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THE GONG SHOW
June 22, 2017  | By David Bianculli

ABC, 10:00 p.m. ET

 
SERIES PREMIERE: This is not a recommendation. It’s worth noting, though, how eagerly and heavily ABC has hitched itself to the game-show wagon this summer, presumably under the theory that reality TV is fading at last, at least a bit, and ABC is in search of another equally cheap and potentially, inexplicably popular programming form. Tonight alone, ABC hedges its bets by doing both. At 8 p.m. ET, it premieres Boy Band, a musical competition show that aims to assemble a made-for-TV boy band. (Hey, hey, they’re not the Monkees.) And at 10 p.m. ET, Mike Myers pretends to embody a fictitious British TV personality named Tommy Maitland, in much the same crazily committed way that Martin Short occasionally portrays overweight, under-informed show-biz interviewer Jiminy Glick. Myers, a.k.a. Maitland, is replacing Chuck Barris, the super-smarmy host and creator of the original Gong Show, and reviving this program – even with Will Arnett as an executive producer – is by no means a measure of TV progress. For a full review, see Ed Bark's Uncle Barky's Bytes.
 
 
 
 
 
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