WEDNESDAY
OCTOBER 1
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TBS, 8:00 p.m. ET

Last night, the 2014 baseball postseason began with a one-game American League wild-card playoff game between the Oakland Athletics and the less playoff-experienced Kansas City Royals. The As jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first inning, and built to a 7-3 lead in the sixth, but the Royals kept scrapping and fighting, bunting and sacrificing, and getting just enough hits to push the game to extra innings. And, one run down in inning 12 and about to go home until spring, Kansas City found a way to win. Welcome to postseason baseball. Tonight, the National League stages its own one-and-done wild-card game: the Pittsburgh Pirates vs. the San Francisco Giants, played in Pittsburgh.

 
  
 
 

ABC, 8:00 p.m. ET

On ABC this evening, the opening hour is overrun with thespians, as characters on both sitcoms conspire to put on plays. First up, on The Middle, is Sue Heck (Eden Sher), who teams with Brad (Brock Ciarlelli) to not only co-direct and co-write, but co-star in, a senior high school play they’re calling “The Loneliest Locker.” The question is, will it be a dramatic triumph – or a combination destined for embarrassment?

 
  
 
 

ABC, 8:30 p.m. ET

Ana Gasteyer, from Saturday Night Live and Suburgatory, guest stars as a junior high drama teacher who stokes the competitive juices of Adam (Sean Glambrone) by denying him the lead role in a school production of Jesus Christ Superstar. His mom counters, in this period sitcom, by getting him cast in a rival musical production: a version of that Eighties-nightmare roller-skating debacle, Starlight Express.

 
  
 
 

CBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: Warning, warning, danger, danger! This is not a recommendation – it’s a big fat warning. Scream creator Kevin Williamson pushed the bounds of both logic and taste when plotting and producing The Following, Fox’s mean-spirited drama about a serial killer. That show appeared to get more delight in sadistically disposing of characters, and from the point of view of the psychotic killers – and Stalker, in its very first repugnant scene, ups that ante in a disgusting way, having a masked character assault and murder a young woman by dousing her with gasoline and setting her on fire. Do not watch. Dylan McDermott and Maggie Q star – but not, I’m guessing, for long.

 
  
 
 

Comedy Central, 10:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: South Park is back, and with an episode that has me laughing already, just from the title: “Gluten Free Ebola.” If the question is, have the South Park creators softened with age, the answer is, as always, kind of obvious.

 
  
 
 

Comedy Central, 11:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s guest, as part of her already attention-demanding book tour: Girls creator and star Lena Dunham.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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4239 Comments
 
 
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David Bianculli

Founder / Editor

David Bianculli has been a TV critic since 1975, including a 14-year stint at the New York Daily News, and sees no reason to stop now. Currently, he's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and is an occasional substitute host for that show. He's also an author and teaches TV and film history at New Jersey's Rowan University. His 2009 Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', has been purchased for film rights. His latest, The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to the Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific, is an effusive guidebook that plots the path from the 1950s’ Golden Age to today’s era of quality TV.