‘Grease’: Cooking up fuel
From doughnuts to dollars, indeed. The documentary “Hot Grease” (9 p.m., Discovery, TV-PG) explores an interesting fuel alternative. American homes and restaurants use millions of gallons of cooking oil; recently, innovators have been using the oil to power cars, trucks and buses. Now given the technical name of biodiesel, this fuel reduces carbon emissions up to 85 percent compared to
petroleum fuel.
“Grease” follows several Houston-area entrepreneurs, some colorful grease collectors and Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Al Franken (D-Minn.), who have given the cooking oil industry their bipartisan blessing.
IMMIGRATION COMEDY
“Hot Grease” isn’t the night’s only show from the Lone Star State. Because more young viewers are getting their “news” from comedy, a veteran comic goes to the heart of one of America’s hot-button topics.
“Jeff Ross Roasts the Border: Live From Brownsville, Texas” (10 p.m., Comedy Central, TV-14) takes a one-hour look at immigration, following Ross as he interviews residents on the border about their thoughts on a proposed border wall and changing attitudes toward new citizens.
Ross explains that he grew up in a country that welcomed immigrants. “Now suddenly we’re a snobby club with a (expletive) doorman,” he concludes.
SAD COMEDY
Increasing roadblocks to immigration have not slowed the influx of comedies from abroad, particularly from the United Kingdom. Hulu begins streaming “GameFace,” a comedy about a delusional would-be actress stumbling through her 20s. Or is it her early 30s?
Marcella (Roisin Conaty) is first seen passed out at a children’s party dressed as a princess. Her hangover stems from a boozy bender the night before when she spent hours writing inappropriate things on her ex-lover’s Instagram account and dragging home a new conquest who refuses to leave the apartment she shares with two other women. They find him creepy and mystifying because he’s glued to the TV set watching “Friends,” a show he claims he’s never seen before.
More rude than audacious, “GameFace” seems like a slightly sad variation on the 2013 Rebel
Wilson comedy “Super Fun
Night,” which vanished from ABC’s schedule after one season.