MONDAY
AUGUST 28
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

There’s been so much bleak news blaring across TV since Friday, I feel obliged to reveal that tonight’s P.O.V. documentary, Raising Bertie, is hopeful, and ends with an uplifting conclusion. Normally, that would require some sort of Spoiler Alert – but today, in particular, I suspect that the last thing viewers will be seeking out on TV is bad news or bleak outlooks. The Bertie in the title isn’t a person, but a place. It’s Bertie County in rural North Carolina, where this film tracks three young men as they try to define themselves, and pursue a future, while pursuing local job opportunities, football, and education, and battling to avoid hurdles and temptations thrown in their way. Check local listings. For a full review, see our newest TVWW contributor, Roger Catlin's TV Eye.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

Mel Brooks told TVWW a few years ago that he was toying with the idea of, and writing songs for, a possible Broadway musical based on Blazing Saddles. Watch this 1974 comedy classic with that in mind, and it makes so much sense – from the opening theme song to the railroad “work song.” Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder are partnered brilliantly here – and Richard Pryor, who would partner with Wilder even more brilliantly in future films, is one of the writers, with Brooks, on this superb Western spoof.

 
  
 
 

TNT, 11:00 p.m. ET

We’re getting near the end of the 10-episode first season of this freewheeling dramatization of the early life of William Shakespeare – and right now, to be or not to be renewed, that is the question…

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.