SATURDAY
JUNE 24
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Encore, 7:21 p.m. ET

It’s been 40 years since George Lucas made his first Star Wars movie, now called Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. That’s the one that, in 1977, introduced Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, and Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia – icons all, along with other memorable characters like C-3PO, R2-D2, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader. And it’s now been 30 years since Mel Brooks spoofed that movie, its imagined universe and its many colorful characters in 1987’s Spaceballs. Since then, somewhat surprisingly, Spaceballs has become Brooks’ most lucrative and popular movie of all, even more than Blazing Saddles, The Producers, and Young Frankenstein. Revisit it and see why: It’s as loving and smart a parody, in its way, as Young Frankenstein, which is as good, and as brilliant, as cinematic spoofs get. A young Bill Pullman stars as the Han Solo-like Lone Starr, with Daphne Zuniga as Princess Vespa, John Candy as Barf (the giant canine equivalent of Chewbacca), and Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Beginning tonight, The Essentials host Alec Baldwin teams up with his old 30 Rock co-star, Tina Fey, for his latest round of animated movie discussions. (It’s the discussions that are animated, not the movies.) Tonight’s topic, “Eyewitness,” is about movie characters whose lives are changed or threatened after they witness something significant – and allows Baldwin and Fey, and us, to revel again in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 masterpiece, Rear Window, starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. What a movie. What a visual master stroke. And Grace Kelly? What a beauty, and what a flirty, playful, self-assured actress and character… the ultimate of all of Hitchcock’s icy blondes.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s “World Enough and Time” is the last episode before next week’s season finale, which will be the last episode before this year’s Christmas special – which will mark, somehow, the final appearance of Peter Capaldi as the current incarnation of the Doctor. The show’s current plot line, therefore, is running out of time – and tonight, Time is in play not only as an abstract, but as an adversary. And so is another Time Lord, making a return, and significant, appearance. Also making a return appearance tonight: one of this show’s original villains back when it premiered in the 1960s, the Cybermen!

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 10:00 p.m. ET

This final season of Orphan Black is beginning to serve up answers, rather than puzzles – and tonight, finally introduces us to the long-discussed, never-seen scientist P.T. Westmoreland. It also takes several of the clones played by Tatiana Maslany – including Cosima, Rachel, and Alison – and realigns them yet again. And watch for Alison’s suburban husband Donnie, played by Kristian Bruun, to also be placed in serious danger this week. He’s not only in danger of being killed – he’s in danger of being kilt.

 
  
 
 

NBC, 11:29 p.m. ET

This repeat from May, only one month ago, is hosted by Melissa McCarthy. Worth seeing again – even though, in terms of politics, so, so much has happened since then…

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.