NBC, 8:00 p.m. ET
No more chair-swiveling and button-smacking. The audition rounds are over, the teams are selected, and now it's time for phase two of this series, the battle round. That's where two contestants from the same team square off against one another, after getting advice from their team's judge, and from guest mentors. This season, Blake Shelton's guest mentors include Kelly Clarkson, the first, very successful winner of American Idol -- whose appearance here must have the Idol producers saying, "Et tu, Kelly?" But her defection is timely and smart, as well as another sign of her already established career independence.
HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
Friday’s edition of this live HBO talk show was so lively, so entertaining, and so honest and thought-provoking in its back-and-forth discussions, it really should not be missed, so catch this repeat. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson stole the show, which was so good, I think I’ll write a whole column about it. See
Bianculli’s Blog.
IFC, 8:00 p.m. ET
Guillermo del Toro directed this imaginative, mature 2006 fantasy film with such inventiveness and distinction that he was recently handed screenplay duties for the pair of upcoming Hobbit movies. Watch this movie – a dark yet inspirational story about a young girl who escapes into a fantasy world as an antidote to her father’s sadistic wartime exploits – and see why. Ivana Baquero stars.
TV Guide Network, 10:00 p.m. ET
Part 1 of 4. I doubt whether this nonfiction series (this is the first of four parts) will qualify as one of them. As a matter of fact, having seen a five-minute preview, I’m sure it won’t. It will be interesting, though, to see just what TV Guide Network, with the imprimatur that association provides, will count as the top 100 must-see TV events of all time.
NBC, 10:00 p.m. ET
Ivy (Megan Hilty) continues to get more aggressive in her dueling diva behavior, pushing chorus girl Karen (Katharine McPhee), her former rival for the leading role in Marilyn: The Musical, more and more into the background. But this week, some of the people in her camp begin to push back – as does Karen.