FRIDAY
JANUARY 12
2018

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This new Netflix talk show brings David Letterman back to television – and to non-broadcast TV, in a regular series, for the first time, after sitting behind a desk at NBC and CBS starting in 1980. For this new series, there’s no desk. There’s also no band, though Paul Shaffer wrote the theme music – and there is an audience, courtesy of the City College in New York. The idea is to present one hour-long talk show per month for six months, starting with tonight’s sit-down chat with former President Barack Obama. It’s great to have Letterman back, and to watch an hour of mostly uninterrupted and free-flowing conversation, too. For my full review, listen to today’s edition of NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross and for a full review on TVWW, see David Hinckley’s All Along the Watchtower.
 
  
 
 

Amazon Prime Video, 3:00 a.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This new anthology series is along the lines of Black Mirror, but because all stories are inspired by the works of Philip K. Dick, the original author should get credit for getting there first. Dick, after all, is the writer whose stories led to the movies Blade Runner and Total Recall, and the recent Amazon series The Man in the High Castle. This new series is part Twilight Zone, part Outer Limits – and, like Black Mirror, is best when it stresses both character and technology. Two of the episodes that do this most effectively are “Human Is,” starring Bryan Cranston (pictured) as a man who may have been overtaken by an alien consciousness, and “Safe and Sound,” which updates a Dick story about bomb shelters and makes it about paranoia, smartphone technology, political divisions and the media. For a full review, see Eric Gould’s Cold Light Reader.
 
  
 
 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: A sort of sequel to Phil Rosenthal’s PBS travel and food-sampling series, I’ll Have What Phil’s Having, this new Netflix series provides the same tasty and friendly stew with all the same loving ingredients as his previous show. The executive producer of Everybody Loves Raymond knows how to be, and find, funny, and wherever he goes, he finds warm meals, and even warmer people. If you need another series to make you feel good and calm, and have run out of episodes of The Great British Baking Show, try this. Netflix drops the entire Season 1 today, starting with a trip to Bangkok, Thailand, where Rosenthal clumsily descends into a rickety boat and eagerly partakes in a round of “water shopping” – cruising down a floating bazaar as merchants cook for you along the way. Then he hits dry land, and keeps shopping, and eating. As with his previous series, Somebody Feed Phil is all about finding connections between different people and cultures, and treats among different types of foods. And he finds them everywhere.

 
  
 
 

ABC, 9:00 p.m. ET

This is turning out to be the best season yet for this series – and as it gets closer to the climax, it also get closer to a very big bang, which might well come tonight. This may be the episode, fulfilling a prophecy, in which Daisy, a.k.a. Quake, unleashes her full power and wipes out a planet or two. Meanwhile, her colleagues (including the ones pictured) are being hunted – either by green humanoids under the planet’s surface or, on the barren planet’s surface itself, by giant killer insect aliens.

 
  
 
 

PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

This is a very laid-back affair, but that’s only fitting – and while some of the guests who are there to honor the veteran crooner, serenading him with their versions of songs from his great American songbook sampler, the best comes at the end, when Bennett himself gets on stage, grabs the mic, and steers his own tribute home. For a full review, see David Hinckley’s All Along the Watchtower. Check local listings.
 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.