THURSDAY
JULY 16
2015

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

ESPN, 4:00 a.m. ET

Played once again at the classic course at St Andrews in Scotland, the first day of this year’s British open is televised live by ESPN – starting at 4 a.m. ET, and going all the way until 3 p.m. ET. The course is gorgeous (take that, this year’s parched and pockmarked U.S. Open), and so venerable, the first British Open played on this course was back in 1873. And at the time I write this, around 6:30 a.m. ET, both Jordan Spieth and Tiger Woods have gotten off to streaky starts: Spieth, at age 21 trying to match Ben Hogan as the only golfer to win the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open in the same year, started the day with five birdies in his first eight holes. Tiger Woods?  Three bogeys in his first five. For a full preview, see Gerald Jordan’s Crossing Jordan.
 
  
 
 

Yahoo, 11:30 a.m. ET

And another TV tradition bites the dust. Used to be, the Emmy nominations each year would be announced at 8:30 a.m. ET – to facilitate the morning TV shows, which would present them live. But this year, for the first time, the announcements are being held back to 11:30 a.m. ET, when there’s no live broadcast TV coverage scheduled. Why the change? Because it’s thought that the morning-show East Coast TV audience is less important, these days, than trending on Twitter and getting lots of heat from excited shares and reports. So this way, the West Coast gets to join the fun just before the workday begins, while the East Coast dives in just before lunch. And TV? It loses out – even though it’s the medium being honored. And so it goes… with the actual Emmy Awards scheduled for September 20, on the Fox network. So at least that’s still on television. Meanwhile, among the places to find live coverage of the Emmy nominations today is Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ digital partner, the Yahoo TV website, where among those commenting on the nominations will be my former Philadelphia Inquirer and current Fresh Air colleague, Ken Tucker.

 
  
 
 

CW, 9:00 p.m. ET

Last week’s doubleheader of a series premiere was a total, pleasant surprise, serving up the most mature and dramatically interesting CW series in years. It’s a British import from 2013, but still, make an effort to catch it. Each 30-minute episode presents two people on a date – different people in each installment, with some returning faces over the course of the series. Tonight’s first episode, for example, presents Oona Chaplin from Game of Thrones as Mia, whom we saw last week on a date with a guy named David. Tonight, she goes on another date, with a different guy (Stephen, played by Ben Chaplin). And the following episode introduces us to two new characters on their first date together – and they’re both women. Kate is played by Katie McGrath, and Erica is played by Gemma Chan (pictured, with McGrath), who’s doing such enigmatically entertaining work right now as the synthetic Anita on AMC’s Humans.

 
  
 
 

CNN, 9:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s new episode is called “The State of the Union Is Not Good” – and packs together a series of crises in the Seventies to show why that decade was so tumultuous. Indeed it was. But even with the respective meltdowns of Watergate and Three Mile Island, the decade that takes bragging rights for that remains the Sixties. And that goes not only for the 1960s, but the 1860s as well. I’ve just saying…

 
  
 
 

FX, 10:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: Denis Leary’s new FX series, after the terrific Rescue Me, allows him to hit the same strong suits he explored on that firefighting series: the close-quarters camaraderie of guys when they tease and irritate one another, and the often very different perspectives and approaches of men and women in both professional and personal circumstances. In this new series, Leary plays Johnny Rock, a once, and briefly, famous rock singer, John Corbett plays his former lead guitarist, and former Nickelodeon sitcom actress Elizabeth Gillies plays the daughter Johnny didn’t know he had – who emerges, at age 21, to reunite her dad’s band and pay them to put her front and center as its lead singer. The premise is good, the music is too, and the acting’s a delight. For a full review, see Bianculli’s Blog.
 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.