In the six part series “The Story of China” (PBS, 8 p.m., check local listings), historian Michael Wood looks into the history oldest continuous state and home to over a billion people, traveling from the Silk Road to the Yellow Sea and covering a lot of ground. The first two episodes run tonight. Oprah Winfrey’s soapy “Queen Sugar” (OWN, [...]
On “Independent Lens” (PBS, 10 p.m., check local listings), Shaleece Haas’ film “Real Boy” takes a four-year look at a trans teenager named Bennett and the transition of acceptance of his family, particularly his mother, who raised him as Rachael. “Better Call Saul” (Fox, 10 p.m.) ends its stellar third season with a slightly longer [...]
It’s amusing to me that on the 100th anniversary of the birth of the namesake of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, there are two popular, quite different musicals on either end of the Grand Foyer. What if ticket holders to the traveling national tour of “The Sound of Music” made it [...]
The newest Sunday night import for public television is “My Mother and Other Strangers” (PBS, 8 p.m., check local listings), set in Northern Ireland during World War II and the effect of a huge U.S. Army Air Force invading to establish an airfield. The five part series focuses on the effect on one family of [...]
Just before his Erlich Bachman character bids farewell on “Silcon Valley,” the network gives a suitable launch to the comedian with his own stand up comedy special, “T.J. Miller: Meticulously Ridiculous” (HBO, 10 p.m.), taped in Denver. From its repeated use of water stunts in the promos, a little on the Gallagher side. Here’s an [...]
With the first season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” complete, Hulu tries to keep the momentum going with an imported Canadian drama. “Cardinal” (Hulu, streaming). Based on the John Cardinal novels by Giles Blunt, it stars Billy Campbell as a police detective in Ontario trying to solve the death of a First Nations girl, with the [...]
Even Woody Allen showed up last week for the 45th AFI Life Achievement Award: A Salute to Diane Keaton (TNT, 10 p.m.), an event that also brought tributes from Al Pacino, Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty, Morgan Freeman, Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Silverman, Emma Stone, Steve Martin, Martin Short and Meryl Streep, wearing some “Annie Hall” duds. [...]
The Syfy channel goes all out splatter with its new series “Blood Drive” (Syfy, 10 p.m.) which has at its touchstone the trashy “grind house” B-films like “Death Race 2000” in particular. In fact this one is set in “Los Angeles in the future: 1999.” It’s a time when the best thing you could have [...]
You may not have thought much of the recurring characters Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland when they kept popping up on “The Kroll Show.” But when John Mullaney and Nick Kroll later developed the characters first for a comedy tour then for a bona fide Broadway stint, people paid attention to the old coots [...]
The last time Oliver Stone took to cable to present his worldview, it was “The Untold History of the United States.” Now the director takes his passion for finding another side into his latest four-hour project, “The Putin Interviews” (Showtime, 9 p.m.). Though he was scooped in getting the access by the Megan Kelley last [...]