FRIDAY
SEPTEMBER 22
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

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

SEASON PREMIERE: This is the Season 4 premiere of Transparent, and the new season begins with a very significant field trip: Jeffrey Tambor’s Maura is invited to deliver a speech in Israel, and decides to take her family along. But if you’ve watched this series enough to know her family, that’s not necessarily the smartest of plans.

 
  
 
 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

SPECIAL PREMIERE: Premiering today on Netflix, this is a new behind-the-scenes, but fully approved, documentary about Lady Gaga, showing her at home, in the studio, and preparing for her new album – called Joanne, and dedicated to a late relative. The special also is framed around her Super Bowl LI halftime show, beginning and ending with the moments leading to that triumphant appearance. We don’t see a replay of that Super Bowl show here, but we do hear Gaga sing several times (most memorably at a birthday tribute to Tony Bennett), and watch her deal with back spasms, insecurities, loneliness, shooting a music video, and, from relatives, a lot of support and love. It’s nowhere near as narcissistic as Madonna’s Truth or Dare documentary, and is, at times, much more candid.

 
  
 
 

Science Channel, 9:00 p.m. ET

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. But sometimes, when the wind blows as fiercely as it has lately, it helps to have the Science Channel schedule an instant special to look at, and explain, the sudden barrage of super-potent hurricanes attacking from the Atlantic.

 
  
 
 

Cinemax, 10:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This new eight-part series is an animated show from Mike Judge, whose cartoon TV triumphs include Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill, and whose live-action TV triumphs include HBO’s current Silicon Valley. Here, he plays combination oral historian and visual storyteller, taking the actual recorded recollections of people involved with various touring musical acts and bringing them to life as half-hour cartoons. Judge also animates and records himself, as narrator and host, and the series will cover such rowdy touring acts as Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings, and, as an often tense team, George Jones and Tammy Wynette. First up, in tonight’s premiere: Johnny Paycheck (pictured – or, at least, drawn). For a full review, see Ed Bark's Uncle Barky's Bytes.
 
  
 
 

HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s lineup sounds entertaining from start to finish. At the start, Bill Maher’s guest is Barney Frank. At the end, his guest is Bob Costas. And in between, his guests include Martin Short (pictured), who always seems to crack Maher up. Me, too.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.