MONDAY

SEPTEMBER 16

2013

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

Fox, 9:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: We plan to have our TVWW Fall Preview page available tomorrow, but Fox already is rolling out the season’s first new prime-time broadcast series. It’s a reworking of the Washington Irving story, bringing Ichabod Crane and his Headless Horseman adversary into the present day, to the confusion of all who encounter either of them. There are some playful moments that make this endurable, and Tom Mason and Nicole Beharie work well together, in a Moonlighting Lite sort of way. But still – Ichabod and company, in this new Fox series, are up against not only the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but, by being the first new show to premiere this season, the Kickoff Curse, as explained in today’s Bianculli’s Blog.

BRAKE

The Movie Channel, 9:35 p.m. ET

Stephen Dorff stars in this 2012 movie, which I haven’t seen, but point out here specifically because its plot sounds so similar to Hostages, one of CBS’s new drama series premiering this month. Brake is about a Secret Service agent (Dorff), not a surgeon (Toni Collette in Hostages), but otherwise it’s the same basic idea: a well-connected protagonist is abducted and threatened with the death of loved ones unless they help with a presidential assassination plot.

UNDER THE DOME

CBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

SEASON FINALE: Could any TV actor in 2013 have a bigger two-night one-two punch than Dean Morris is enjoying right now? Last night, on AMC’s utterly brilliant Breaking Bad, Norris, as Hank, had an almost unwatchably intense showdown scene in the desert. And tonight, his surprise summer broadcast hit, Under the Dome, concludes Season 1 with more key scenes featuring Norris as power-hungry sheriff Big Jim. Tonight the dome goes dark, at least for a while, literally as well as figuratively – but Norris’ future career is so bright, he oughtta wear shades.

THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

Part 3. Tonight’s edition in this valuable, patient documentary series is called 1918-1932 – The Great Rebel Filmmakers Around the World. And in addition to the familiar ones from this period, we get some true surprises, and some rarities which TCM is nice enough to present tonight as well. The rarest of the rare includes, at 12:45 a.m. ET, 1934’s The Goddess (shown here), a film by Chinese director Wu Yonggang and starring, as a reluctant prostitute, Ruan Lingyu. More familiar early classics shown tonight include F.W. Murnau’s 1927 Sunrise (8 p.m. ET), Robert Wiene’s 1919 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (2:15 a.m. ET), and Fritz Lang’s restored 1927 classic, Metropolis (3:30 a.m. ET).

THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN

TCM, 11:15 p.m. ET

Another part of tonight’s TCM classic movie lineup, tied to its currently playing documentary history of film, this 1925 Russian epic by director Sergei Eisenstein is a silent movie thatm through its style of editing and narrative, pushed cinematic storytelling forward in a crucial and creative way. Filmmakers have been copying it, or paying homage, ever since.

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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.

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BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

Fox, 9:00 p.m. ET

The Movie Channel, 9:35 p.m. ET

CBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

TCM, 11:15 p.m. ET

David Bianculli

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