SUNDAY

AUGUST 31

2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

FXX, Check local listings

We’re up to Day 11 of this marathon, and I’ve visited just about every day so far. Tonight’s highlight, for me, is “Exit from the Kwik-E-Mart,” a Season 23 episode that is televised at 10 p.m. ET. It’s about high-priced street art – and though Banksy was represented in an earlier episode, the commentary about popular and ground-level art is quite clever here. And so is the opening sequence, which Game of Thrones fans won’t want to miss: It’s a Springfield variation on that HBO show’s involved opening-credits map sequence.

THE X FACTOR UK

AXS TV, 8:00 p.m. ET

This is the original British series, not its U.S. version that borrowed the same format. And for this British version, which began Season 14 last night overseas, original host and executive producer Simon Cowell has rejoined the judging panel. So has Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, who, before her marriage (and name change) earlier this year, was familiar to both U.K. and U.S. X Factor viewers as Cheryl Cole (seen here with Cowell, from the season premiere). Long-time judge Louis Walsh is here, too, as is first-time judge Mel B, formerly known as Scary Spice from the Spice Girls. How Scary is she now? Tune in and see – as AXS TV presents one-day-later U.S. telecasts of the episodes premiering this season in England.

SHANE

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Here’s a classic Western indeed – one of the definitive examples of the ranch-wars subgenre. George Stevens directs this 1953 emotional confrontation between white and black hats, with Alan Ladd starring as Shane, the loner who rides in to help ranchers being squeezed out by a greedy adversary – and Jean Arthur and Brandon de Wilde play, respectively, the widow and her son that he protects at great personal risk. The scene-stealer, of course, is Jack Palance as Jack Wilson, a ruthless hired gun who played one of the most indelibly evil screen villains of the Fifties.

THE STRAIN

FX, 10:00 p.m. ET

In this eighth episode of FX’s scary new series, Eph (Corey Stoll) learns that the creepy creatures he’s trying to hunt and eradicate have a particular aversion to ultraviolet rays – which means this series, in the same scene, may give viewers something both ultraviolet and ultraviolent. Let there be light!

MANHATTAN

WGN America, 10:00 p.m. ET

In tonight’s episode, Abby (Rachel Brosnahan, pictured) learns that her husband Charlie is going on a top-secret field trip to check out the country’s first plutonium reactor, and is taking an “assistant,” Helen, with him. This could well lead to an explosion that has nothing to do with nuclear fission – just marital friction.

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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

FXX, Check local listings

AXS TV, 8:00 p.m. ET

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

FX, 10:00 p.m. ET

WGN America, 10:00 p.m. ET

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