Monthly Archives: January 2023

Chuck D Presents Hip-Hop History on PBS

With hip-hop reaching its 50th anniversary somehow this year, public television, of all places, is ready to mark the occasion with the new four-part documentary series “Fight the Power: How Hip-Hop Changed the World” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings). The title cribs from the title of an old Public Enemy track, so that group’s […]

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Also on Tuesday: Pamela Tells Her Story

Having become a cultural figure for new generations in last year’s miniseries “Pam & Tommy,” Pamela Anderson is back to tell her own story in Ryan White’s documentary “Pamela, A Love Story” (Netflix, streaming).  A wholly unqualified British woman named Philomena Cunk tries to tell the story of civilization in the deadpan rockumentary “Cunk on […]

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Capital Radio 1-30-23: Tom Verlaine, RIP

The death on Saturday of the endlessly inventive guitarist and rocker Tom Verlaine at 73 meant we spent an hour going through his work in Television, live and in the studio, along with work with Patti Smith, Luna and an all-star band for a Dylan bio pick.  A second major loss of the weekend was […]

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Monday TV: Freeform’s ‘The Watchful Eye’

Call it “Murders in Another Building.” There’s no big comedians involved, nor a pop star. But the new drama “The Watchful Eye” (Freeform, 9 p.m.) involves a young woman moves into a high-class Manhattan apartment building to work as a nanny who is tempted by bigger things. Maria Molino stars with Warren Christie, Amy Acker […]

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Film: The Greatest Player Nobody Knew

One of the great unsung stars of basketball — except maybe in Los Angeles — is Raymond Lewis, who became something of a high school legend, scoring as many as 80 points in a game, and drawing interest from 200 schools to recruit him. Yet he is also a basketball anomaly, as the only first […]

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Sunday TV: Conference Championships

No need to pretend that anything will be bigger on TV today than the NFL conference championships that will determine who will go to the Super Bowl in two weeks. So all eyes on San Francisco at Philadelphia (Fox, 3 p.m.) in the NFC and Cincinnati at Kansas City (CBS, 6:30 p.m.) in the AFC. […]

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Saturday TV: A Return to Colder Climes

Winter’s a good time to premiere the six-part sequel “Frozen Planet II” (BBC America, 8 p.m.), with David Attenborough exploring wildlife in the Arctic and Antarctic, starting with a look at polar bears, penguins and snow monkeys.  Speaking of the outdoors, even the made-for-TV romance “Love in Glacier National: A National Park Romance” (Hallmark, 8 […]

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Friday TV: ‘Shrinking’ Expectations

Jason Segel plays a therapist who starts breaking rules while grieving a dead spouse on the new series “Shrinking” (Apple TV+, streaming), which turns out to be a comedy only that it’s 30 minutes and from Bill Lawrence, who has had a long history with such things (most recently, “Ted Lasso”). It seems like we’ve […]

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The Spirit of ‘Columbo’ in New ‘Poker Face’

Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” movies are popular enough to have him doing Hollywood features full time. But he steps away from that success to bring something that really hasn’t been on TV in too long: A perfectly-made procedural. The super enjoyable “Poker Face” (Peacock, streaming) stars Natasha Lyonne (of “Russian Doll”) as a unrooted woman […]

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Also Thursday: ‘The 1619 Project’ on Hulu

Bad news for white supremacists trying to ban Rebekah Hannah-Jones’ Pulitzer Prize-winning tome from schools. Now there’s a six-part documentary series of “The 1619 Project” (Hulu, streaming) available to all (with a subscription). As she did in the book, the author takes a striking approach, in this case tying long-hidden aspects of American history with […]

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