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FRIDAY
SEPTEMBER 26
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 
TRANSPARENT

Amazon Prime Video, Check local listings

SERIES PREMIERE: Just as the streaming video service Netflix put itself on the map, big time, by presenting the excellent drama House of Cards, Amazon Prime Video pulls the same trick, after a few seasons of original programming development, by unveiling Transparent, a new comedy-drama starring Jeffrey Tambor as a 70-year-old man who has decided to embrace his female side – henceforth her female side. Telling the family, including his ex-wife (Judith Light) is only one of the tricky paths to be negotiated. It’s a role that could have gone overboard so easily, and taken the series with it – but Tambor is stunningly real and exposed here, serving up yet another bold and brilliant acting triumph in a long career that’s full of them. Gaby Hoffman, Melora Hardin and Jay Duplass co-star as the grown children; Jill Soloway created the show. For a full review, listen to today’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR, or, after about 4 p.m. ET, visit the Fresh Air website. Also, for Eric Gould's take on Transparent, as well as other streaming content, stop by The Cold Light Reader.
 
  
 
 
SCARFACE

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

TCM presents a world-class double feature of gangster movies tonight. Howard Hawks’ 1932 Scarface, starring Paul Muni, heads things off at 8 p.m. ET, with ample support from Ann Dvorak, George Raft, Boris Karloff and others. Then, at 9:45 ET, TCM presents an even older entry in this classic film genre: 1931’s Little Caesar, starring Edward G. Robinson as the unhinged, tough-talking, trigger-happy Rico.

 
  
 
 
LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER: “SWEENEY TODD: IN CONCERT WITH THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC”

PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd: It began on Broadway in 1979, a stunningly aggressive and impressive Stephen Sondheim musical starring Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury. He played a bitter barber in Victorian London who used his razors to often deadly effect, and she played his willing accomplice, who disposed of the bodies by grinding them into filling for competitively stuffed meat pies. Watching it on Broadway, when it was in the final week of previews, was one of the best theater experiences of my life, and Sweeney has thrilled me ever since. Tim Burton’s movie version, starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, premiered in 2007, and a concert version TV special was released in 2001, starring George Hearn and Patti LuPone, and featuring Neil Patrick Harris as Tobias, the addled baker’s assistant. This year’s PBS Arts Fall Festival opens with a new concert version, filmed earlier this year at Lincoln Center and backed by the New York Philharmonic. Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson play the leading roles, and they’re great, with Thompson, especially, an unexpected revelation, handling the tricky music well and the shades of comedy even better. I was there to watch that, too, and was blown away all over again. Sweeney! Sweeney! Sweeney! Sweeney! Check local listings.

 
  
 
 
THE KNICK

Cinemax, 10:00 p.m. ET

Police brutality, and the fatality of a young black man at the hands of a white cop, are at the center of tonight’s episode, which sounds like it was ripped from the headlines. Except that this medical drama is set in the year 1900, so those headlines would have been about 115 years old. Sadly, though, some things never seem to change – though, on this show, relationships between several staff members at the Knickerbocker hospital will change, as a result of the violence and unease around them. Clive Owen stars.

 
  
 
 
REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER

HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s scheduled guests include Naomi Klein, Gen. Anthony Zinni and a former Real Time contributing reporter, Alexandra Pelosi.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.
 
 
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