WEDNESDAY
DECEMBER 21
2016

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Bravo, 8:00 p.m. ET

James Lipton’s guest in this new edition is Jessica Chastain, now starring in Miss Sloane. She broke out as Celia in 2011’s The Help, but has been acting for a while before that, including small guest roles in 2004 on ER and Veronica Mars.

 
  
 
 

NFL Network, 8:00 p.m. ET

Here’s a new special that revisits a very old, and extremely weird, football game: the 1988 playoff game between the Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles. The first half of the game, played the afternoon of Dec. 31 that year, was clear and sunny, but by the second half, an increasingly dense fog settled upon Chicago’s Soldier Field, making it all but impossible for the viewers, the commentators, and even the players on the field to see what was going on. Here’s your chance to see the so-called Fog Bowl again, or sort of see it, especially if you mist it the first time.
 
  
 
 

Fox, 9:00 p.m. ET

REPEAT: Here’s one more sneak preview of the new musical drama series, coming next month, from the creators of Empire. It’s one long cliché – but as a mash-up of Dreamgirls and Rock Follies, it’s got promise, and the scene in which the young ladies in the aspiring vocal trio strut their stuff comes off quite well.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 9:30 p.m. ET

Tonight’s another night of Treasures from the Disney Vault on TCM. Leonard Maltin, the perfect host for this recurring feature, provides the perspective for the evening’s offerings, which begin at 8 p.m. with the 1957 Disney-fied nature documentary Perry, a squirrel’s-eye-view of life in the wild. The other treats include two shorts beginning at 12:45 a.m. ET, 1939’s The Ugly Duckling and 1935’s The Tortoise and the Hare, followed at 1:15 a.m. ET by the tacky 1966 live-action comedy The Ugly Dachshund, which features the very pretty Suzanne Pleshette. But the evening’s highlight, at 9:30, is 1957’s Old Yeller, a story about a boy and his dog that, almost 60 years after it was released, still is guaranteed to be an effective and unforgettable tearjerker. Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran play the young farm boys, in post-Civil War Texas, who befriend a yellow hunting dog. Fess Parker, already a major Disney star thanks to TV’s Davy Crockett adventures on ABC’s Disneyland, plays their father.

 
  
 
 

ABC, 10:00 p.m. ET

Robin Roberts does her version of Barbara Walters’ old end-of-year celebrity Fascinating People specials, mixing everyday people (such as Mona Hanna-Attisha, a key whistleblower in the Flint, MI contaminated water case) with influential celebrities and artists (such as Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda).

 
  
 
 

TBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

SPECIAL: I’m a little disturbed that this TBS special actually uses Xmas in its title, rather than Christmas – but I’m guessing, and hoping, the holiday irreverence is merely a reflection of the show’s content and approach. Surprise! sends celebrities, many of them affiliated with TBS shows, out to unsuspecting people and places, to sing holiday carols, some of them very bad, or very badly. The go-to, to-go carolers include Conan O’Brien, Rashida Jones, Charles Barkley, and (pictured) Shaquille O’Neal and Ludacris.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.