‘Superstore’ blown away
Can you work layoffs and a natural disaster into a comedy? The season finale of “Superstore” (8:30 p.m., NBC, TV-PG), titled “Tornado,” certainly tries. It’s up to viewers to find this funny.
Too often, “Superstore” seems more like a showcase for individual comic performances and personal tics than a collection of relatable characters with any emotional appeal. Their cartoonlike indifference to their environment and to one another comes to a head when faced, “Survivor”-like, with termination from their jobs and finally with the deadly storm alluded to in the episode title.
Call me old-fashioned, but it might not be the smartest thing in the world to schedule a comedy about a twister during the spring tornado season.
“Superstore” has been renewed for a third season.
› We live in the era of the TV reboot. From revived versions of “Hawaii Five-0” and “Macgyver” on CBS to Netflix’s “Fuller House,” “One Day at a Time” and “Gilmore Girls” revivals and remakes, it’s easy to conclude our past in our TV future.
Some series evoke the past without overtly remaking the old. Last summer’s Netflix hit “Stranger Things” created a “Stephen King meets Steven Spielberg” vibe that delighted viewers. It didn’t hurt that it starred Winona Ryder, trailing clouds of ’80s glory.
No series is more studded with retro-casting than “Riverdale” (9 p.m., CW, TV-14), a moody meditation on the “Archie” comic universe, set in a “Twin Peaks”-like murder mystery.
Archie’s divorced parents are played by Luke Perry (“Beverly Hills, 90210”) and Molly Ringwald (“Pretty in Pink”). Jughead’s dad is Skeet Ulrich (“Scream” and “The Craft”). The mayor of Riverdale is Robin Givens (“Head of the Class”), and Betty’s mom is played by Madchen Amick (“Twin Peaks”). And, in a joke within a joke, her character’s name is Alice Cooper.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. The 1980s hit “Dynasty” reached back to the 1950s to cast Joan Collins and Rock Hudson. So it’s little wonder that “Riverdale” has made a similar trip back to the future.
› “Soundtracks” (10 p.m., CNN) recalls music of the Vietnam era, most notably “Ohio,” written by Neil Young in response to the shootings at Kent State. While much is made of the anti-war anthems of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the biggest hit inspired by the Vietnam War was a patriotic ballad: Barry Sadler’s “The Ballad of the Green Berets, ” Billboard’s No. 1 single of 1966.
Edwin Starr’s recording of “War” reached No. 1 in 1970 and is considered one of the most popular protest songs ever recorded. It was even referenced on a “Seinfeld” episode. Corporate radio giant Clear Channel forbade the song’s airplay in the weeks following Sept. 11.