MONDAY
JUNE 4
2012

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

NBCSN, 7:30 p.m. ET

The first two games of this year’s Stanley Cup hockey championships have been decided in overtime, the first time that’s happened in more than 60 years. The Los Angeles Kings, in search of the first Cup in its franchise history, managed to notch both victories, and on the home ice of the New Jersey Devils, yet. So tonight the Kings have home-ice advantage as well as momentum – but if this is to become a classic Stanley Cup series, this is the game in which the Devils will find a way to strike back.

 
  
 
 

Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET

This is the 10th cycle of shows for Hell’s Kitchen (at some point, Fox should provide a running tally of volatile chef Gordon Ramsay’s favorite expletives and insults: how many “stupid cow” utterances has he made by now?).  The prize, this time around, is running Ramsay’s steak restaurant at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas – so expect the treatment of meat to be paramount among this season’s tests. Like most competition shows that have gone on this long, Hell’s Kitchen has gotten unavoidably repetitive – but Ramsay’s personality is dynamic, and the competition on other networks is thin, thin, thin. 

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Here’s another impressive movie from 1939, the year that may have been the most bountiful in cinema history. (Also released that year: The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton, and so many more. I rest my case.) In this historically fanciful account, adapted from the Maxwell Anderson play Elizabeth the Queen, Bette Davis plays Queen Elizabeth I, who engages in a complex romantic affair with the Earl of Essex – played by the dashing Errol Flynn. (Watch for Vincent Price as “stupid git” – to quote John Lennon – Sir Walter Raleigh.) It's followed at 10 p.m. ET by The Virgin Queen.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

More Bette Davis as Queen Elizabeth I: At 10 p.m. ET, Davis reprises her regal role in 1955’s The Virgin Queen, with Sir Walter Raleigh given a more central focus – and played, in this movie, by Richard Todd. And watch for a key supporting role in The Virgin Queen, too – specifically, a young Joan Collins as Beth Throgmorton.

 
  
 
 

HBO Signature, 9:00 p.m. ET

Season 5 of this delectable summer series begins this weekend on HBO – so if you want to get caught up, or refreshed, by all that happened last year, HBO Signature is presenting mini-clumps of  True Blood Season 4 shows this week, beginning tonight at 9 with 2011’s season premiere. Let there be Blood…

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.