MONDAY
FEBRUARY 27
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

SiriusXM, 6:00 p.m. ET

PROGRAM PREMIERE: When my book on the Smothers Brothers came out in 2009, Craig Ferguson had me on as a guest on his CBS late-night TV venue, The Late Late Show. I appreciated that gracious gesture a lot – years before, when I was writing for The New York Daily News, I had identified Ferguson, one of the dozen or so personalities given on-air tryouts as possible replacements for Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show, as the person who should be given the job, based on his tryout performances on CBS. He got the job – and though the two events, my recommendation and his hiring, may not have been even marginally connected, Ferguson always was very nice to me. So even though this is a TV column and website, here’s a shot at giving back: Starting today at 6 p.m. ET, Ferguson launches a new show. It’s an East Coast drive-time satellite radio show on SiriusXM, presented on the service’s Comedy Greats channel, found on SiriusXM Channel 94. I don’t know what he’s going to do, or which guests he’s going to feature – but for this new hosting job, I suspect quite strongly, he’ll be very comfortably dressed.
 
  
 
 

NBC, 8:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: In the most recent cycle of this musical competition series, Miley Cyrus did a very good job sliding into one of the judges’ chairs for the first time. She’s established herself as someone who deserves a return invitation – but for this cycle, her chair is being filled by returning judge Gwen Stefani. Stefani has appeared two previous times as a judge on The Voice, and now, of course, is the girlfriend of Blake Shelton, who has been a judge every cycle since The Voice began. So has Adam Levine, but contestants coached by Shelton have won five times, including Sundance Head in a surprise victory the last time around. Levine, as Voice coach, has scored three victories. Stefani and Alicia Keys, who is returning from the most recent cycle after her first time as coach, will be looking for a first victory with the new round of competition, which begins tonight. And since the Blind Audition rounds routinely deliver some of this series’ best moments, so does the fun.

 
  
 
 

ABC, 9:00 p.m. ET

MINISERIES PREMIERE: This scripted miniseries about the rise of LGBTQ rights is the sort of miniseries, and meaningful drama, broadcast network television used to present almost routinely, in such vintage made-for-TV movies as 1972’s That Certain Summer (starring Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen in a story of a family man who divorces his wife and informs her, and their teenage son, that he’s gay) and 1985’s An Early Frost (starring Aidan Quinn as a young lawyer who comes out to his parents after learning he has this new disease called AIDS). In 2017, both a miniseries, and something topical and meaningful, are relative rarities on broadcast prime-time television. But here is When We Rise, broadcast every weeknight this week – except for tomorrow night, when President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress. For a full review, see Ed Bark’s Uncle Barky’s Bytes.
 
  
 
 

A&E, 10:00 p.m. ET

Last week, Bates Motel inaugurated its final season by introducing some delicious new twists. Chief among them is that Norma Bates, played by Vera Farmiga, is dead – but that doesn’t mean she’s not still hanging around the house, and in the disturbed imagination of Freddie Highmore’s Norman Bates. This has made Bates Motel even more fascinating, unhinged and entertaining: Farmiga gets to act not as the old “living” Norma, but as various shades of Norma as concocted by her unduly attached son. Norman, meanwhile, is such a victim of his own imagination that in last week’s episode, when he used the infamous motel peephole to spy on a couple getting amorous in the adjacent room, Norman’s, uh, enjoyment while watching them was interrupted by a phone call. From his mother. Who asked what he was doing. And she’s dead. TV doesn’t get more twisted, or more unpredictable, than this.
 
  
 
 

ABC, 11:35 p.m. ET

After what happened last night at the Oscars (for details and a reaction, see Bianculli's Blog), tonight’s show, with first-time Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel returning to his home base, has got to be considered must-see TV. Don’t be surprised if there’s lots of laughs based on a comedy of errors – and don’t be surprised, somehow, if Matt Damon’s around to participate…
 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.