Danica debuts; Marcia departs
The 2018 ESPYs (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) honors the past year’s major sports achievements, moments and performances. Danica Patrick becomes the first woman to host the awards, which have been around since 1993. Patrick, who announced that she would retire after the Indianapolis 500, has been a racing celebrity for much of this century and has been attending the ESPYS since 2005.
Over the past three decades, the ESPYs have mostly been hosted by entertainers. Last year Peyton Manning hosted, and in 2007 LeBron James hosted with Jimmy Kimmel. John Cena hosted in 2016. Is he an athlete or an entertainer?
Mixing up personalities appears to be a way to reflect the ever-changing face of sports itself. Hosts have been as varied as Dennis Miller (1993) and Samuel Jackson (2001, 2002, 2009), Jimmy Smits (2000), John Hamm (2013) and Drake (2014).
Patrick’s challenge at the ESPYs is to be engaging, quick-witted and entertaining. And to be able to take a joke or two at her expense.
‘CODE BLACK’ DOA
A plane crashes into the hospital on the series finale of “Code Black” (10 p.m., CBS, TV-14). Despite the presence of the remarkable actress Marcia Gay Harden, “Black” broke no new ground for medical melodramas.
NEW ‘SUITS’
Harvey and Zane point to a new direction as “Suits” (9 p.m., USA, TV-14) enters an eighth season. This season will welcome Katherine Heigl to the cast after the departure of Patrick J. Adams and Meghan Markle. Markle has assumed a high-profile role in an “unscripted” family drama.
RED SKELTON TRIBUTE
TCM spends the day saluting comedies and musicals starring Red Skelton, from the 1947 comedy “Merton of the Movies” (7:15 a.m.) to the 1950 musical “Three Little Words” (6 p.m.), co-starring Fred Astaire.
Wildly popular in the 1940s as a radio and movie star, Skelton became well known for “The Red Skelton Show,” a comedy/ variety television series that ran on both CBS and NBC at different periods from 1951 to 71. Skelton mixed physical pratfalls and mime with extended comedy sketches and opened with a monologue. Future “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson briefly served as a writer on Skelton’s show.
A vestige of the World War II era, “The Red Skelton Show” wrapped up only four years before “Saturday Night Live” ushered in a new generation of comedy in 1975. By the end of its run, the show was seen as a stable of “clean” comedy. In 1969, the year of Woodstock, Skelton did an extended monologue about the Pledge of Allegiance. During a time of social and political tumult, he concluded every episode with the phrase “good night and may God bless.”
Skelton was not without some edge. When asked about the large crowd attending the 1958 funeral of tyrannical Columbia studio boss Harry Cohn, Skelton quipped, “It proves what Harry always said: Give the public what they want, and they’ll come out for it.”
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› “MasterChef” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14) puts fish on the menu.
› An all-woman eSports team participates in a first-person shooter game at a tournament in Poland on “Girl Got Game” (8 p.m., CW, TV-14).
› A family’s Mexican restaurant needs restoration on “Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-14).
Kevin McDonough can be reached at kevin. tvguy@gmail.com.