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Critic’s corner
In the Spotlight With Robin Roberts: Bright Lights, Big Stars, All Access Nashville 10 p.m., Channel 5
Critic’s corner
How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin 10 p.m., Channel 2 Revolution, indeed. Award-winning director Leslie Woodhead introduces us to Russians (above) who found their way to the Beatles’ outlawed music and drew hope and inspiration from the Fab Four.
What to watch on TV tonight
Mad Men 10 p.m., AMC Last week, the show caught up with the Kennedy assassination and Betty (January Jones, above) decided to change her life. In tonight’s season finale, we might - might - find out if she follows through.
Critic’s corner
Saturday Night Live 11:30 p.m., Channel 7 Taylor Swift does double duty as host and musical guest. My money is on real-life Kanye to show up and redeem himself. (And maybe for Beyoncé to turn up, too.)
Six reasons why Elmo went from being horrible to adorable
I resisted, at first. How could I not? As someone who grew up on 1970s-era “Sesame Street,’’ then revisited the show with my own kid three decades later, I was appalled to see that my beloved Grover and Cookie Monster had lost precious airtime to a skinny red Muppet who refers to himself in the third person. Elmo is no ...
Joanna Weiss’ Critic’s corner
Fanboy and Chum-Chum 9 p.m., Nickelodeon Nickelodeon’s new animated series, starring the voices of Jamie Kennedy and Josh Duhamel, is perfectly calibrated for the mind and funny bone of a 10-year-old boy. Tonight’s premiere spoofs comic books, wizards, and all aspects of school.
‘Platinum Babies’ wallows in extravagance
I had to watch WE’s “Platinum Babies’’ twice before I figured out why this particular look at conspicuous consumption is so much less satisfying than Bravo’s “Real Housewives’’ series. Then it hit me.
Joanna Weiss’ Critic’s corner
Grey’s Anatomy 9 p.m., Channel 5 Last week’s Derek-narrated episode encapsulated what this show still does brilliantly (tension mixed with humor mixed with pathos) and horribly (world’s calmest, wisest tumor patient). Tonight, we spend some time with Arizona.
Critic’s corner
The New Adventures of Old Christine 8 p.m., Channel 4 The recent “Seinfeld’’ reunion episodes on “Curb Your Enthusiasm’’ serve as a good reminder that the most successful “Seinfeld’’ alum is Julia Louis-Dreyfus (above), who manages to make her not-so-new character both Elaine-ish at times and thoroughly unique. Tonight, Christine tries to sponge off her son’s popularity.
Critic’s corner
V 8 p.m., Channel 5 They’re back! ABC remakes the 1980s miniseries into a cool, creepy show about an alien invasion - starring Elizabeth Mitchell as an FBI agent and Morena Baccarin as a smooth-talking alien chief.
HBO’s ‘By the People’: On the campaign trail with little new to offer
In some ways, it’s instructive that the new HBO documentary “By the People: The Election of Barack Obama’’ airs a full year after Election Day, when the fizzy promises of hope and change have given way to cold reality. (Emotional summation of the Obama presidency: We still have hope, but we haven’t changed much yet, though we’ve made a few ...
It’s high time for tv to embrace sci fi
If only we had learned, a little earlier, that “Dollhouse’’ was about the end of the world.
‘Lock ’n Load’ looks at trigger-happy America
There is a coastal sensibility to “Lock ’n Load,’’ the new reality series that premieres on Showtime tonight. Viewers, the show assumes, will be amazed to learn that some Americans actually shop for guns, hold them and clean them, take them to firing ranges and fire them. Even women! Even kids!
Here’s hoping ‘Leno’ survives... with some changes
It’s hard not to root for the underdog, and Jay Leno - despite his massive salary, his fleet of cars, his ownership of five prime hours of network TV - is the underdog. Knocked prematurely off his top-rated “Tonight Show’’ perch. Mocked for being a nice guy who appeals to Middle America. And now, hated by Hollywood for dominating prime ...
New wrinkles in product placement
Give NBC credit for trying new things. First, the network scuttled a third of its primetime schedule and replaced it with Jay Leno. Now comes news that the network has signed Jon Bon Jovi to a two-month “artist in residence’’ deal, which treats him to appearances on “Today,’’ “The Jay Leno Show,’’ “The Tonight Show,’’ and “Saturday Night Live.’’ He’ll ...
Goldstein’s death adds intrigue to MTV’s ‘Gone Too Far’
The ghost of Adam Goldstein - the musician better known as DJ AM - lingers poignantly over “Gone Too Far,’’ the MTV series about drug abuse that he created before he died of an overdose in August. It isn’t just that he hosts, introducing addicts and their families, explaining the various steps of the rehabilitation process. It’s the fact of ...
