TUESDAY
DECEMBER 17
2013

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

IFC, 8:00 p.m. ET

Made 20 years ago, this movie version of the classic Sixties TV series flipped the central dynamic unintentionally, but very effectively, making this one of the better TV-to-film efforts ever produced. On TV, David Janssen’s Richard Kimble ran away with the show (in one sense, literally). But in this movie, though we root for Harrison Ford’s Kimble, it’s Tommy Lee Jones as his pursuing adversary who really keeps things moving. And moving. And moving even faster.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Made in 1949, this holiday romance is building, year by year, into one of the films considered part of the annual Christmas movie canon. It stars Robert Mitchum as a sales clerk at a department store, and Janet Leigh as a corporate spy who shops at his place to check out the competition – and they end up checking out each other instead. For both leads, the roles were substantial changes of pace. Mitchum, known as a hard-boiled film noir tough guy, plays it sweeter and meeker here – while Leigh, a full 11 years before Psycho, plays her young war widow, a mother, by going for real emotions rather than glamorous facades.

 
  
 
 

NBC, 9:00 p.m. ET

SEASON FINALE: Last night, finalist Tessanne Chin and her coach, Adam Levine, pulled off something lots of prime-time shows, from The Voice and American Idol to Fame, have attempted but failed in recent years: providing a strong, original take on a Beatles song. The song was “Let It Be,” and it was solid throughout, though it was the final shift to a reggae beat that propelled it to a higher stratosphere. Will that performance be enough to earn her this year’s title? Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell?...
 
  
 
 

PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

The motivation for this two-hour PBS special is no mystery, and the only thing that’s afoot is a patently obvious exercise in cross-promotion. PBS presents Masterpiece Mystery!, which has a new season of Sherlock returning next year – so why not spend two hours celebrating Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous literary creation as the father of modern forensics? Well, because that’s far too much TV time to assert a simple point – and, besides, it’s arguable as a post hoc fallacy of the greatest order. There’s some interesting information on hand here, making this a more watchable, and less reprehensible, promotional exercise than NBC’s Dracula-pushing Why We Heart Vampires. But still…  Check local listings.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET

These year-end reviews by Bryant Gumbel, in which he gathers his correspondents to revisit their, and the year’s, best sports stories, always are entertaining. Included this year: a look back at Bernard Goldberg’s interview with Mike Tyson, who suddenly stopped their conversation, about the death of Tyson’s child, with a quietly spoken but firm, “You have to go.” Goldberg calls it “one of the most chilling” moments of his career, but it captured, on camera, the unpredictable volatility and emotional intensity that is Mike Tyson, inside or outside the ring.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.