Category Archives: What’s On TV

Thursday TV: Chasing Dreams on Track and in Song

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 22, 2012
From all the reality competition shows, it’s all about following your dream, no matter what. Despite the proliferation of singing shows, though, some kids dream of actually doing something different. “Racing Dreams,” as it name may suggest, follows three tweens whose dream is to become NASCAR drivers. Too young for a drivers’ license they cut [...]
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Wednesday TV: ‘American Weed,’ ‘Raising Renee,’ Another Debate

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 22, 2012
The rise of medical marijuana dispensaries has been a natural subject for TV series, from reality (“Weed Wars”) to fiction (“Weeds”). Now there’s a new entry in the field that has been growing like a, well, you know. “American Weed” (National Geographic Channel, 10 p.m.) looks into the rise of the commercial pot centers in [...]
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Monday TV: Long Look at Clintons, ‘Bachelor’ Home Visits

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 20, 2012
It’s been 20 years since he was first running for president but Bill and Hillary Clinton are still so much with us that it seems odd now to look back at their accomplishments on “American Experience” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings). It’s a fascinating story, of course, that begins with the Lewinsky scandal and [...]
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Sunday TV: ‘Dowton’ Finale, New ‘Race’

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 19, 2012
A lavish, sometimes shaky but overall glorious second season of “Downton Abbey” ends on “Masterpiece Classic” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings) with a remarkable two hour “Christmas episode” that first aired in the U.K. during the holidays (odd, they bask in special episodes at a time when the U.S. mostly has reruns). Storylines are [...]
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Saturday TV: ‘Win Win,’ ‘Bad Teacher’

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 18, 2012
Let’s talk about movies that were thoroughly ignored by the Oscars. How about Pal Giamatti as the struggling lawyer and parttime wrestling coach in Thomas McCarthy’s “Win Win” (Cinemax, 10 p.m.) with Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, Burt Young and Melanie Lynskey. Never expected to make it into the Oscar race, though, was the [...]
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Friday TV: NAACP Image Awards, More Whitney Memories

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 17, 2012
Sanaa Lathan, left, and Anthony Mackie, stars of the film “Vipaka,” host The 43rd NAACP Image Awards (NBC, 8 p.m.) from Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Nominees include Macke, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas-Howard, Laurence Fishburne, Octavia Spencer, Don Cheadle, Jeffrey Wright and Cicely Tyson. Among the TV nominees are Dule Hill, Vanessa Williams, Andre Brauger, [...]
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Thursday TV: ‘Exporting Raymond,’ Questioning Black History Month

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 16, 2012
America still leads the world in one export: entertainment. And in addition to its big screen movies and pop culture, its TV shows run all around the word. Sometime they’re just dubbed, other times whole new shows are created based on the U.S. scripts. After shows like “Married with Children” and “The Nanny” became hits [...]
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Wednesday TV: ‘Survivor’ Start, Shue Fits on ‘CSI’

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 15, 2012
There will be few new twists when the new “Survivor: One World” (CBS, 8 p.m.) begins tonight. It’ll be men vs. women, for one thing, but both tribes will live on the same beach, meaning there may be some nocturnal fraternizing. The rules for hidden immunity idols have changed as well; when one finds one, [...]
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Tuesday TV: ‘The Interrupters,’ ‘The Loving Story’

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 14, 2012
On a special, super-long episode of “Frontline” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings) Steve James of “Hoop Dreams” fame and Alex Kotlowitz, author of “There Are No Children Here” tell the tale of brave and brilliantly skilled mediators trying to calm the violent powder keg of attack and counter-attack in Chicago in “The Interrupters.” The [...]
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Monday TV: ‘Slavery By Another Name,’ BET Honors

By Roger Catlin | Published: February 13, 2012
Sometimes the stories explored in documentaries during Black History Month can be pretty familiar. But the new “Slavery by Another Name” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings), an adaptation of Douglas A. Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name, is a truly eye-opening account of the forced labor that continued for black people of [...]
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