THURSDAY
APRIL 23
2020

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

CBS All Access, 3:00 a.m. ET

Have you gotten Memo 618? If you have, then you don’t have to worry about the law. And if you haven’t even heard about Memo 618, then you haven’t been watching this new season of The Good Fight, in which Christine Baranski’s Diane Lockhart is investigating the rumors of said memo, which supposedly gives defendants the means by which to ignore judges and their courtroom rulings and orders. Meanwhile, without a memo of her own, Diane heads into court facing an old, familiar and shrewd adversary – played, as on The Good Wife, by Michael J. Fox.
 
  
 
 

Sundance Now, 3:00 a.m. ET

MINISERIES PREMIERE: This eight-part imported Scandinavian drama stars Josefin Asplund in a dual role, as twin sisters Helena and Siri. Siri is confined, and held prisoner, in a high-security facility, and manages to work it so that Helena, unknowingly and at first unconsciously, takes her place so that Siri can go free. Sounds clever – but I can't help notice that it's the exact same plot used in a 1971 British Hammer horror movie, Twins of Evil. I knew watching that film would pay off eventually… Meanwhile, Sanctuary, a co-production by Sweden and Italy, co-stars a familiar face from America: Matthew Modine. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.

 
  
 
 

National Theatre at Home, 7:00 p.m. ET

SPECIAL PREMIERE: For a month now, England’s National Theatre has presented, on its website and on its own YouTube channel, weekly special treats for people shut in by the pandemic. (In the U.K., of course, but we also get to share in the benefits here in the U.S.) Every Thursday at midnight, National Theatre At Home presents, for seven days, a televised stage production from its archives. And since we’re five hours behind London in terms of time zones, we get access to the same TV treat, here on the East Coast of the U,S., starting each Thursday at 7 p.m. ET. And tonight’s a real treat indeed: Twelfth Night, the Shakespeare comedy that, in this production, stars Tamsin Greig, who was so consistently funny, yet endearing, as the screenwriting wife in Showtime’s sitcom Episodes. Here, she takes on the role of Malvolio – adapted, in this production, with a gender switch that has her portraying Malvolia. Phoebe Cox (pictured with Greig) is featured as Olivia – a role that is not, incidentally, rewritten as Olivio.
 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

This week’s “New York in the '70s” movie feature on TCM looks at movies written by Neil Simon – and that means a triple feature, with other movies to spare. The Goodbye Girl (Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason)from 1977, starts things off at 8 p.m. ET, followed at 10 p.m. ET by 1975’s The Sunshine Boys (George Burns, Walter Matthau)and concluding at midnight ET with 1974’s The Prisoner of Second Avenue (Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft).
 
  
 
 

NBC, 9:00 p.m. ET

SERIES FINALE: Technically, this is Finale #2, because NBC’s Will & Grace, the first time around, presented a one-hour series finale in 2006, after eight seasons on the air, and with the title characters having raised their own children. When the series returned for more episodes 11 years later, in 2017, there were no children to be found (that was careless of them), and Will & Grace continued, with the characters older but no wiser, for another three years. And they go out with a finale episode tonight, accompanied on NBC by a special retrospective. Oh, well. At least they taped this episode, and got out while the getting was good, just in time. This Will & Grace finale may be one of the last TV sitcoms for quite a while to be recorded before a live studio audience.  And each and every one of those episodes, in both incarnations of Will & Grace, was directed by the great James Burrows.
 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.