Author Archives: Roger Catlin

Tudum, the second annual celebration of Netflix programming, is planned all day — a kind of fan convention in which new trailers, announcements and interviews with some of the service’s featured stars are featured including information on “The Crown” season five, “Bridgerton” season three, “Queen Charlotte” and the upcoming sci-fi series “Three Body Problem.”  Emphasizing […]

The life and career of Sidney Poitier are explored in Reginald Hudlin’s documentary “Sidney” (Apple TV+, streaming), produced by Oprah Winfrey. Home movies from the Poitier family are augmented by interviews with stars including Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Robert Redford and Spike Lee.  Alison Janney stars as a woman asked to help another mother’s march […]

The dramatic rescue of a boy’s soccer team from a cave in Thailand has already been made into a movie “Thirteen Lives.” Now there’s a six-part true crime documentary series “Thai Cave Rescue” (Netflix, streaming). It’s done with reenactments, but this time in the actual cave.  All three remaining series in the “Law & Order” […]

Fresh off its first season Emmy wins, “Abbott Elementary” (ABCm, 9 p.m.) begins its second season amid a night of returning comedies that include the “The Conners” (ABC, 8 p.m.), back for its fifth season;  “The Goldbergs” (ABC, 8:30 p.m.), back for its 10th; and “Home Economics” (ABC, 9:30 p.m.), back for its third. Network […]

The best new show of the fall — with nearly no publicity — begins tonight on a streaming service. “Reboot” (Hulu, streaming) is a  sharp new comedy from the co-creator of “Modern Family” Steven Levitan with a dream cast that includes Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer as stars of a 20-year-old sitcom coming back to do […]

The State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, 4 a.m.) is a big historic event, of interest for the amount of world leaders (and security) who will attend, as long with the usual pageantry and inane TV commentary. Many networks will be live until at least noon. PBS is repeating […]

Though his projects take years to make, Ken Burns says he’s always confident that they’ll be “echoing in the present” upon their release. So it will be with the three- part “The U.S. and the Holocaust” (PBS, 8 p.m., check local listings) that begins tonight and continues Tuesday and Wednesday (it was originally going to […]

Anne Heche gives one of her final performances as a mother whose daughter (Larissa Dias) is abducted for human trafficking In the made-for-TV thriller “Girl in Room 13” (Lifetime, 8 p.m.), Elisabeth Rohm directed the film as part of the network’s Stop Violence Against Women campaign. It was Heche’s fourth Lifetime movie after the 2004 “Gracie’s […]

“Great Performances” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings) presents a new production from the Nashville Ballet based on “Lucy Negro, Redux,” the poetry book by Caroline Randall Williams, who narrates the story of William Shakespeare and a possible muse. Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi provide the new score for “Black Lucy and the Bard.”  Sad […]