MONDAY
DECEMBER 1
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Showtime, 8:30 p.m. ET

December 1 is World AIDS Day, and this new documentary looks at the history and current status of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a patchwork tribute in the best sense of the word. Begun in 1987 by San Francisco activists, it was displayed at the Mall in Washington, D.C. that same year, already having grown larger than a football field and containing 1,920 individual panels, each memorializing a victim of AIDS. Decades later, that quilt has expanded to more than 48,000 panels – and this documentary examines what’s being done to keep the quilt from growing.

 
  
 
 

PBS, 9:30 p.m. ET

The title’s a bit modest: It’s actually been more than 50 years since this influential folk trio released its first album, back in 1962 and reaching No. 1 on the charts, thanks to their versions of “If I Had a Hammer” and “Lemon Tree.” Other hits followed, including ones that helped popularize Bob Dylan (“Blowin’ in the Wind”) and John Denver (“Leaving on a Jet Plane”). Then, of course, there’s “Puff (The Magic Dragon),” taken by some, I suspect erroneously, as a pro-druggie polemic. But perhaps the record will be set straight tonight. If not, at least many of the hit records will be replayed. Mary Travers died in 2009, but Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey are still around to correct, or add to, the history. Check local listings.
 
  
 
 

TCM, 9:30 p.m. ET

Mae West plays sexy and suggestive nightclub singer Lady Lou in this 1933 comedy, her first starring role – and one of only two films she made before censors at the time clamped down stringently on the type of double entrendre, and straight-out sexual aggressiveness, that was her stock in trade. He co-star here is a young Cary Grant – but even he is bowled over, if not steamrolled over, by West’s self-penned, tossed-off one-liners.

 
  
 
 

Comedy Central, 11:30 p.m. ET

Stephen Colbert began hosting The Colbert Report in January 2005, but it wasn’t until last month that he featured, as an official guest on his show, the man who gave him the job: Daily Show anchor Jon Stewart. Stewart was promoting his new movie, Rosewater, but also clearly was celebrating a decade of their joint success, as the two close friends had spent much of the time trading Emmy wins. Now, in December, Colbert begins the final three weeks of his tenure on The Colbert Report – starting with tonight’s interview with Sen. John McCain.

 
  
 
 

CBS, 12:35 a.m. ET

Craig Ferguson began hosting The Late Late Show on CBS the first week of 2005. This month, after basically 10 years at the helm, Craig Ferguson is stepping down – and is going out the way he came in, determined to find his own way of having fun and interviewing his guests. His final show is scheduled for Dec. 19, and the guests populating these last three weeks of his show may not even be showing up with anything to promote. They’re people who have been on the show before, usually many times, and have responded beautifully to Ferguson’s peculiar, and delightful, style of TV banter. In other words, it’s three weeks of a home-field, one-stop farewell tour, featuring nothing but the show’s close friends. The festivities begin tonight with Lisa Kudrow, an official member of Friends (seen here from a 2012 visit), and Dominic Monaghan, another guest who has been very funny and entertaining – and unforced – when visiting Ferguson. Start making this a regular late-night December pit stop, because Ferguson can be counted upon to go out the way he came in: with a level of loose and mischievous unpredictability.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.