SATURDAY
APRIL 19
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

ABC, 7:00 p.m. ET

An Easter TV tradition, this 1955 biblical epic is presented again in prime time by ABC. Cecil B. DeMille spends a lot of time and money on sets and extras, and on the then-amazing special effects (still more effective than in recent TV and cinematic remakes). But the central figure of Charlton Heston – I mean, Moses – demands and deserves a lot of attention as well.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Otto Preminger directed this 1944 noir classic, stressing both the mood and the obsessive drive of a detective (Dana Andrews) who falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating. Twisted? Absolutely. But fascinating… and, in this telling, very mature, and very surprising as well. The object of his desire is played by Gene Tierney.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: Back for Season 2, this BBC America series delights all over again, and hits the ground running at such rapid speed that you may not know what hits you. Except what hits you at every turn is the astounding multi-role performance by Tatiana Maslany, who plays distinct clone variations of the same body type – often in the same scene – in a way that makes you forget you’re often seeing double. Or triple. It’s such a smart show, and Season 2 begins with a quartet of episodes that get us to know, and be shocked by, the characters in memorable ways, whether they’re clones or just the people around them. For an interview with series star Maslany, see Donna Plesh's Talking Television.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET

What a glorious treat this is. Billy Crystal starred in this tribute to his parents and family life in 2004, as a limited-run, Tony-winning one-man Broadway show, and revived it a decade later – and during the second run, filmed a pair of performances so that it could be presented, and preserved, as an HBO Comedy Special. Crystal’s performance is a delight from start to finish, but that’s less of a surprise than how well-written, and how effectively and impressive structured, the production itself is. Written by Crystal (with additional material by Alan Zweibel), 700 Sundays counts the number of weekend days off Crystal shared with his father before his dad died suddenly when Billy was only 15. The big laughs in this TV special are to be expected, but the deep emotions touched, and examined, may surprise you. It’s one of the most warmly evocative TV shows I’ve seen in years: a love letter from a long-grown son to his now-dead parents, all the more effective because it renders them humorously rather than canonizes them. You owe it to yourself to see this, if you’ve ever been a parent – or had one.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 11:00 p.m. ET

I’m not pleased that BBC has pushed this series back to 11 p.m. ET for its new season – Season 15, an impressive run indeed – because, each week, Graham Norton always seems to provide a talk-show moment that’s laugh-out-loud entertaining. He doesn’t do musical bits or viral videos, he just talks with his guests, and gets them to react, or otherwise reveal themselves, in ways that other talk hosts never even attempt to approach. Tonight’s case in point: In an installment built around The Amazing Spider-Man 2 stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Jamie Foxx, Norton works Stone into near apoplexy by suggesting that he might have hidden in the wings one, or more, of Stone’s absolute childhood idols: The Spice Girls.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.