SUNDAY
APRIL 13
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TCM, Check local listings

All day and night, TCM presents movies starring the late Mickey Rooney, to honor the passing of that Hollywood child star turned durable movie actor. Among the highest of highlights: 1938’s Boys Town at 8 p.m. ET, 1944’s National Velvet (pictured) at midnight ET, and, believe it or not, 1935’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at 4:35 a.m. ET, in which he plays a particularly impish Puck.

 
  
 
 

CBS, 2:00 p.m. ET

After three rounds, the two golfers sharing the lead at Augusta are Bubba Watson, who won in 2012 but saw his significant second-round lead vanish yesterday, and Jordan Spieth (pictured), a 20-year-old playing in his first Masters. Also playing in his first Masters: Jonas Blixt, who starts today’s final round one stroke behind the leaders. But he’s 29 – so if you’re rooting for the next generation of golfers, in this Tiger Woods-less Masters, keep your eye on Spieth.

 
  
 
 

CBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

Whatever’s going to happen on The Good Wife tonight, I’ll be there, watching live – partly because the show has been so good this year, and partly because I’m afraid of sports overruns, this time CBS’s coverage of the Masters golf tournament, wreaking havoc with the start time for The Good Wife.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET

Look, I don’t think I have to say anything about tonight’s episode, to get fans excited about tuning in, other than to say it features another royal wedding. And without revealing anything, let me just say that it gives Peter Dinklage, as Tyrion Lannister, some of his best scenes in the entire series to date.

 

 
  
 
 

Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: This Edie Falco showcase begins Season 6 with the charcter, and the series, continuing to relapse: Falco’s Jackie is back on drugs, and, as before, is juggling her work, home and love lives as best she can, but always dropping a ball somewhere. This time it’s with her rebellious teen daughter (forgive the redundancy), but Falco, as always, gives the character such depth that even when Jackie seems to attain what she wants most – scoring in a dance-hall bathroom, in more ways than one – she projects the pain and desperation simmering underneath. And new recurring cast member Julie White, as a skeptical member of Jackie’s support group, is terrific, too.

 
  
 
 

AMC, 10:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: Jon Hamm’s Don Draper and company – most of them, anyway – are back for the start of Season 7, the final lap for this excellent AMC series. Series creator Matthew Weiner has asked us to withhold many, many details, but what facts and opinions I can reveal can be found in my review for NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
 
  
 
 

Showtime, 10:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This is a well-meaning documentary series about global warming, and how it affects everything, from deforestation in faraway lands to the closure of cattle farms right here at home. It’s a celebrity-driven vehicle in which celebrities use their star wattage to play investigative reporters, accompanied by camera crews to see conditions for themselves and conduct interviews. Harrison Ford, seeing the devastation of Indonesia’s supposedly protected national forests by interlopers, growls, “I can’t wait to see the minister of forestry. I can’t wait!” Yet instead of mounting the man’s head on a wall, like a matinee-idol Mike Wallace, Ford is confronted with so much politeness and so many excuses, that all he can do, in next week’s follow-up, is express his disappointment and notch a Phyrric victory or two. It’s not the only story in tonight’s opener – Don Cheadle visits Texas to see if people are willing to link the extended drought there to global warming as well as God’s will… or, at least, a combination of the two.  Years of Living Dangerously deserves all sorts of points for trying, and for caring – but in terms of pure and powerful storytelling, Frontline it’s not.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.