SATURDAY
JUNE 28
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

ABC, 12:00 p.m. ET

We’re now into the knockout round of the World Cup: 16 teams playing eight games, with the winner advancing and the loser going home, forced to wait until 2018 to try, try again. The first two games are played today, and both are broadcast live by ABC. At noon ET, host country Brazil plays Chile – and at 4 p.m. ET, it’s Uruguay vs. Colombia. These games are easy to sink your teeth into: Not only are they high-stakes, single-elimination games, but the last time Uruguay played, one of its players, Luis Suarez, bit an opposing player in the back on international television. But don’t look for him today – even though he’s considered one of the most talented players in the modern game, he was banned by FIFA from all competition for four months for his on-field indiscretion. That should teach him not to masticate in public.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Jack Benny is saluted tonight by TCM, and rightly so – more so than almost any other performer in show-biz history, Benny dominated first radio, then TV, for decades at a time, while also enjoying success in the cinema. Tonight, some of those movie successes are televised, beginning with this 1942 satire in which Benny plays an egotistical Polish actor who uses his thespian skills to confound the Nazis. Carole Lombard stars, in what turns out to be her final screen appearance, and this Ernst Lubitsch-directed comedy sparkles with wit and, at the time it was made, political boldness.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 10:00 p.m. ET

In this new satirical “reality series,” Ed Gamble plays Georgie, and Amy Hoggart steals the spotlight as Poppy, playing clueless siblings who profess to be members of the extended British royal family. In this very funny series, Georgie and Poppy tour the United States (in this particular episode, Texas), asking bizarre questions and making absurd comments as the locals try to make sense of their nonsense.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

It’s one of the oldest plots in show business: Hey, kids, let’s put on a show! In this 1936 movie, the cause they’re trying to benefit is a radio station that’s about to go bankrupt, and Jack Benny spearheads a “big broadcast” to save them. And what a broadcast: Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa play, George Burns and Gracie Allen play loosely disguised variations of themselves, and Benny himself ends up, as he should, on the business end of the mic. It’s a movie scrapbook of radio, filmed about a decade before TV took over. Ray Milland, seen here with Benny, co-stars.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 11:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s new show is heavy on the British guests – they include singer and reality show judge Cheryl Cole, Mrs. Brown’s Boys actor Brendan O’Carroll and British comic John Bishop. But these people almost always end up delighting you as you get to know them – and meanwhile, the other guests include Don Johnson and (not pictured) musical guest Chrissie Hynde.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.