TUESDAY
MAY 27
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

This new installment of Frontline presents two half-hour reports, each focusing on a fomenting civil war inside a country whose history, and domestic resentments, run deep. One half is on Ukraine, the other on Syria. This is precisely the sort of documentary the broadcast networks used to do with pride and regularity, but now almost never even attempt. Check local listings.

 
  
 
 

Syfy, 9:00 p.m. ET

SERIES RETURN: Technically, this is the midseason return of this Syfy costume competition series. So far, Heroes of Cosplay has televised only six episodes – tonight’s new outing is number seven – but while its rules of competition seem vague and capricious, the chances for expression of creativity here are entertaining enough to warrant a peek. Think of it as early Project Runway, but with a fantasy theme.

 
  
 
 

FX, 10:00 p.m. ET

Last week’s episode ended with a white-hot, whiteout surprise: While Gus and Molly (Colin Hanks, Allison Tolman) were pursuing a lead, and a villain, in the blinding snow, the former apparently shot, and felled, the latter. But Molly fans need not fear, as Ed Bark reports in his latest Uncle Barky’s Bytes.
 
  
 
 

Syfy, 10:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: Wil Wheaton, the former child actor from Stand By Me who was the token teen on Star Trek: The Net Generation, has had his highest-profile adult role of late as a recurring role on The Big Bang Theory, playing a twisted version of himself. Now, starting with tonight’s premiere of The Wil Wheaton Project, he presides over a Syfy series in which he reacts to the week in all things fantasy and sci-fi, and gives a heads-up about things to come. It sounds like a one-man, single-topic, expanded Wayne’s World segment – and as they used to say in old movies, it’s such a crazy idea, it just might work.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

Otto Preminger directed this 1944 film noir classic, in which Dana Andrews plays a detective who becomes increasingly obsessed with the dead woman whose murder he’s investigating. Said woman, the titular Laura, is played by Gene Tierney – and though both the genre and the premise would suggest an extremely unhappy and unresolved ending, keep watching.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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3695 Comments
 
 
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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.