WEDNESDAY

JULY 31

2013

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

ABC Family, 9:00 p.m. ET

I have no idea why or how ABC Family, rather than Nickelodeon, is presenting this new quiz show, which premiered last week, because it has Nick written all over it: Contestants, most of them young, try to compete in a spelling competition while being assaulted by all manner of sounds, sights, liquids and other distractions. Had this been a Nick show, there definitely would have been green slime. But as family-viewing summer diversions go, why not? Can you spell “instructive,” boys and girls? Now, can you spell it while being soaked by a spray of water?

NAZI MEGA WEAPONS

PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

This is the latest installment of a PBS series that seems to pick up where the History channel left off. Anything Hitler-related used to be History’s sweet spot, so to speak – but that was in the days before Pawn Stars and American Pickers and Counting Cars and Ax Men and Ice Road Truckers. (Side question: How many franchise-unrelated programs must a cable network televise before it’s required to change its name or be guilty of false advertising?) At any rate, this installment of PBS’s Nazi Mega Weapons tells the story of the V-2, the long-range rocket invented by Werner von Braun that launched the space race. Von Braun, of course, defected to the U.S. after the war and designed rockets for America, including the Saturn V booster rocket that took men to the moon and a series of ballistic missile weapons systems. As lyricist Tom Lehrer once sang so memorably, “‘Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? / That’s not my department,’ says Werner von Braun.” Check local listings.

FUTURAMA

Comedy Central, 10:00 p.m. ET

In tonight’s new episode, Fry and Leela deliver a crate to a faraway planet, and find themselves in the middle of a gang war. It’s not quite West Side Story, but it’ll do, so long as you don’t have crate expectations.

THE BRIDGE

FX, 10:00 p.m. ET

That star-shaped figure in the bottom left of the picture? That’s Maria, a random victim who’s been staked out in the desert by this show’s aggressively showy killer, with her image beamed out live to the Internet as she’s weakened by dehydration, exposure and other life-threatening conditions. (Next to her is a tripod, with the camera recording her awful ordeal.) Can our heroes, joining forces from either side of the U.S.-Mexico border, find her in time? And after that, can they get any closer to the killer?

IMITATION OF LIFE

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

Douglas Sirk directed this 1959 tearjerker about widows, daughters and race, starring Lana Turner, Sandra Dee, Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner. It’s a film about two dysfunctional single-parent families – with one mother paying little attention to her daughter, and the other mother’s daughter denying her own heritage.

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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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BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

ABC Family, 9:00 p.m. ET

PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

Comedy Central, 10:00 p.m. ET

FX, 10:00 p.m. ET

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

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