‘American Masters’ honors 4 artists
“American Masters” dedicates the next two weeks to American artists, airing four documentaries on Friday nights from tonight to Sept. 14. They include a portrait of painter and printmaker Elizabeth Murray (Sept. 7), featuring the voice of Meryl Streep reading her journals, a look at Andrew Wyeth (also Sept. 7) and a portrait of graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (Sept. 14).
Tonight’s “American Masters” (9 p.m., PBS, TV-PG) profiles sculptor Eva Hesse, who challenged some of the geometric formalism of “modern” sculpture in the 1960s and broke into the boys’ club of the New York art scene. A refugee from Hitler’s Germany who arrived in America in 1939, she was just beginning to receive wide acclaim when she died of a brain tumor in 1970.
AUSSIE MELODRAMA
The period Australian soap opera “A Place To Call Home” returns. Acorn will stream the first two episodes of its sixth and final season today. New installments arrive on a weekly basis.
Set in a 1950s Australia when perfectly respectable people still harbored deep prejudices against upstarts and outsiders, “Place” stars Marta Dusseldorp as a noble and forthright nurse who marries into a posh Australian family after a harrowing war experience.
“Place” uses every melodramatic trick imaginable, including foundling children, loveless marriages, scheming in-laws, infertility, secret abortions and sudden pregnancies. As in soaps of old, virtuous characters are very good and wicked ones truly hiss-worthy.
“Downton Abbey” by way of “Dynasty” with a touch of Douglas Sirk, “Place” may be dismissed as a “guilty” pleasure, but only by those too snobby to admit that they love its old-fashioned appeal.
MISSOURI HIDEOUT
If any show is the polar opposite of “A Place To Call Home,” it’s “Ozark” (TV-MA), now streaming its second season on Netflix. Laura Linney and Jason Bateman star in this dark satire of the American family, a tale of a secret money launderer being pursued and compromised by a drug cartel only to land in the Missouri vacationland, where he and his family gain the attention of a backwoods criminal syndicate.
JOAN CRAWFORD SALUTE
TCM wraps up its Summer Under the Stars festival with a daylong celebration of the films of Joan Crawford. She was often typecast as the intense middle-aged woman, from the neurotic, possessive society dame in the 1946 melodrama “Humoresque” (4 p.m.), to the perfectionist housewife in “Harriet Craig” (10 p.m.), to an ax murderer in the 1964 shocker “Strait-Jacket” (2 a.m.), which was the lowrent follow-up to her standout role in the 1962 classic “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” (3:45 a.m.), recently featured in FX’s character study “Feud,” starring Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› Amazon Prime’s “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” begins streaming today. Look for more on this in tomorrow’s column.
› Third-round action of the U.S. Open Tennis Championships (7 p.m., ESPN2).
› Bill Engvall and Billy Ray Cyrus star in the 2008 comedy “Bait Shop” (8 p.m., Outdoor).
› Danny stands up for a battered nurse on “Blue Bloods” (10 p.m., CBS, repeat, TV-14).
› Kevin Hart hosts “TKO: Total Knock Out” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG).
› Obstacles galore on “American Ninja Warrior” (8 p.m., NBC, repeat, TV-PG).
› On two episodes of “Masters of Illusion” (CW, TV-14), Joseph Gabriel (10 p.m.), Nathan Burton (10:30 p.m., repeat).
› J.J. feels belittled on “Speechless” (8:30 p.m., ABC, repeat, TV-PG).
› Employees put the truth first on “Whistleblower” (9 p.m., CBS).
› John Quinones hosts “What Would You Do?” (9 p.m., ABC).
› Illusionists audition on “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” (11 p.m., CW, repeat, TV-PG).
› “Dateline” (10 p.m., NBC).
› “20/20” (10 p.m., ABC). Contact Kevin McDonough at kevin. tvguy@gmail.com.