Daily Best Bets
Best-bets for July 18: Spielberg, sports & “SNL” Best-bets for July 18: Spielberg, sports & “SNL” Best-bets for July 17: warfare in Cuba, Troy and beyond Best-bets for July 17: warfare in Cuba, Troy and beyond Best-bets for July 16: Red returns; games collide Best-bets for July 16: Red returns; games collide
Stories

It wasn’t easy to fail to save the universe

By Mike Hughes / July 15, 2026
Stories

Character actors save (almost) the TV universe

By Mike Hughes / July 15, 2026
Stories

“Little House”: A wandering family is back on TV

By Mike Hughes / July 5, 2026
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Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for June 16: Mae West and crisis overload

1) “One Day at a Time,” 6:30-10 p.m., Pop. Here’s the entire season – what there was, before the virus shutdown – plus a bonus, a new episode via animation. First, the reruns: They start with a very clever bit, with Ray Romano as a census-taker, explaining the characters to new viewers. Then “One Day” (shown here) settles into being a fairly good (albeit too broad) comedy, The new episode is at 9:30 p.m. (simulcast on TV Land) and reruns at 12:30 a.m. Guest stars include Lin-Manuel Miranda and Gloria Estefan. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 14, 2020
Stories

Animation helps fill the TV-shutdown void

(Yes, this does look suspiciously like a story I wrote a few weeks ago, about cartoon voice-master Billy West. Since then, there’s been a surge of animation, so I’ve updated it. Anyway, he’s an interesting guy and animation neatly fills some virus-shutdown time.)
As TV scrambles to find social-distance drama, a logical option appears: What about animation?
There’s been a flurry lately, sometinmes spurred by the virus, other times just a coincidence. Consider;
– STREAMING: Two new animated series – both planned long before the quarantine – have opened on streaming networks. “Central Park” (new episodes each Friday on Apple TV+) has drawn raves; “Crossing Swords” (which released all 10 episodes June 12 on Hulu) has drawn mixed reviews. They join “Disenchanted” (shown here) on Netflix and more, including Pixar on Disney+ and a ton of Japanese anime on HBO Max. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 14, 2020
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for June 15: Three shows wrap up

1) “Barkskins” finale (shown here), 9-11:03 p.m. ET, National Geographic, rerunning at 12:03 a.m. Brutal and bitter, this eight-hour mini-series will leave everyone with mixed emotions. Annie Proulx’s story of the 17th-century American frontier has a rich blend of characters, with little in common except intense cynicism. Now Cooke leads a mission to retrieve bodies … while claiming he doesn’t have the coveted pistols. Trepagny plans a wedding, while his housekeeper (and ex-lover) broods. Things explode powerfully. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 13, 2020
Stories

Mae West: A brassy burst of women’s history

Mae West strolled into a Hollywood that wasn’t ready for her.
This was a place that preferred women to be young, thin and quiet. She was none of those.
West (shown here) was 39, buxom and brassy. “I don’t allow myself any negative thinking,” she would explain later.
Now a documentary – “Mae West: Dirty Blonde” – debuts at 8 p.m. Tuesday (June 16), launching what Paula Kerger, the PBS president, calls an “effort to highlight trailblazing women this summer.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 12, 2020
Weekly Previews

Week’s top-10 for June 15: Three shows end; Mae and Ann arrive

1) “Songland” season-finale, 10 p.m. today, NBC. Four songwriters pitch songs to Usher (shown here) … who can sometimes mean a route to the top. He’s had 18 top-10 singles on the Billboard chart, half of them reaching No.1. Many lingered; for more than half of 2004 (28 of 52 weeks), an Usher song was No. 1. He also had two seasons on “The Voice,” coaching a champion (Josh Kaufman) and a runner-up. Now he’ll hear the pitches and choose three of the four songs for refining. Then he’ll pick one to record. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 12, 2020
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for June 14: The Brits are back

1) “Grantchester” season-opener, 9 p.m., PBS. Like most English villages, it seems, Grantchester has pleasant people, idyllic settings … and lots of murder. Fortunately, it also has a crimesolving vicar and his weary friend the cop. Their domain includes Cambridge University, where tonight they visit parties (shown here) and find beautiful students keeping ugly secrets. The whole thing gets solved quite easily, giving the show more time to work on lots of character details. The result is fairly entertaining, in a quietly classy way. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 12, 2020
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for June 13: Good liar, great Jedi, greatest athlete

1) “The Last Dance,” 8 and 9 p.m., ABC. This acclaimed documentary series (originally on ESPN) concludes next week, with Michael Jordan (shown here) and the Chicago Bulls going for their final championship. First, this detour: At 30, Jordan found his life overloaded – three straight championships, the Olympics, gambling accusations and the murder of his father. He played minor-league baseball, quit basketball for a year-and-a-half … then returned to try to save the Bulls’ season. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 11, 2020
Stories

Summer TV blahs? The British are coming

As TV’s summer takes hold, we covet the few places that have plenty of new shows.
There are the streamers and the premium cable channels of course. There are games on ABC, reality competitions on NBC, quirks on CW, news everywhere. And, especially, there’s PBS.
PBS had already planned a cascade of women’s-rights shows, leading to Aug. 26, the 100th anniversary of the right to vote. It has quickly injected coverage of COVID-19 and of race relations. And it also has what it does best – elegantly crafted British shows each Sunday.
That starts this week (June 14, check local listings), with a 1-2-3 touch: At 8 p.m., a portrait of Prince Albert; at 9, the season-opener of “Grantchester” (shown here); at 10, the debut of “Beecham House.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / June 10, 2020
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for July 18: Spielberg, sports & “SNL”

By Mike Hughes / July 16, 2026
News and Quick Comments

Fox plans a tidy (too tidy?) start this fall

By Mike Hughes / July 15, 2026
Stories

It wasn’t easy to fail to save the universe

By Mike Hughes / July 15, 2026
Stories

Character actors save (almost) the TV universe

By Mike Hughes / July 15, 2026
Daily Best Bets

Best-bets for July 17: warfare in Cuba, Troy and beyond

By Mike Hughes / July 15, 2026