THURSDAY
JUNE 29
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Mike Nichols made his cinematic directorial debut with this sizzling 1966 drama, a year before injecting movie history with a strong dose of youth serum by releasing The Graduate. This tense, raw argumentative character study – based on the play by Edward Albee, written and staged only four years earlier – stars Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, and Sandy Dennis, who play two couples mired in the political, competitive and stiflingly insular world of academia. It’s a world I now inhabit, which doesn’t make watching this movie any more comfortable an experience. But wow. What intense acting – and, from a young comic like Nichols getting behind the camera for the first time, what inspired, and impressive, direction.

 
  
 
 

MGM HD, 8:25 p.m. ET

This 1990 movie, directed by Stephen Frears with an obvious (and successful) goal of producing a modern, sexy, creepy exemplification of film noir, is driven by a trio of superlative performances. John Cusack plays a con man torn between two con women, played by Annette Bening and Anjelica Huston. One portrays his girlfriend, the other his mother – and both, like Cusack, are unforgettable.

 
  
 
 

ABC, 9:00 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This is not a recommendation. This is so depressing. It’s depressing enough to realize that I was a working TV critic (in my first year, but still) back when the first Battle of the Network Stars was televised by ABC in 1976. That one was hosted by Howard Cosell, and the participants – divided into teams representing one of the three (count ’em, three) networks – included Robert Conrad, Telly Savalas, Ron Howard, Farrah Fawcett, Lynda Carter, and a surprisingly competitive Gabe Kaplan. Now it’s 41 years later, and this new ABC summer series presents 20 teams, divided into such subcategories as TV doctors, sex symbols, and lifeguards. The coaches this time are DeMarcus Ware and (pictured) Ronda Rousey. And for tonight’s premiere, it’s TV Sitcoms vs. TV Kids, with Tom Arnold and Bronson Pinchot on the former squad, and Joey Lawrence and Kim Fields on the latter. In no way is any of this an upgrade. In no way, furthermore, is any of this TV Worth Watching.

 
  
 
 

ABC, 10:00 p.m. ET

This is not a recommendation, either. See above. See the final sentence of the previous entry, at least. Just, whatever you do, don’t see this. Mike Myers or no Mike Myers.

 
  
 
 

CBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: Only the die-hardest of sci-fi fans should give this Season 3 premiere of this CBS summer drama series another chance. Zoo was enough of a mess in Season 1, and even messier in Season 2. Now it’s trying a time-shift reboot. The premise of this series is that a mutated population of animals, in the very near future, threatened to turn against the human race, and did – while an attempted cure led to humans becoming sterilized (don’t ask). That was around 2017, supposedly. Now, for this new season, it’s a decade later, 2027, and things aren’t much better. Not the human race, not the animal population – and, apparently, not network television’s idea of entertainment.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.