FRIDAY
DECEMBER 29
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: The new season of Charlie Brooker’s futuristic anthology series, a technology-focused cross between The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, arrives today, with six new episodes devoted to the dreamy, the nightmarish, and the absolutely unsettling. The flagship of the new season, so to speak, is “USS Callister,” a movie-length episode starring Jesse Plemons (of Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad, just for starters) as a videogame designer who finds a way to clone his co-workers and insert them into an imaginary world he alone can visit – a world based on his favorite sci-fi TV show, a clear salute to the Star Trek of old. It’s a really good episode, touching (in an unexpectedly timely way) on power abuses by men towards women (as personified, in this creepy story, by Cristin Milioti, pictured). And the other episodes are a strong bunch, too, especially “Arkangel” (directed by Jodie Foster, starring Rosemarie DeWitt as an overly protective mother, and “Hang the DJ,” about an especially controlling new dating app. Even though this season drops two days before the end of 2017, it still made my Top 10 TV list for the year -- because I saw it in advance.
 
  
 
 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: To viewers the age of my college students, who watched Bill Nye the Science Guy on The Disney Channel as young kids, Bill Nye is a rock star – a science nerd whose enthusiasm for spreading knowledge, like theirs for his often playful lectures, has never waned. Season 2 utilizes the same fancy and fanciful set as last season, as well as the same approach: Each episode is devoted to a single topic, and presented not as a children’s series, but at one aimed at adults, especially the young ones represented by the studio audience. The first episode of the new season looks at marijuana, from both a scientific and social perspective. Then Nye adds his own, surprisingly admitting that he has a prejudice against pot because, when he was in college, his teammates on his Ultimate Frisbee squad usually were stoned, and didn’t compete well as a result. At that point, Bill Nye Saves the World stages a modern recreation, with Nye, once again, playing with a group of stoners, against a less impaired squad. Science! And future episodes cover such subjects as computer hacking, sex, and time travel, and feature such guest stars as director Kevin Smith (on the marijuana show, naturally) and Tim Meadows, who steals Bill Nye’s identity and his show (pictured). As with last season, good fun is had by all – and, along the way, some very good points are made, too.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Oskar Werner and Henri Serre have the title roles in this 1962 film by Francois Truffaut, but the real star is Jeanne Moreau as Catherine, the woman who completes their long-running romantic triangle. The story begins before WWI, and follows the trio for decades, taking several unexpected and memorable turns.
 
  
 
 

PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

Repeated from last month, this American Masters special is a solid overview of the career of Bob Hope, whose contributions to comedy – film as well as standup – are indeed well worth remembering and saluting. Check local listings. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

After man reached and landed on the moon in the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, subsequent space missions, even manned ones, attracted a lot less attention – until the 1970 mission of Apollo 13, which developed serious problems shortly after launch. This 1995 movie, directed flawlessly by Ron Howard, captures it all, with just as much intensity during the mission control scenes on Earth as during the ones in space. And what a cast: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon are the astronauts lost in space, and Ed Harris and Gary Sinise are among the NASA colleagues trying to bring them back alive.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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2688 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.