MONDAY
MAY 4
2015

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Spike, 7:30 p.m. ET

Talk about a blast from the past. Back to the Future, the Michael J. Fox time-traveling comedy hit that begins this prime-time double feature, was released in 1985 – 30 years ago now. Sigh. It has Fox, as Marty McFly, going back in time 30 years, to 1955. And now, if we traveled into the past that same length of time, we’d go back to when this movie premiered. But it gets worse. The second part of this doubleheader is 1989’s Back to the Future Part II, in which Marty and “Doc” Brown (Christopher Lloyd) traveled far into the future, to the era of the hoverboard and other neat toys. The year of that particular imagined future? You’re not going to like this: It’s set in the year… 2015.

 
  
 
 

Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET

SEASON FINALE: This is bound to be a grim season finale. Last week, the Ogre (recurring guest star Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes) met a violent end – and Barbara (Erin Richards), formerly the girlfriend of series hero Jim Gordon, even if she survives, may be hopelessly warped by her ordeal at the Ogre’s hands. In fact, she may turn out to be one of the show’s new villains – but the old ones, including the future Penguin and Riddler, are plenty busy in this final episode of the season, as is Jada Pickett Smith’s Fish Mooney (pictured).

 
  
 
 

CW, 9:00 p.m. ET

In this penultimate show of the season, Jane (Gina Rodriguez) attends her high-school reunion. Single and pregnant? Well, at least she won’t go unnoticed…

 
  
 
 

HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET

Filmmaker Brett Morgen, working with extensive personal journals and private videos and audio recordings provided by Kurt Cobain’s family, paints a portrait of the Nirvana front man that’s not always easy to watch, but does provide deeper glimpses than most celebrity film biographies. The abstract drawings in Cobain’s journals, especially the ones reflecting his many moods, reveal a lot. Sadly, home-video footage of Cobain and his wife Courtney Love, wallowing in drug addiction while trying to tend to their baby daughter, Frances, reveals even more. Concert footage is shown sparingly, but the contrasts are stunning: There are scenes of the grunge band’s meager beginnings in tiny clubs, giant stadium-size Nirvana spectacle shows, and, most effectively of all, an intentionally stripped-down MTV Unplugged appearance, where Cobain’s vocal on “All Apologies” is even more haunting in retrospect than it was at the time. The title of this film, by the way, comes from the name Cobain gave to his audiotape collections of music and musings: Montage of Heck.

 
  
 
 

CBS, 9:30 p.m. ET

David Letterman deserves a prime-time celebration for all he’s done in the other TV dayparts: daytime television (briefly), and late-night TV (for a full third of a century). And here it is: a 90-minute retrospective special on CBS, the network that has been Letterman’s home for the majority of that lengthy, impressive, entertaining run. Oh, and my own salute, by the way, runs today on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Oh, and tonight at 11:35 ET on Late Show with David Letterman, by the way, the scheduled guest is… President Barack Obama.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.