THURSDAY
MAY 23
2019

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

NBC, 8:00 p.m. ET

SPECIAL: There are different Red Nose Day efforts and events. There’s the original, which was started in the U.K. by Comic Relief there, aimed at raising money and awareness for children suffering from hunger and poverty. The U.S. followed suit in 2015, and the whole “red nose” idea is to keep things as light and funny as possible while tackling a very somber issue. On NBC tonight, there’s a two-hour live telethon, heavy on NBC celebrity performers: Blake Shelton and Kelly Clarkson from The Voice, for example, and Kate McKinnon from Saturday Night Live. There also are some charity auction bids for other celebrity-related prizes, including breakfast on the set of Doctor Who, sharing the TARDIS with star Jodie Whittaker. And some filmed pieces, including Benedict Cumberbatch taking the charity plunge by swimming in very, very cold water. What an ice thing to do for children.

 
  
 
 

ABC, 8:00 p.m. ET

DOCUMENTARY SPECIAL:  This new biography, 10 years after the death of the famous actress, utilizes audio diaries she had recorded in the final years of her life. It also, however, will leave ample room to show photos and clips from her TV and movie career – which goes all the way back to 1975, pre-Charlie’s Angels, when she played her David Janssen’s beach neighbor on his short-lived detective series, Harry O (pictured). But this ABC special, I’m guessing, will be heavier on the ABC images from Charlie’s Angels, and from her famous posters. Today, a poster is thought of as someone who blogs or comments online. Back in the 1970s, a poster was something affixed to a bedroom wall – and Fawcett’s smiling face was plastered on millions of those walls. (Not mine, though: My wall art predilections, then and now, lean much more towards obscurity.)

 
  
 
 

CW, 8:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s new episode is called “Dot Zom,” and has Liv (Rose McIver) and company investigating the death of an app developer. If this gives her the excuse to eat some brains of the victim and become temporarily super-savvy when it comes to computer programming and technology, maybe Liv can crash the zombie website that’s causing so many problems this season. And if not, maybe she could fix my outgoing email server…

 
  
 
 

Sundance, 10:00 p.m. ET

MINISERIES PREMIERE: This Sundance miniseries isn’t evil, but it’s positively medieval. Based on the bestselling Umberto Eco novel, it’s a new, longer treatment of the same story that starred Sean Connery as a Franciscan friar in a 1986 film version. John Turturro plays the role once portrayed by Connery, and this miniseries version presents two episodes per week every Thursday for three weeks, beginning tonight. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower. 

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.