MONDAY
JUNE 5
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Acorn TV, 3:00 a.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: Well, it’s the premiere in the U.S., anyway. But in its native Australia, the series introduced here until the title The Heart Guy has been running under the name of Doctor Doctor. Either way, Rodger Corser stars as Hugh Knight, a competent young heart surgeon and inveterate party animal who’s forced to return to his sleepy small town of Whyhope. That basic plot makes this series, by any other name, a sort of cross between Northern Exposure (where a young New York doctor worked off student loans by setting up temporarily practice in small-town Alaska) and Justified (where a deputy U.S. marshal was reprimanded for questionable behavior by being sent back to investigate crimes in his native Kentucky foothills). For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.
 
  
 
 

Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET

SEASON FINALE: This series, a prequel and intermediate variant to the familiar Batman story from DC Comics, has been all about reinvention and new identities, many of them dramatic. Characters, over time on this series, have morphed into the Riddler, come very close to familiar alter egos as Poison Ivy and Catwoman, taken on more of the attributes and attitudes of the Penguin, and even stepped closer to the dark vengefulness of Batman himself. Two weeks ago, Morena Baccarin’s Lee, who started the series as a co-worker of Ben McKenzie’s James Gordon, then worked through the roles of Gordon’s lover, followed by becoming the wife and widow of another man, just injected herself with a serum to turn herself unusually strong and emotionally evil (pictured). She is, in essence, the show’s newest villain – except, at the end of last week’s episode, Gordon did the same thing. There are very few good guys left in Gotham right now… and all the various villains, in tonight’s two-hour season finale, are fighting furiously for turf.

 
  
 
 

NBC, 8:00 p.m. ET

The Pittsburgh Penguins won the first two games. The Nashville Predators won Game 3. And now, we arrive at Game 4, which either will even the series at two games apiece, or give the scrappy Penguins an imposing 3-1 advantage.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

June is Audrey Hepburn month on TCM, where her films will be celebrated every Monday in June.  And the event begins, quite tastefully, with one of her most incandescent romantic comedies: 1953’s Roman Holiday, in which she stars as a princess on holiday in Rome, falling in love with an American reporter played by Gregory Peck.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET

DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: The indefatigable Carl Reiner is behind this new, defiantly cheerful documentary, in which he visits with fellow nonagenarians to talk about their approaches to life, love, diet, exercise, hobbies, and not dying. (My own father, even in his 70s, was fond of saying, “At my age, I don’t even buy green bananas.”) In one segment, Reiner sits with Mel Brooks and Norman Lear, all of whom have been mutual friends for more than 65 years – and all three of them I interviewed and profiled for my latest book, The Platinum Age of Television.

 
  
 
 

AMC, 10:00 p.m. ET

Last week, this series took the holiday weekend off – so I’m waiting desperately for a new episode. It arrives tonight.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.