SATURDAY

SEPTEMBER 30

2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

This 1952 movie is presented by TCM as one of “The Essentials,” and presents Kirk Douglas as an unscrupulous Hollywood producer (or is that redundant?). His various tactics and abuses are recounted, in turn, by a director, a writer, and a actress. They’re played, respectively and memorably, by Barry Sullivan, Dick Powell, and, sigh, Lana Turner.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE

NBC, 11:29 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: It’s Season 43 for Saturday Night Live as a TV show – which means it’s also Season 43 for me as a TV critic, since this was the first series I ever reviewed as a columnist for a daily newspaper. Tonight’s guest host: Ryan Gosling. Tonight’s musical guest: Jay-Z. That’s a far cry, and 42 years, from opening night, when the guest host was George Carlin, and the musical guests were Billy Preston and Janis Ian. (Hi, buddy Janis, if you’re reading this!)

ERASERHEAD

TCM, 2:00 a.m. ET

If your head is still spinning about David Lynch’s latest creation, the recently concluded Twin Peaks: The Return series on Showtime, here’s a chance to spin that head some more, by watching some of Lynch’s earliest creations. TCM starts its late-night Lynch mob with 1977’s Eraserhead, written and directed by Lynch. It stars Jack Nance as Henry Spencer, a factory worker with a screaming girlfriend, a deformed baby, and a fairly warped sense of reality. Nance would go on to play Pete Martell on both versions of Twin Peaks – and Nance’s co-star here, Charlotte Stewart as Mary X, would appear in both the 1990 and 2017 version of Twin Peaks also, as Betty Briggs.

THE GRANDMOTHER

TCM, 4:00 a.m. ET

And seven years before filming Eraserhead, David Lynch wrote and directed this even more surrealistic and disturbing 1970 short movie, called The Grandmother. It’s about a young boy with abusive parents who seeks, and finds, an unusual form of emotional refuge: He sprouts seeds which mature into a loving, supportive grandmother.

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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.

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