SATURDAY
SEPTEMBER 12
2020

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Decades, 12:00 p.m. ET

I don’t know why Decades has decided to go on such a strong run of weekend marathons of late – but please, Decades, keep them coming. From noon ET today for the rest of the weekend, Decades is filling the weekend with episodes of the little-televised, not-currently-streaming 1967-69 ABC series N.Y.P.D. This isn’t the 1990s David Milch cop show, NYPD Blue. It’s a TV rarity in more ways than one: a half-hour drama series, shot mostly on location in and around New York, starring Frank Converse, Jack Warden and Robert Hooks. Hooks, one of the first Black co-stars of a drama series after Bill Cosby broke through in NBC’s I Spy, plays a NY detective who – in one amazingly bold episode, “Encounter on a Rooftop” (shown by Decades at 9:30 a.m. ET Sunday), is shot mistakenly by a young, bigoted white cop.  NYPD produced just under 50 episodes in its two-season run, and Decades is showing them all this weekend – many of them twice. The premiere episode launches the marathon today at noon ET, and the crown jewel arrives Sunday at 11 a.m. ET, with the “Deadly Circle of Violence” episode from October 1968. That episode marks the screen debuts of two young actors who would make major impacts to cinema in the 1970s and beyond: Jill Clayburgh and Al Pacino (pictured).
 
  
 
 

HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET

PREMIERE: Coastal Elites was originally intended, by playwright Paul Rudnick and director Jay Roach, to be presented as a theatrical work on stage – but the pandemic changed all that. The result might have helped when it came to casting, because by having its characters communicate remotely in Zoom-like monologues, converting the drama to TV allows for cast members to literally phone it in. Hence, this HBO version lands Better Midler, Sarah Paulson, Issa Rae, and others, delivering their performances in lengthy single takes. But you have to ask yourself: Do you really want to see one more hour (or more) of talking heads coming at you from a computer-screen-type experience? For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower, and for background info on the show, see Mike Hughes' Open Mike
 
  
 
 

Reelz Channel, 8:00 p.m. ET

DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: This new documentary salutes Lucille Ball, one of the pioneers and moguls of television. Next year will mark the 70th anniversary of I Love Lucy, the groundbreaking sitcom starring Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, who co-founded Desilu Studios and changed the way, and the place, most TV sitcoms were made. I teach this stuff, and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s importance to TV history – and am interested to see how Reelz covers the same ground.
 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.