FRIDAY
MAY 18
2018

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: This controversial series devoted its first season to examining the 13 reasons, one per episode, left behind by an unhappy teen to “explain” her suicide. This Season 2 is more responsible when it comes to its potential impact, and is accompanied by viewer warnings and suicide-prevention places to contact. But last season’s protagonist is now a ghost, and the drama deals with the aftermath of her final deed. Tread warily.

 
  
 
 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

MOVIE PREMIERE: Martin Freeman, who’s in one of the year’s biggest box-office movies in Black Panther, stars in this 2017 Australian movie import, playing a devoted family man in a post-apocalyptic Australia. Zombies, or something like them, are everywhere, and Freeman tours the outback – by boat, truck, and on foot – seeking safety and survival for his wife and their baby daughter. Things don’t go particularly well for them, or those they encounter, but Cargo demonstrates that there can be dignity in death, even in zombie movies.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 6:15 p.m. ET

Greta Garbo, in this 1931 early talkie, embodied the WWI seductive superspy Mata Hari, in ways, and in costumes and dances, that remain resonant to this day. Especially this day, at 6:15 p.m. ET, when TCM presents Mata Hari uncut and uninterrupted.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 7:30 p.m. ET

As appetizers to tomorrow morning’s royal feast – the latest Royal Wedding, televised live from England – BBC America presents TV coverage of two previous royal weddings. At 3 p.m. ET, and again at 7:30 p.m. ET, BBC America presents coverage of the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

 
  
 
 

ABC, 8:00 p.m. ET

SERIES FINALE: After seven seasons, this ABC series calls it quits, with what one hopes is a final “happily ever after.” But this series has rewritten and overwritten itself so much in the past few seasons, there’s no telling where it might end up.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 8:30 p.m. ET

In the second half of its royal wedding retrospective doubleheader, BBC America presents, at 4 p.m. ET and again at 8:30 p.m. ET, TV coverage of the 1981 royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

 
  
 
 

PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

Hedy Lamarr was born in Austria, migrated to Hollywood, and played such iconic female figures as Delilah (in 1949’s Samson and Delilah) and Joan of Arc (in 1957’s The Story of Mankind). She also inspired the visual looks of other icons – specifically, Disney’s Snow White and the original comic-book incarnation of Catwoman. But the real bombshell about Bombshell, this jaw-dropping 2017 documentary, is how her ideas and inventions, in WWII, not only helped the war effort tremendously, but gave birth to such ahead-of-their-time technologies as GPS and Bluetooth. Check local listings. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.

 
  
 
 

Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET

Game Change and Recount writer-director Danny Strong wrote and directed this 2017 drama, which is a biographical drama about reclusive author J.D. Salinger, famous for Catcher in the Rye and other stories. Nicholas Hoult plays Jerry Salinger – and Salinger’s early mentor, his college literary professor and early publisher Whit Burnett, is played by someone who has himself been somewhat reclusive of late: Kevin Spacey.

 
  
 
 

ABC, 9:01 p.m. ET

SEASON FINALE: All of Season 5 has been about alternate time lines and the end of the world. Tonight’s cliffhanger, presumably, will restore order to things – although the way this TV show’s big-sister movie franchise, The Avengers, just “ended” its latest blockbuster, all bets are off.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s scheduled guests include global economist Dambisa Moyo, columnist Dan Savage and national security analyst Clint Watts.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.