TUESDAY
OCTOBER 13
2015

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TBS, 4:30 p.m. ET

It’s a fiercely competitive baseball postseason – no team has swept its division series, and teams facing elimination have found a way, thus far, to stave it off. In the National League, two teams worth rooting for have taken a 2-1 lead in their respective series, and could claim victory tonight – or, like their American League counterparts tomorrow, face a series-clinching Game 5. The first of tonight’s games, both of which are televised by TBS, has the St. Louis Cardinals facing the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field for Game 4 at 4:30 p.m. ET. The Cubs won Game 3 to take a 2-1 lead in games – and if they win, it’ll be the first time the clubs have won a playoff series at home since 1908, the year the Cubs last won the World Series. That’s also six years before the team moved into Wrigley Field, which means the home-team fans sitting in the storied Wrigley ball park have yet to experience a win at this level. Then, at 8 p.m. ET, it’s Game 4 of the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. New York Mets contest. After losing Game 2, and their shortstop to a controversial broken-leg injury inflicted by a Chase Utley slide into second, the Mets fought back to win last night’s Game 3 – with an offensively explosive 13-7 score – and take a 2-1 lead in games over the Dodgers. The Mets would love to exact more revenge by winning tonight, and taking the division series in front of the home fans at Citi Field. In both games, lots and lots of drama…
 
  
 
 

ABC, 8:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s non-felt-covered guest star: Ed Helms.
 
  
 
 

PBS, 8:00 p.m. ET

This new Pioneers of Television special salutes Mary Tyler Moore, with help from superfan Oprah Winfrey, who hosts, and interviews with many of her former castmates – including Carl Reiner, creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, which first made Moore a genuine TV star. For full stories about this new PBS special, see Tom Brinkmoeller’s Raised on MTM interview with the show’s producers – and our newest TVWW writer, David Hinckley, whose All Along the Watchtower column is a fond and funny salute to the former Laura Petrie. Check local listings.
 
  
 
 

CNN, 8:30 p.m. ET

CNN has reserved a podium for Vice President Joe Biden in case he declares his candidacy for the 2016 presidential election, even if he shows up at the Las Vegas venue tonight at the last minute. But with the release of today’s White House schedule, which includes Biden participating in morning and afternoon events, that seems unlikely, if not impossible. Hillary Clinton has the center podium position, with Bernie Sanders at her immediate right. Martin O’Malley is at Clinton’s left, and the field is completed by Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee. The moderator: Anderson Cooper.
 
  
 
 

WGN America, 9:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: William Petersen (pictured) joins the cast for Season 2, as the new leader of the Los Alamos facility charged with developing the atomic bomb. Physicist Frank Winter, played by John Benjamin Hickey, was carted away by the military at the end of Season 1, and begins this new season incarcerated in a Guantanamo-type top-secret prison. Hickey gets to really shine in this season opener – as does Olivia Williams, who plays his wife, Liza, whose learning of the government’s secret bomb-making program was the reason her husband was carted away. For an interview with one of the Manhattan stars, see David Hinckley’s All Along the Watchtower.
 
  
 
 
 
 
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3694 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.