Decades, 12:00 p.m. ET
This weekend’s marathon on Decades is a show I watched as a teen, haven’t seen since, and wonder now why I watched it in the first place. So I looked it up. Here Come the Brides premiered on ABC in 1968, as a sort of TV ripoff of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and based on an actual historical incident from the post-Civil War era, when an enterprising mine owner in Seattle sent for scores of women to move West and relocate as possible marriage prospects for the isolated, lonely miners. The stars include Bobby Sherman, who became a pop idol for his role here, and David Soul, who went on to Starsky and Hutch. It also included Joan Blondell – but at the time, I was unaware of her long history in movies. I watched, basically, because Here Come the Brides was televised during the opening hour of prime time in fall 1968, when the only competition was CBS’s Daktari and NBC’s The Virginian. (Imagine that, kids: Instead of an endless buffet of choices, you had a menu with three selections, period, plus what might have been playing on public or local television.) So I’ll dip into this marathon this weekend, just to jog some memories and recall a much, much simpler TV time. Oh, and I’ll even record one episode: Sunday at 6 a.m. ET is the episode called “Marriage Chinese Style,” in which Jeremy (Bobby Sherman) saves the life of a young Chinese woman, who subsequently pledges her loyalty to him instead of her intended husband. Why is this so interesting? Because said husband is played by guest star Bruce Lee, in his first dramatic TV role after playing Kato in the Batman spinoff The Green Hornet.
CNN, 11:00 p.m. ET
This new, quickly scheduled CNN special captures what journalists call the fast first draft of history – by having host Anderson Cooper talking about events of this week with historian Dorsi Kearns Goodwin and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. She’s been in several of his films, and they all talk about the past four years as well as the past four days. “I feel like I’m exhaled,” Burns says. But there have been a lot of holding-your-breath moments in 2021 already, and living this particular stretch of history, since 2016, has not been easy. Can’t wait to hear their perspectives…