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MONDAY
SEPTEMBER 22
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 
CELEBRITY NAME GAME

Syndicated, Check local listings

SERIES PREMIERE: I’m a sucker for the innocent playfulness and good fun of NBC’s Hollywood Game Night and CW’s Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and this new syndicated game show, hosted by Craig Ferguson, plays right into that affable, enjoyable sensibility. In Celebrity Name Game, the challenge is to identify celebrities in a series of different word games and rapid-fire question sessions. Sometimes the “regular contestants,” the civilians, are teamed with guest celebrities, as on Password. Other times, it’s Ferguson himself joining the fun and throwing the clues – though, in today’s premiere, the most fun came when one player, hoping to elicit the correct response of “Steve Martin,” gave the clue, “He’s a ‘Wild and Crazy Guy’ and ‘a Jerk.’” To which her partner quickly but incorrectly screamed, “David Letterman!” Joely Fisher and Ana Gasteyer are the celebrities who show up to play on Day 1. To find the station and time where the show is televised in your area, visit the Celebrity Name Game website.
 
  
 
 
THE BIG BANG THEORY

CBS, 8:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: Because of CBS’s Thursday Night Football, TV’s most popular sitcom is being moved back to Mondays to begin Season 8, if only until football season is over. And tonight, CBS presents a double dose of fresh Big Bang episodes – to give the best possible lead-in, and traction, to the new CBS series Scorpion, which is about a group of brilliant geeks who form a team to solve crimes and help those in need. But for now, against Gotham, the geeks of Big Bang Theory may be facing their own archnemesis.

 
  
 
 
GOTHAM

Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: Ben McKenzie from Southland and The O.C. stars as Jim Gordon, who’s a newbie on the Gotham police force he eventually will end up running – as the much more familiar Commissioner Gordon. This series is a moody, TV noir prequel to the DC Comics Batman narrative, introducing some new characters while giving us hints of the pre-origin stories of some of the familiar villains. Gotham gets off to a strong start, and though there’s not one new series this fall that has to be seen, Gotham comes pretty close. For more, listen to my fall preview report for NPR on today’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, or visit the Fresh Air website after about 4 p.m. ET this afternoon.
 
  
 
 
SCORPION

CBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: I was pleasantly surprised by this CBS procedural, because if it finds a way to continue to explore and expand upon the oddball personalities of the various members of this genius crime-fighting unit, Scorpion will differentiate itself easily from the other such shows out there – and, for a while at least, be paired perfectly with Big Bang Theory. I also found myself quite taken, this time around, by Katharine McPhee from Smash and American Idol, who, in this series, without singing a note, makes the strongest impression yet. Elyes Gabel stars, with Robert Patrick as the FBI agent who corrals these brainy misfits into a workable team. For more, listen to my fall preview report for NPR on today’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, or visit the Fresh Air website after about 4 p.m. ET this afternoon.
 
  
 
 
SLEEPY HOLLOW

Fox, 9:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: Just like the hero of Angel one season, the hero from a different time in Sleepy Hollow ended last season sealed in a coffin and left for dead. Or undead, or whatever. But don’t expect Ichabod Crane, played by Tom Mison, to think inside the box for long – not when he and his modern-day partner in evil-fighting (Nicole Beharie) have more demons to track, headless and otherwise.

 
  
 
 
THE BLACKLIST

NBC, 10:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: All we know about the start of Season 2 is that it takes place a few months after the events that ended Season 1 – events which seemed to really complicate any chance of a smooth relationship between federal agent Elizabeth (Megan Boone) and her father figure, and perhaps father, Red (James Spader). Oh, and that Mary Louise Parker from Weeds is joining the cast, at least temporarily. That should be fun: Spader and Parker are two of the most electric actors working in TV, and they’ve never worked together before.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.
 
 
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