FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 22
2019

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Amazon Prime Video, 3:00 a.m. ET

DOCUMENTARY SERIES PREMIERE: This new eight-part documentary series, hosted by former House star and Obama White House employee Kal Penn, is the latest project from Adam McKay, who’s up for several Oscar awards this weekend for his Dick Cheney movie Vice. (He’s already won for Best Adapted Screenplay for his 2015 film The Big Short, which used humor to explain the origins and intricacies of the subprime crisis.) In The Great Beast, he comes to TV and uses each of eight episodes to explore a portion of the global economy by mixing information with laughs. The approaches range from former SNL player Sasheer Zamata talking about renters and residence availability to Joel McHale personifying the benefits, legal and otherwise, of businesses that deal only in cash.
 
  
 
 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

MOVIE PREMIERE: Ever since Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray Romano has been on a stealth mission, and a very successful one, to prove his talents extend beyond the standard sitcom. In the last 10 years, he’s played midlife-crisis sufferer Joe Tranelli on TNT’s Men of a Certain Age, on-the-spectrum photographer Hank Rizzoli on NBC’s Parenthood, out-of-his-element music bigwig Zak Yankovich on HBO’s Vinyl and, most recently, Hollywood player Rick Moreweather on Epix’s Get Shorty. Now, in this new Netflix drama, he plays a man whose best friend, after learning he has terminal cancer, asks his buddy to intervene. Not exactly a laugh riot, which is exactly why Romano, post-Raymond, is playing the part.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET

What a week, and, for Maher, what a lineup: Scheduled guests for tonight’s live show include House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (pictured), who just metaphorically called President Donald Trump an “arsonist” in yesterday’s open letter to Republican congresspeople published in The Washington Post. Also scheduled to appear: Donna Brazile, Claire McCaskill, and Rick Wilson. If those names aren’t familiar, you need to get more familiar with current events.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 11:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s guests include Felicity Jones and Stephen Merchant, and also makes room, on the same couch, for Armie Hammer and Rob Beckett. And, demonstrating the unique chemistry and unpredictability of Graham Norton’s cozy talk show, at one point it’s the lesser-known Beckett who has everyone else rapt, and laughing.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.