MONDAY
MARCH 2
2015

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

NBC, 8:00 p.m. ET

The new seasons of American Idol and of this show both have started off with an impressive array of talent. On this show, though, the most fun of all is to be had right now, as the blind auditions continue – and when the judges, after spinning around in their chairs to show support for the formerly unseen singers, have to compete with one another to persuade those singers to join their team. This year, Pharrell is cleaning up, Adam Levine is striking out, Blake Shelton is loving Levine’s rising frustration level – and Christina Aguilera already has prompted one tender TV moment, when she urged Pharrell to join one unclaimed young contestant in a duet of one of his songs, “Happy,” after she remarked, post-rejection, that she sang his song in her high-school a cappella group.

 
  
 
 

Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET

For the second time in this series, young Bruce Wayne found himself kneeling over the bleeding body of a loved one. Last time, in the premiere, it was his parents. This time, last week, it was his beloved guardian Alfred, who had been stabbed in the chest by a loved one of his own. Alfred survives, of course – anyone who’s ever read a Batman comic or seen a movie or TV show based on one knows that – but tonight, what’s even more interesting is the fate of another tough survivor: Jada Pinkett Smith’s not-dead-yet Fish Mooney.
 
  
 
 

El Rey, 8:00 p.m. ET

Film director Robert Rodriguez, this network’s founder and chairman, uses his own expertise, and his ability to approve and schedule any TV show he wants, to sit down occasionally for this series of specials, interviewing fellow directors whose work he admires. As a program executive, it’s a good move. As an interviewer, it’s another one. These shows are like TV equivalents of Hitchcock/Truffaut, that landmark book in which critic and filmmaker Francois Truffaut interviewed Alfred Hitchcock about his body of work. And in this newest edition, Rodriguez interviews Francis Coppola, who starts out talking about his childhood, his earliest movie memories and influences, and goes on from there. Highly recommended.

 
  
 
 

El Rey, 9:00 p.m. ET

Following a new Director’s Chair special in which Robert Rodriguez interviews Francis Coppola, the El Rey network presents a prime-time showing of one of Coppola’s bold early films. Made in 1974, it stars Gene Hackman as an audio surveillance expert, and the co-stars include Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, and John Cazale (pictured), one of the only actors who can be said to have starred only in very good movies: this one, the first and second Godfather films, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. Then he died of cancer, at age 42.

 
  
 
 

AMC, 10:00 p.m. ET

Lots of things about Better Call Saul make me smile. Last week, one of them was the music: the soundtrack made room for such odd yet perfect musical choices as two songs that I first adored as a teenager: Herbie Mann’s recording of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and Dave Brubeck’s “Unsquare Dance.” Oh, and the scriptwriting and the acting? They’re as great as the music.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.