TUESDAY
AUGUST 29
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

NBC, 8:00 p.m. ET

This is the third of three live shows presenting 12 of the remaining contenders. After tonight, the talent pool is winnowed considerably. Not as considerably as if I’d been in charge of the winnowing… but you can’t winnow them all.

 
  
 
 

PBS, 8:00 p.m. ET

Part 1 of 2. This 2015 biography of Walt Disney is impressive, and instructive, precisely because it doesn’t avoid or whitewash some of the more problematic parts of the great show-biz visionary’s personality and history. Quite the contrary: This American Experience two-part documentary, concluding next week, is fascinating, and worth watching as a rerun, because it addresses those issues, including his fights with the union and his tolerance for certain types of prejudice, directly. Check local listings.

 
  
 
 

Cinemax, 9:50 p.m. ET

Alexander Payne directed this nicely modulated 2004 character study, which stars Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church as a pair of pals taking a hedonistic trip through Santa Barbara County, California’s wine country. They’re both excellent – Giamatti in particular – but save special attention and praise for their female co-stars, Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh, who are given unusually complicated characters to play, and take full advantage of the opportunity.

 
  
 
 

Discovery, 10:02 p.m. ET

Part 5. This fact-based miniseries continues to play fast and loose, and increasingly faster and looser, with the facts of the case it’s dramatizing. Because of the performances, though, and some of the details that do indeed match the official record, this Discovery docudrama continues to be worth recommending, and viewing. I do wish, however, that Discovery would have discovered that, in a dramatization based on fact, the closer a TV adaptation can get to those facts is better all around, including when it comes to the drama itself. Truth isn’t only stranger than fiction. Most of the time, it’s better. Paul Bettany stars as Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and Sam Worthington plays the FBI profiler who hunted him for years.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 2:00 a.m. ET

Today is Marion Davies day on TCM. If her name isn’t that familiar as a star in the Hollywood constellation, try this: She was the B-list actress who was the mistress of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, a relationship that was alluded to, and parodied, by Orson Welles in his classic film Citizen Kane. Her films are shown all day and evening, including 1928’s The Patsy at 6:30 p.m. ET, where she does her impressions of other silent-movie stars such as Lillian Gish. But the treasure, of sorts, arrives late, when TCM presents 1932’s Blondie of the Follies (pictured), a musical also featuring Robert Montgomery and Jimmy Durante.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.