TUESDAY
SEPTEMBER 17
2013

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Part of TCM’s special lineup tied to its Story of Film documentary series, tonight’s prime-time early cinematic offerings from around the world begin with a very rare telecast of this 1923 silent French film by Abel Gance, who later directed the sprawling masterpiece Napoleon. This movie is sprawling, too: Originally, it was eight hours long, more like a pre-television miniseries. Here, it’s pared down to about half that, but includes many of the same visual innovations and images that made Gance such a film pioneer. The movie itself, starring Severin-Mars and Ivy Close, is about a railroad engineer who adopts an orphaned girl (the survivor of a train crash), only to have his own son eventually fall in love with her.

 
  
 
 

Fox, 8:30 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: Andy Samberg, from Saturday Night Live, and Andre Braugher, from Men of a Certain Age and Homicide: Life on the Street, are such an unlikely pairing – especially on a prime-time broadcast network sitcom – that this new series deserves a look. And after a first look, it’ll earn a second, because this is a series concept, and a bunch of eccentrically drawn characters, that could grow on you quickly. And surprisingly, in this comic setting, Braugher, playing the police precinct’s (and Samberg’s) no-nonsense new boss, initially sticks the landing more than Samberg, though they both do well.

 
  
 
 

Fox, 9:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and Nick (Jake Johnson) ended Season 2 by running off into the sunset, still together, somehow. Season 3 begins at sunrise – or, at least, in a sunny climate, after the combustible duo heads impulsively for a vacation in Mexico.

 
  
 
 

Fox, 9:30 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: Season 3 begins with Mindy (Mindy Kaling) off in Haiti with her pastor boyfriend – but while she’s away, her medical residency in New York has been inherited by a new OB/GYN, played by guest star James Franco. Before the episode is over, they meet on her home turf, which he now feels is his.

 
  
 
 

FX, 10:00 p.m. ET

Last week’s season premiere was peppered with unexplained shots of a uniformed boy sitting and brooding – until the end of the episode, when he unpacked an automatic weapon and headed into his school. Tonight’s episode deals with the immediate aftermath of that tragedy – and how it impacts the SAMCRO club, which turns out to have been the source for the illegally obtained firearm. Charlie Hunnam stars.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 12:30 a.m. ET

Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali collaborated on this 1928 short exercise in cinematic surrealism, which has images still capable of drawing gasps almost a century later. I know: I hear them every time I show this movie in my Rowan University film class.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.