THURSDAY
MARCH 31
2016

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

CBS, 8:00 p.m. ET

In tonight’s new episode, two of the gang’s significant others are led astray, when the boys decide to keep secret their plan to sneak away for a screening of the new comics-inspired movie Suicide Squad. But someone else reveals the plan, so the girls aren’t led astray for long.

 
  
 
 

Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET

Just like the remaining NCAA men’s teams this year, the contestants on American Idol are down to the Final Four. And tonight on Idol, after performances by those remaining singers, that number gets whittled down to three. Last week, one of them, Trent Harmon, turned in a series-best performance, and just in time – but who will leave after this new round depends on song choice, as much as performance, this evening.

 
  
 
 

CNN, 9:00 p.m. ET

MINISERIES PREMIERE: This new CNN miniseries by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, a follow-up to their previous decade retrospectives The Sixties and The Seventies, begins, as did those others, by looking at the decade through the eyes (or the eye) of television. But this time, this opening installment is expanded to two hours, allowing for twice as much discussion of the era that gave us Hill Street Blues and MTV and Miami Vice and The Cosby Show and the finale of M*A*S*H. This time around, I should disclose as a combination point of pride and warning, I’m not only on camera as a TV critic, but served behind the scenes as a consultant. So if you don’t like this installment of The Eighties, feel free to blame me twice.

 
  
 
 

FX, 10:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: This season, Archer and company open a detective agency, and the first client they get is a modern, movie-star variant on the standard femme fatale. Nothing else about this series, though, is standard – just very, very funny.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

This 1956 Eliza Kazan movie, based on a play by Tennessee Williams, is about a 19-year-old girl, played by Carroll Baker, married to a man who promised to protect the somewhat simple girl’s virginity until she turned 20, which is just around the corner. But so is another man, which makes this a particularly steamy film, starring Karl Malden and Eli Wallach. This is shown on the last night of TCM’s month-long salute to controversial films because the Catholic Legion of Decency banned the film after seeing a still photograph of Baker, lounging in an oversized crib, sucking her thumb. If it’s good enough for the Catholic Legion of Decency to get worked up over, it’s good enough to display on TVWW. History is important.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.