WEDNESDAY
JUNE 4
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

CMT, 8:00 p.m. ET

Music awards shows, from MTV’s concoctions up to and including the Grammys, are much more about the live performances than the actual awards. This CMT home-grown country music awards show is no exception, and lures more than enough talent each year to make it worth tuning in to sample. Tonight, for example, the live show is scheduled to include a duet with Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood, performing “Somethin’ Bad.” Expect somethin’ good.

 
  
 
 

Encore, 8:00 p.m. ET

Natalie Portman plays a 12-year-old, and was a 12-year-old, in Luc Besson’s gripping 1994 thriller that stars Jean Reno as a professional hit man who decides to protect a young girl whose family was brutally murdered. Gary Oldman plays one of the very best – as in the worst – villains in his career-long rogue’s gallery. And Portman, even at such a young age, is remarkable, while the film itself is equally remarkable for not being at all exploitive.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

It’s good to be the Queen. Ursula Andress stars in this unintentionally campy 1965 version of the H. Rider Haggard novel, playing the immortal East African ruler known as She Who Must Be Obeyed. (Yes, Rumpole of the Bailey fans, this is where Rumpole got the playful nickname for his wife.) And while the Queen’s demeanor is cold, her wardrobe is hot – hot enough to be remembered, and singled out as a Best Bet, almost 50 years later. Sigh.

 
  
 
 

National Geographic, 9:00 p.m. ET

It’s two days before the anniversary of D-Day 70 years ago, but National Geographic couldn’t wait, so is presenting this prime-time documentary special, which recaps the bold, bloody 80 days from the original landing on the Normandy beach to the Allied liberation of Paris.

 
  
 
 

TV Land, 10:30 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: The newest original sitcom by TV Land is a departure of sorts for the network. Instead of a standard, vintage-style multi-camera sitcom performed before an audience, Jennifer Falls is a single-camera comedy, like, say, My Name Is Earl. And that’s an intentional name drop, because the star of Jennifer Falls, playing a formerly successful career woman who moves back in with her mother when hard times hit, is Earl star Jaime Pressly. Another Earl veteran, Ethan Suplee, plays her brother, who hires her to work as a waitress at his sports bar – and their mom is played by one of the funniest TV moms in recent history, Jessica Walter of Arrested Development. Given all that pedigree, Jennifer Falls certainly is worth a peek.

 
  
 
 
 
 
Read and add comments HERE for today's Best Bets!
 
 
 
 
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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.