1) “Grand Crew,” 8:30 p.m., NBC. In last week’s surprisingly good season-opener, Noah’s girlfriend married a friend, to avoid being deported to Canada. Now – no surprise – Noah’s relationship with his girlfriend’s husband gets complicated. Meanwhile, Noah’s sister Nicky (shown here) ponders her own romance. That follows a new “Lopez vs. Lopez,” going against CBS’ no-rerun night of “SWAT,” “Fire Country” and “Blue Bloods.” Read more…
1) “Poker Face” season-finale, Peacock. For nine episodes, this has been one of TV’s best shows – mixing clever mysteries and the unique persona of Natasha Lyonne (shown here). She’s Charlie, a decent soul who can tell when people are lying. In the opener, that put her in conflict with a crooked casino manager. He’s dead and she’s on the run, but now she faces his dad (Ron Perlman) and the security chief (Benjamin Bratt). “Poker Face” has a great finish … and will be back next year.
Read more…
1) “Farmer Wants a Wife” (shown here) debut, 9 p.m., Fox. The CW tried this show 15 years ago, with one farmer and lots of city-bred prospects. Now CBS tries it, with four guys. Each is college-educated and in his 30s; two raise cattle, one has horses, one has both. Also, Hunter Grayson sings in a band, Ryan Black designs and builds houses. They meet 32 women (ages 24 to 39), including two bloggers, two therapists, a bartender and a spiritual coach. Read more…
The Academy Awards, which used to be a big deal, arrive Sunday on ABC.
And this time, they might draw some interest. They have a host, some songs, a studio audience … and some movies (including “Elvis,” shown here) people have seen.
We used to take that for granted, until things crumbled. There were two no-audience pandemic years … three no-host years … and a year with no songs during the main show. Also, nominees were obscure.
Now all of that seems to be behind us. Here’s an overview of the night; also, alongside this are two Oscar features — on front-runner Ke Huy Quan and on the oft-overlooked documentary categories: Read more…
(This is a story I posted on Jan. 28, but I thought it would be fun to bring it back now, with the Academy Award telecast coming on MRXH 12. You’ll find two other Oscar stories to the left.)
As the Academy Awards near, the nominees have a descending order of fame.
At the top this year are the stars – actors (Cate Blanchett, Angela Bassett, Judd Hirsch, etc.), a director (Steven Spielberg) and some songwriters (Lady Gaga, Rihanna). And near the bottom, every year?
“You are the lowest on the totem pole as a short-doc filmmaker,” Cynthia Wade said
That’s the short-documentary category. She won it in 2008 (for the 39-minute “Freeheld)” and had her moment on global TV, being handed an Oscar by Tom Hanks; she was nominated again in 2013. Read more…
There are actors who accept awards casually. They smile slightly, read lethargic lists, then depart.
Then there’s Ke Huy Quan (shown here), who makes the award season worthwhile.
At previous ceremonies (Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, etc.), Quan jumped and hugged and beamed. Now he’s a front-runner at this year’s Academy Awards, at 8 p.m. ET Sunday (March 12) on ABC; so is his movie, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and its star, Michelle Yeoh.
All of this follows a big gap. The pause in his acting career “has been for a long time,” Quan said. Read more…
1) “Accused,” 9 p.m., Fox. Whitney Cummings (shown here) gives a perfect performance – subtle, layered, deeply moving – in a strong episode. Cummings is known for fun; she’s a brash stand-up comedian, creator of her own show (“Whitney”) and co-creator of “2 Broke Girls.” She plays a stand-up comic here, but the story soon veers into dark turf. We won’t reveal any plot points, but it’s a tough and disturbing hour. Read more…
1) “The Voice” opener, 8-10 p.m., NBC. Two new coaches – Niall Horan (shown here) and Chance the Rapper – arrive, facing the show’s big winners: In 22 editions, Blake Shelton has had nine champions and 14 runners-up, sometimes simultaneously; in eight tries, Kelly Clarkson (back from a one-edition break) has had four champs and a runner-up. Reba McEntire will be the mentor for all four teams Read more…
For almost 40 years, Mel Brooks has inhabited Nick Kroll’s comic mind.
Kroll was about 5, he says, when he munched a fish stick and proclaimed, “It’s good to be the king.” It was a start.
“Some of my very first laughs ever (were) from me parroting Mel Brooks,” Kroll told the Television Critics Association. “And many, many years later, nothing has changed.”
Now he’s assembled an all-star project: “History of the World, Part II”(shown here), an eight-part sequel to Brooks’ film, airs (two per day) on Hulu, Monday through Thursday (March 6-9). Read more…
1) “Gone With the Wind” (1939) and “Casablanca” (1942), 4 and 8 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies. A week from the Academy Awards, TCM fills its line-up with great films. That peaks here, “Wind” is ranked No. 6 on the American Film Institute’s best-film list; “Casablanca” (shown here, with Dooley Wilson and Humphrey Bogart) is No. 3. They’re sandwiched by the epic “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) at 12:30 p.m. and “The Way We Were” (1973), a lushly emotional Streisand/Redford film, at 10.
Read more…
Best-bets for July 8: a mighty river, a Cup-less day 
Best-bets for July 7: games, sharks and reruns 
Best-bets for July 6: soccer, plus cartoon overload 
