SUNDAY
JUNE 24
2018

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Various Networks, 8:00 a.m. ET

I hope you started the day, as I did, tuning in early to Fox Sports 1 for today’s first World Cup match, featuring England vs. Panama. I’m writing this just before halftime, and haven’t been able to focus on writing because the game has been too exciting. As I type this sentence, England is ahead 4-0, and it’s the first time England has scored four goals in a World Cup since 1966, when the Beatles were still performing live. And as I wrote that sentence, still before halftime, England scored again. Five goals in one half. It’s the first time England has scored five goals in a World Cup game since… ever. And there’s still another half to play. Wow. So tune in, if you still can, for sports history being made. Then afterward, switch to Fox for the remaining two games.  At 11 a.m. ET, it’s Japan vs. Senegal, a contest between two teams that won their respective first games. Then, at 2 p.m. ET, it’s Poland vs. Colombia, featuring two teams that didn’t.

 
  
 
 

Smithsonian, 8:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This newest Smithsonian presentation of a vibrant new look at history focuses on the Pacific – starting with this episode, “An Ocean Apart,” that collects color footage (shot at the time, not colorized afterward) capturing images from the islands that soon would become pivot points in the battle history of WWII, including Wake Island and Guam. You’ll also see Pearl Harbor before the Japanese bombed it. But, quickly enough, you’ll see a lot of battle action… just not in the familiar black and white. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.

 
  
 
 

CNN, 9:00 p.m. ET

SEASON FINALE: Anthony Bourdain was working on Season 6 of his CNN food and travel and culture series when he committed suicide recently, a tragedy, and a legacy, covered by TVWW in Eric Gould’s The Cold Light Reader (in two pieces: the first was this one) and Alex Strachan’s TV That Matters. Tonight on CNN, the network premieres the finale of Bourdain’s Season 5: “Bhutan,” in which Bourdain takes filmmaker Darren Aronofsky on a market tour that covers everything from yak butter to wooden penises. Aronofsky’s recent films include the controversial destroying-the-earth allegory mother!, and he’s a vegetarian. He and Bourdain discuss both topics… and other things.
 
  
 
 

FX, 9:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s episode is called “The Fever” – and while it could refer to the excitement generated by these somewhat hedonistic New York fashion balls, it certainly also refers to the encroaching AIDS epidemic, which at this point in the mid-1980s was just becoming widely known, and just as widely misunderstood.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET

SEASON FINALE: There’s a real sense of impending danger, if not doom, in tonight’s extended Season 2 finale. All of the surviving major characters are heading to the same place (and some of the non-surviving ones, too, since they’ve been repaired and rebooted, or even hijacked). More characters than ever are self-aware, and many of them, through different means, are seeking either freedom or immortality. Or both.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 10:30 p.m. ET

The power plays in this series keep intensifying – as do the performances by this very talented company of actors.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 11:30 p.m. ET

John Oliver was on to the immigrant child issue weeks before most of the media, devoting one week’s central segment to an imagined kiddie court where clueless youngsters serve as lawyers and judges for various adult defendants. It was the flip side of the then-current reality, when young defendants, required legally to defend their status as immigrants entering the U.S., had no idea what was at stake, or how to proceed, and when not even the courts were equipped to help them. So how will Oliver react to this week’s news? Tune in and see…

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.