FRIDAY
MARCH 8
2019

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: Ricky Gervais stars in this new Netflix series, and also wrote and directed it. He plays a recent widower living a morose and solitary life (except for his dog), going through the paces of visiting his ailing father (who has dementia) and working at a tiny local “free” newspaper (where he’s assigned pitifully dull feature stories). Co-stars include the endearing Ashley Jensen, from Ugly Betty and Gervais’ own Extras – and, as always, there’s a message, and a warm heart, beneath the surface of Gervais’ characters and TV series.

 
  
 
 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

MOVIE PREMIERE: Alfre Woodard stars in the title role of this new Netflix movie, playing a woman who tires of her life as a taken-for-granted one-woman support system for her three grown children, her grandchildren and others. So this “giving tree” rips up her roots and heads impulsively to Montana, where she meets new people, gets a new job, and has intermittent fantasy conversations with her dream man, Blair Underwood. The part of Blair Underwood is played by Blair Underwood. And Alfre Woodard looks just as lively and luminous as she did when she co-starred in St. Elsewhere in the 1980s. I suspect a Dorian Gray pact, or some sort of trickery like The Shadow, where she’s actually been replaced by her own granddaughter… Regardless, this is a charming little character study.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Jesse Pearson, who plays the Elvis-like rock star in this 1963 movie musical, didn’t get much traction out of this film, but others did. Dick Van Dyke and Janet Leigh already were stars, thanks to TV’s The Dick Van Dyke Show and the movie Psycho respectively, and Ed Sullivan, playing himself, had been a TV mainstay since 1948. But Ann-Margret, who played a Birdie-brained teen and danced with wild enthusiasm in the opening credits, stole the movie before it even got started. Bye Bye Birdie, in one memorable song, explains why Ed Sullivan was such a central cultural touchstone – and Sullivan himself, who had introduced the real Elvis Presley to middle America on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, reinforced his own impact in 1964, a year after Bye Bye Birdie was released, by introducing another musical act on his live TV show. What was the name of that quartet again? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah – The Beatles.
 
  
 
 

HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s guests, after a week of anti-Semitism charges in Congress and presidential debate charges against Fox News, include author Noah Rothman and political commentator Michael Steele.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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3697 Comments
 
 
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Dave Bianculli
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Dave Bianculli
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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.