SATURDAY
JULY 15
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

This 1942 romantic comedy is a great newspaper movie, a great relationship movie, and a great movie, period. It stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as reporters with very different specialties and interests – she’s an international public affairs reporter, and he’s a sportswriter – who feud, compete, and, of course, fall in love. When the movie was released, the hard-to-please critic Bosley Crowther raved about it, calling Woman of the Year “as warming as a Manhattan cocktail and as juicy as a porterhouse steak.” And tonight, as part of The Essentials canon, we’ll hear similar accolades from Alec Baldwin and his guest, Tina Fey – whose enthusiasm for this movie is both understandable and heartwarming.
 
  
 
 

BBC America, 10:00 p.m. ET

One of the clones most recently introduced on this series was Krystal, a caricature character – blonde, self-obsessed, hair-and-makeup-consumed – whom Tatiana Maslany somehow has made not only believable, but touching. Krystal has been absent for all but a few seconds this season, but tonight she resurfaces, in a story line that may provide a key piece of the puzzle for the other clone sisters.

 
  
 
 

CNN, 10:00 p.m. ET

This is a bit selfish to point out, but it’s also an exciting viewing opportunity I never thought CNN would provide. In every decade the network has decided to examine as a documentary miniseries, starting with The Sixties, CNN has opened each miniseries with an episode divided to that era’s television. Tonight, beginning with the “The One About TV” installment that opened The Nineties last Sunday, CNN presents them all, in reverse order, in a mini-marathon, presenting the TV-centered opening episodes from The Nineties, The Eighties, The Seventies, and The Sixties. The only reason it’s selfish to point out is that I’m in all of them – but I promise, the opportunity to see 40 years of TV history encapsulated so concisely, and so entertainingly, is worth having to put up with me every now and then.

 
  
 
 

NBC, 11:29 p.m. ET

This is a repeat episode from February, but it’s well worth revisiting. The guest host is Alec Baldwin – and five months have elapsed in Trumpland since then, so Baldwin’s appearance, as his Trump impression, may seem almost like nostalgia for a simpler time. Musical guest: Ed Sheeran.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.