Policy, reality collide in ‘Obama’s War’
President Obama barely appears in “Obama’s War,’’ the new Frontline report on Afghanistan that airs tonight. We only hear his voice, from a speech he made in March, saying the men and women of the military “deserve a straightforward answer’’ to the question of why they continue to fight and die there.
Why David Letterman is just another one of the ‘Mad Men’
One of the chief appeals of a period piece like “Mad Men’’ is the way it lets us congratulate ourselves for being so enlightened. Ah, those poor folks from the dark ages of the 1960s, we can say. They smoked when they were pregnant! They littered after picnics! And their workplaces? Bastions of sexual harrassment, where the bosses flirted openly ...
‘Leave It to Lamas’ is pretty lame
How many more television shows do we need about rich and idle starlets? The answer depends on whether you’re an executive at E!, a network that apparently believes more is more. Thus, into this world of Hiltons and Kardashians comes one Shayne Lamas, daughter of Lorenzo, granddaughter of Fernando, best known thus far for winning a recent season of “The ...
Will the real Joy Behar please stand up?
Of all of the people who could host a nightly talk show, Joy Behar is a logical choice. As a panelist on ABC’s daytime gabfest “The View,’’ she’s an effective and likable liberal flame-thrower, able to mix a sense of righteous indignation with a comedian’s sense of timing. In her off-the-airwaves stand-up routine, she’s more political by far: profane, pointed, ...
As a star vehicle, ‘Sherri’ won’t take Shepherd very far
The world could probably use more comedians like Sherri Shepherd. But the world does not need more sitcoms like “Sherri.’’
ESPN offers 30 reasons to love sports
Kirk Fraser was 9 years old - and living in the shadow of the University of Maryland - when the school’s basketball star, Celtics-bound Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose in 1986. Fraser remembers the media frenzy, the emotions, the way the event seemed a cautionary tale: “It prevented me from going down that path.’’
‘Stargate’ mysteries play like a ‘Lost’ in space
Science fiction series are notoriously hard to enter midstream. Syfy’s “Stargate’’ franchise, for instance, features a deep and slightly convoluted mythology, developed over the course of a feature film and three TV series, involving ancient alien visits and hieroglyphics, with Beau Bridges somewhere in the mix.
‘The Cleveland Show’ premieres on Fox
How much you’ll like “The Cleveland Show’’ depends entirely on how much you like “Family Guy.’’
‘FlashForward’ contains a future of possibilities
Give ABC a lot of credit for ambition. Ever since the network struck paydirt with “Lost,’’ it has tested a string of unfolding-mystery serials, leading to some false starts (last year’s intriguing “Life on Mars,’’ which ended early and oddly) and some notable failures (2006’s “The Nine,’’ which had a promising start but fell apart fast). Still, executives haven’t given ...
‘Eastwick’ mixes novelistic and movie predecessors with New England witchcraft history
Is it an accident that “Eastwick,’’ ABC’s new drama, starts off looking and sounding like a supernatural version of “Desperate Housewives’’? We get scenes of domestic bliss, a picturesque town green, and a wry voice-over suggesting that danger lurks beneath the surface.
‘Cougar Town’ falls prey to already-stale cliche
‘Cougar Town’’ begins, in fairly promising comic fashion, with a shot of a woman examining her arms, her torso, the area around her belly button, grumbling at the amount of squishy flesh she can grab with two fingers. That woman is Courteney Cox, and in a subsequent scene, she flings open her robe to show a teenage boy her bra ...
‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ follows procedure
Of all the TV networks, CBS is probably the least experimental, and it’s no surprise why: Its lineup of high-tech crime-solving shows brings in such robust ratings that there’s no need to, say, hand off five hours of weekly prime time TV to a safe and established comedian.
‘Meatballs’ is a bit bland, but still fun
Any movie based on a children’s picture-book is bound to be a feat of extrapolation, but taking on “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’’ poses a special challenge. The 1978 book has a funny concept - a town called Chewandswallow, where the food supply falls from the sky - but no characters and little plot to speak of. Food drops, ...To fans, ‘Guiding Light’ it’s been more than a soap opera
When the CBS soap opera “Guiding Light’’ signs off forever tomorrow, Maggie Lemelin will gather with her cousins to watch, and to reprise a family tradition. For years, they would go to her grandmother’s Marblehead house after school and watch together, taking in weddings, births, funerals, a revolving door of hospital stays. The show is about the Spauldings and the ...