FRIDAY
JULY 7
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: In 1987, Nintendo released the video game Castlevania in America. It was a dinky little 8-bit Nintendo cartridge game, with incessantly repeating music and a basic plot that had the game player maneuvering a whip-wielding hero as he worked his way through levels of a castle inhabited by vampires and other monsters. That was 30 years ago – and I played it with my kids, along with an even more addictive game based on Jaws. Anyway, this new animated series – four episodes, in total, make up Season 1 – premieres today on Netflix, promising a much darker (and much, much more animated) take on the Castlevania story line.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Wednesdays and Fridays this month, TCM is working its way through “50 Years of Hitchcock,” and I’ve already lost one night of sleep watching Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest works as showcased gloriously on TCM. (That scene in the 1929 silent film The Manxman, when the woman attempts suicide by jumping into a canal, and Hitchcock cuts from the bubbles on the water’s surface as she sinks to a close-up of the tip of her lover’s pen as he dips it in an inkwell? Come on!) Tonight, beginning at 8 p.m. ET with 1932’s Number Seventeen (pictured), we get another gluttonous banquet of early Hitchcock films, and we’re into the sound era for all of them. And the early “classic” Hitchcock films arrive quickly, starting at 9:30 p.m. ET with 1934’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (a film Hitch himself later remade). Watch, in particular, for 1935’s The 39 Steps (11 p.m. ET) and 1938’s The Lady Vanishes (12:45 a.m. ET) – but who am I kidding? Watch them all. I will be…

 
  
 
 

PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s episode is called “Pastry,” and demands that the competing bakers serve up three types of pastry, including the familiar Danish and, as the technical challenge, examples of the classic British tart. Personally, when I hear the term “classic British tart,” the first thing that comes to mind is the image of vintage Joan Collins, as the sultry Siren in the classic Batman series. But that’s my mind… Check local listings.

 
  
 
 

Reelz Channel, 9:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This is not a recommendation. It’s a clarification, because the title of this new nonfiction series, and the fact that it’s coming from Reelz, may understandably lead viewers to believe that Under the Influence is a new series in which show business folks talk about the art and artists inspiring them in their own creative careers. Instead, Under the Influence is a biographical tell-all series that hones in on the missteps – sex, drugs, and otherwise – that led certain celebrities to derail from their once-successful path. The opening-hour subjects are Heath Ledger and River Phoenix, which gives you the basic thrust. Next week: Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. Basically, Under the Influence is in the vein of VH1’s scandal-loving Behind the Music and E!’s True Hollywood Story – which means it’s a vein that, if not varicose, certainly is vericoarse.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.