 9-11 p.m. Monday and Tuesday (May 4-5) – so interesting. Read more…
We expect Michael O’Neill to be in support and in command.
In recurring roles, he’s been the Secret Service chief in “West Wing,” a sergeant major in “The Unit,” a counter-terrorism official in “24,” senators in “Rectify” and “Jack Ryan.”
“I’ve played a lot of … authority figures,” O’Neill said. “That’s the mustache, by the way. They think because I have a mustache, I have authority.”
But now “Council of Dads” gives him fresh turf. His character is a key part of the story … and is a guy whose life used to be out of control. Read more…
“American Idol” has changed a lot in the past two decades. The singers are much better; the judges are much worse.
Then again, the entire music-from-home trend has changed a lot in a few weeks. Everything is better.
On Sunday (April 26), “Idol” became the first performance-reality show to switch to a social-distancing format. That will rerun Saturday (May 2). with a new episode the next day. Then, on May 4, “The Voice” has its first social-distance show. Read more…
