THURSDAY
MARCH 30
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

CBS, 8:00 p.m. ET

For years, this sitcom has found new life, and new energy, by altering the dynamics of its characters, and throwing them into new situations – road trips, relationships, romances. Tonight, add another R to that list, with a new round of roommates. In this new episode, Raj, already painting with new colors because he’s newly poor, moves in with Penny and Leonard.

 
  
 
 

CW, 9:00 p.m. ET

This series returns after a few weeks off – and spends time, this episode, with its parental figures as well as the Riverdale teens. And, surprise, they’re no less twisted…

 
  
 
 

CBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: This series has been around so long that this is the start of competing cycle number 29.  That’s a lot of races, amazing or not. But on TV, familiarity, in some cases, breeds not contempt, but indifference. I used to enjoy this show, and watch it faithfully, but a few years ago it just started feeling stale, and much too repetitive. Tonight, this newest edition of Amazing Race shakes things up a bit. Instead of casting duos of friends, lovers, married couples, relatives, or business partners as paired competitors, this new cycle, for the first time, pairs the teams at the starting line. I fear this may lead to lots of forced pairings of oil-and-water personalities, the same formula that’s worked for about a generation on The Real World. But we’ll see. And I guess, for a while at least, I’ll watch…

 
  
 
 

TCM, 1:30 a.m. ET

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this experimental 1968 film, directed and (sort of) written by William Greaves, scheduled on television before. But certainly, half a century later, it can be viewed as anticipating both the genre of reality TV and such pretend “documentary” projects as The Office, Modern Family and Waiting for Guffman. (If you’re so inclined, and you can remember it, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One also is the perfect movie title to throw into the hat in a game of charades if your aim is to bring the entire game to a wrenching halt. Another good movie title in this regard: the 1971 Dustin Hoffman comedy Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, which allows you to start off the round by indicating “Movie,” then, to the annoyance of everyone playing the game, “14 words.”) But I digress. Anyway, Symbio dot dot dot is like a peeled onion, or a Russian Matryoshka nesting doll, with several layers going on at once. For his movie, Greaves auditioned a small group of unsuspecting acting students to star in a film, while also filming a documentary about the making of the movie – and, pulling back to an even wider perspective, filming an additional film about the making of both those films, especially as the process begins to fall apart. And now you have a good sense why Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One hasn’t been on TV much. And why, in the same vein, there never was a Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take Two…

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.