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Franklin & Bash 9 p.m., TNT Ever since she brought some sass to "Melrose Place," Heather Locklear has had the reputation of being a show-saver. I love it! She's such a stiff actress, with very little range, but she certainly has found her niche. Wednesday night, for the third-season premiere, she joins the cast of "Franklin & Bash" as - what else - a tough new boss in stilettos. MasterChef 8 p.m., Fox The cheftestants prepare a meal for the cast and crew of "Glee." What channel is "Glee" on? Oh, right. Jane Lynch, Cory Monteith, and Matthew Morrison serve as judges. By the way, Fox is coming out with a "Toddlers & Tiaras" version of the show with participants between the ages of 8 and 13. PB&J fraiche, anyone? "Junior MasterChef" premieres in the fall.( 06/18/2013 6:00 PM )
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Only minutes into this season's "Mad Men" premiere, Megan Draper giddily pulled out two joints that she'd hidden in her bikini. Staying at a hotel in Honolulu, she and Don proceeded to get high and make love. Since then, the 1960s-set show has sent up a number of pot smoke signals, including Don wryly proclaiming, "I smell creativity" as the aroma of weed wafts through the ad agency. Just as Massachusetts joins 17 other states (and the District of Columbia) in legalizing medical marijuana, and just as Washington and Colorado allow legalized recreational use, pot is everywhere on TV. From reality shows about the cannabis market to pot-related material in scripted series, weed is almost as common as romantic tensions on sitcoms.( 06/18/2013 3:35 AM )
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Nurse Jackie 9 p.m., Showtime 2 Do not read this if you haven't seen the season finale yet. But if you did see it, what did you make of Jackie's decision to pop a pill on the occasion of her first sober anniversary? It felt contrived to me at first, as if the writers did that simply because they needed to set up next season. If Jackie remained clean, the future of the show might seem pointless. But then, it is true to the character, that she would once again ruin something good. From the minute we met Jackie, we saw her taking apart her wonderful life for no reason. Her self-destructive instinct is a beast.( 06/18/2013 1:28 AM )
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More Marilyn is just what we need, when the project is as exquisitely done as "Love, Marilyn." The new HBO documentary, which premieres Monday at 9 p.m., is an elegant pastiche based on the boxes of Monroe's own writings that were discovered a few years ago. Director Liz Garbus has brought together a long list of actresses - including Uma Thurman, Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei, and Evan Rachel Wood - to read pieces from Monroe's notes and journals. The actresses face the screen and perform Monroe's words, many of them syntactically twisted, while images float behind them of the actual pages featuring Monroe's handwriting. Garbus also features a number of actors performing writings about Monroe by people such as Mailer (Ben Foster), director Elia Kazan (Jeremy Piven), and Truman Capote (Adrien Brody).( 06/17/2013 12:00 AM )
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Globe TV critic Matthew Gilbert answered readers questions: Q. How is "Nurse Jackie" considered a comedy? A. I hear you. Even Edie Falco said it wasn't a comedy when she accepted her Emmy for the show a few years back. This current season, however, has had more overt comedy than before, especially with the supporting characters. I once wrote a piece about the new half-hour drama genre and called it "grimedy." Nope, the phrase didn't catch on! Q. That was a crazy ending to "Game of Thrones," no? A. The penultimate episode was mind-blowing, for sure. That red wedding -- wow. HBO likes to do that -- have a big whoop in the second-to-last episode, then wind things down and set up the next season in the season finale.( 06/17/2013 12:00 AM )
