“Luckily,” Josh Holloway said, “I grew up poor.”
Well … maybe that’s just semi-lucky. And maybe he was just semi-poor. But it did help prepare him for “Duster” (shown here), the show — from “Lost” producer J.J. Abrams — that starts Thursday (May 15) on Max.
Hollywood has plenty of actors who can sort of fake being small-town, Southern and blue-collar. For Holloway, it should come naturally. Read more…
1) “Joan Rivers: A Dead Funny All-Star Tribute,” 10 p.m., NBC. Rivers (shown here) carefully catalogued 70,000 jokes on note cards. There were four on Hitler, 34 on Nixon, 866 on Elizabeth Taylor. There were also 218 on death. Now, 11 years after her death at 81, people read from those cards; some (especially Nikki Glaser) add clever bits of their own. Read more…
Can the droll charm of an English village be transformed into an American TV series?
We’ll find out next season, when Fox tries a new version of the “Doc Martin” series. Josh Charles (“The Good Wife,” “Sports Night”) will star as the displaced doctor.
This version will be produced by Ben Silverman, whose best success has been with U.S. versions of overseas hits. That has included “The Office,” “Ugly Betty” and “Jane the Virgin.”
In this case, he’s adapting a show (shown here) that had a thoroughly English flavor: Read more…
1) “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967), 8 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies. Here’s a tribute to Gene Hackman, who died in February at 95. He had supporting roles in this film and “Hoosiers” (1986, midnight), both gems. He starred in the bracing “French Connection” (shown here, 1971, 10 p.m.), “Mississippi Burning” (1988, 2 a.m.) and “Night Moves” (1975, 4:15.). Read more…
1) “Tracker” season finale, 8 p.m., CBS. This season — a good one — keeps pointing to the pain in Colter’s family. As last week’s episode ended, he had a box that may contain secrets. Now Colter(shown here, left) uncovers a decades-old kidnapping and a secret from his family. Read more…
1) Grey’s Anatomy” season-finale, 10 p.m. Thursday, ABC. This week overflows with finales. On Thursday alone, that includes all three NBC shows, CBS’ “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” Fox’s “Next Level Chef” and all three ABC shows, including this “Grey’s” (shown here in a previous episode). The interns are cheerful about ending their first year; then an emergency intervenes. Read more…
1) “The Judd Family: Truth Be Told,” 8 p.m., Lifetime, also 10:03 p.m. and midnight. Here’s the start of a documentary (concluding Sunday) with a great story. Naomi Judd, a nurse and single mother, formed The Judds (shown here) with her daughter Wynonna; they had 14 No. 1 country songs. It’s told by Wynonna and Ashley (a movie star), with clips of their late mom. Read more…
CBS will put some familiar shows in unfamiliar places next season.
It will also try two new reality shows and four spin-offs, one of them with strong potential to be a hit: Kayce Dutton (the honest one on “Yellowstone,” played by Luke Grimes, shown here) gets his own series, as a U.S. marshal.
That series — tentatively called “Y: Marshals” — won’t arrive until mid-season. In the fall, viewers have some schedule shifts to worry about: Read more…
(This is a revised version o the latest chapter of the book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” To read the full book, so far, from the beginning, click “The Book,” under “categories.”)
All in all, the 20th century was quite interesting.
It sort of started (in January of 1901) with the death of Queen Victoria. It ended (in 1999) with the birth of both “The Sopranos” and “The West Wing.”
In short, the century began with the end of the Victorian era and ended with the start of a TV golden age. In between, other stuff happened.
For TV, the new era has gone by different names. John Landgraf, the FX networks chief, calls it “Peak TV.” David Bianculli, a TV critic, calls it “The Platinum Age.” I’ll go with the second golden age of drama. Read more…
1) “Next to Normal,” 9-11:30 p.m., PBS. A four-Friday Broadway series starts with a stunning musical — a roller-coaster through grief and a fractured mind. Some viewers will consider this too painful; more will find it deeply moving. In its original version (shown here), it won a Pulitzer Prize for drama and Tonys for its music. Now cameras can add the subtlety behind quaking emotions. Read more…
Best-bets for June 28: music, young comic, old Mel 
Best-bets for June 27: Swayze, spies, soccer 
Best-bets for June 26: fun with Larry & Taylor 
