FRIDAY
APRIL 14
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

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

SEASON PREMIERE: This series, formerly on the now defunct Pivot network, returns for Season 2 on Amazon Prime Video. Richard Dormer returns as the star of this series, and for the new season, Fortitude adds Dennis Quaid as a new, big-name co-star. It’s essentially a murder mystery set in a remote town in Norway, with a lot of character exploration to boot. And a lot of frozen scenery, just as in Fargo. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.
 
  
 
 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This Netflix original series is a fully authorized remake of the 1988 low-budget cult hit, in which Joel Hodgson, then Mike Nelson, played futuristic space travelers forced by evil scientists to watch bad old movies – space travelers who maintained their sanity by heckling those films as they watched, with help from the equally vocal and sarcastic robots constructed for that very purpose: Crow, Tom Servo, and Gypsy. That often hilarious series, bounced around to several TV host locations, survived until 1999, and now, thanks to a fan-funded Kickstarter campaign, here it comes again, still overseen by original series creator Hodgson. Jonah Ray takes over the role of the main movie-watcher and inventor in this new 14-episode reboot, and Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt, lending additional genre cred, play the evil scientists. The opening bad film being shown, and ridiculed, is 1961’s Reptilicus, a film from Denmark with this English-language version made (poorly) for the American market. The new version of MST3K takes a while to find its footing, and its stride – but by the time the robots and Jonah were singing “Reptilicus 6-5000” together, I was having fun just like in the old days. And the line “Nobody mess with my invisible ice cream cone” also got me. Wait for it, in the battle scene when Reptilicus finally regenerates and shows up.

 
  
 
 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

TELEMOVIE PREMIERE: Adam Sandler stars in this first original telemovie made under the Netflix banner, under the idea that Netflix, which knows how many streaming viewers watch Sandler’s movie canon on its network, is certain they’ll watch anything of his. If so, this is the perfect test of that theory. Sandy Wexler is based on Sandy Wernick, Adam Sandler’s real-life manager for the past three decades, and set in the mid-1990s, when he discovers Courtney Clarke, a talented singer played by Jennifer Hudson. The film features cameos by Chris Rock, Conan O’Brien, Henry Winkler and others, all of whom reminisce about “Sandy” at a party setting, recalling his quirks, clients and such. In style and structure, it’s a clear ripoff of Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose, but that film was funny. In Sandy Wexler, the few laughs are as random as they are sporadic, and come not from the leading man, but from tiny bits of business contributed by Colin Quinn, Kevin James, and, as an oversexed neighbor also named Sandy, Jane Seymour. In one scene, she tries to seduce Sandler’s Sandy while her very infirm husband watches in horror from the next bed. He’s played by the real Sandy Wernick, which means there are three Sandys in that one scene. Isn’t that funny? No? Neither, for the most part, is this telemovie – but as a business deal, it’s interesting, and much more successful.

 

 
  
 
 

Netflix, 11:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: The first season of Chelsea Handler’s wide-ranging, planet-hopping talk show on Netflix got much better as it went along, and for Season 2, which begins tonight, there’s even more change in store – and all the changes sound positive. Instead of last year’s thrice-weekly 30-minute format, the new Chelsea, beginning tonight, switches to a once-a-week, 60-minute show. This gives the hostess less work per week, but more time to delve into her topics, and just be herself, which is the key to any successful talk show. The first of the new Chelsea programs streams tonight, with scheduled guest stars Melissa McCarthy, her husband and comedy partner Ben Falcone, and the cast of their TV Land sitcom Nobodies. Also scheduled: Christiane Amanpour. Next Friday: Season 2, Episode 2…

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.