FRIDAY
JUNE 6
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Netflix, Check local listings

SEASON PREMIERE: Turn on Netflix this morning, or anytime therafter, and Season 2 of Orange Is the New Black is waiting for you. Not just the first episode of the new season, but all 13. Weeds creator Jenji Kohan has started the new year of Orange in an intentionally unsettling place, with prisoner Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) roused from her cell in the middle of the night, and transported to some unknown place for some unknown reason. The first hour is almost all Piper, and it’s a smart reboot to a series that thinks of itself as a comedy, but often is more serious, and involving, than many dramas. For a full review, hear today’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR, or, beginning Friday afternoon, visit the Fresh Air website.
 
  
 
 

Public Television, Check local listings

On this week’s show, Bill Moyers hosts economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, who gave an impassioned speech last fall warning that we were destroying the American dream because of our country’s unfair economic policies. Stiglitz hasn’t changed his mind since – but he tells Moyers he can suggest a solution. Moyers’ series is scheduled at the local public TV station level, with a window from Friday to Sunday. To see where it’s shown in your area, check the Moyers & Company website. Check local listings.

 
  
 
 

NBC, 8:00 p.m. ET

This prime-time network TV salute to the invasion of Normandy, 70 years after the horrifically difficult military mission known as D-Day, brings Brian Williams to the Normandy beaches, with several men who have been there before – back in 1944, when Allied soldiers stormed the beach at Nazi-occupied France.

 
  
 
 

History, 9:00 p.m. ET

Part 1 of 2. Another 70th anniversary D-Day special, this one runs two hours tonight and another two tomorrow. (Hey, look, Ma! The History Channel is showing some actual history!) And it, like many other new D-Day documentaries, is taking the time and opportunity to interview surviving veterans of that part of the war, who were as young as 18 at the time, and certainly are resources to be used now, and gratefully.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET

After a week off, Bill Maher returns with a new live hour of TV talk – featuring such guests, this time, as former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner and, shown here, film director (and, now, hitchhiking author) John Waters. Both of them have been on Real Time before, and been very entertainingly candid.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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3694 Comments
 
 
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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.