THURSDAY
OCTOBER 2
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TBS, 5:30 p.m. ET

The past two nights, we’ve seen postseason baseball begin with teams scrambling to make it into the playoffs with a wild-card win – the Kansas City Royals in intensely dramatic fashion, the San Francisco Giants cruising to an easy victory. Tonight, the playoffs begin in earnest. At 5:30 p.m. ET on TBS, in the first game of an American League double-header, the Baltimore Orioles host the Detroit Tigers, with the Tigers starting last year’s Cy Young Award-winning pitcher, Max Scherzer. Then, at 9 p.m. ET, the still-euphoric Royals face the well-rested Los Angeles Angels, who enjoy home-field advantage.

 
  
 
 

CBS, 8:25 p.m. ET

With four games played thus far this season, tonight’s two teams have averaged a positively average record: Both the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers are 2-2 as they face each other tonight. Packers QB Aaron Rodgers has Lambeau Field as his not-so-secret weapon, while the Vikings still are playing without running back Adrian Peterson, who’s on the exempt list for tonight’s game as he awaits his fate at the hands of a grand jury on charges of severe corporal punishment. Despite what the controversy is doing to the image of pro football, it’s not hurting the ratings. NBC’s Sunday Night Football is this season’s No. 1 show – and the new CBS Thursday franchise is right behind at No. 2.

 
  
 
 

WNET-Ch. 13 NY, 9:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: Anyone close enough to receive New York’s WNET-Ch. 13 on cable or broadcast TV is in for a treat starting tonight, because THIRTEEEN is launching a new series that takes full advantage of one of the city’s biggest calling cards: the theater. In this case, Theater Close-Up looks not at the bigger Broadway houses and productions, but the plays and musicals performed in Off-Broadway, and even Off-Off-Broadway, venues. (One more Off-, and they’d be performing in my living room in New Jersey.) Sigourney Weaver hosts this welcome new series, which aims to preserve, on TV, complete productions from this rich world of New York theater. Starting off: the Mint Theater Company’s London Wall, a revival of John Van Druten’s 1931 play, starring Julia Coffey and Mathew Gumley. Check local listings.

 
  
 
 

Lifetime, 9:00 p.m. ET

This season, Project Runway has kept things lively by forcing its contestants to look for inspiration in the oddest places. Tonight, those places are behind closed doors – as Tim Gunn takes them to a series of storage lockers, pitting the fashion designers in their own version of Storage Wars, as they have to use what they find to produce their runway garments.

 
  
 
 

NBC, 10:00 p.m. ET

Last week’s season premiere slipped in an unsettling, unexpected shocker: family patriarch Zeek (Craig T. Nelson), while playing cards at a Las Vegas casino with daughter Sarah (Lauren Graham) to celebrate his birthday, suddenly stood up from the gambling table and collapsed. He survived past the commercial break, refused hospital treatment and headed back home to his own doctor – but since this is the final season for Parenthood, and the producers already have hinted at the death of a beloved character, there are two ways this could go. This sudden “heart episode” could foreshadow Zeek’s death by a recurrent collapse – or it could be a red herring, having us worry about Zeek while another Braverman family member dies unexpectedly. Either way, this series is sure to make us care. A lot.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.