Paying tribute to the King of Pop
Michael Jackson: As Glee cast member Chris Colfer said, in a Fox promo, “Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”
Glee is in the spotlight once again — not just because its tribute episode to the King of Pop is the season’s one and only tribute episode following a season in which every second episode, it seemed, was a tribute to someone or another.
Glee is in the spotlight, too, because, this weekend, the once red-hot pop-cultural lightning rod will face its first real competition for the hearts and minds of devotees of the musical ensemble TV drama. Smash, a sophisticated, exceedingly well-made and very adult tale of the making of a Broadway musical, is waiting in the wings. And, based on the evidence of Smash’s first two episodes, the debutante is every bit as good as its early notices suggest.
Glee’s Michael Jackson episode won’t be a thriller, but it won’t be bad, either.
The story’s details have been kept tightly under wraps, but story has never been one of Glee’s biggest selling points.
The New Directions ensemble will take on Bad and a mash-up of
Ghost and Monster. The rival group The Warblers will perform a mash-up of Beat It and Billie Jean, and will join New Directions for a potentially showclosing group performance of We Are the World. (Fox, Global — 9 p.m.)
Rick Mercer Report finds RM in Summerside, P.E.I., where he agrees to a lie-detector test at Holland College’s Atlantic Police Academy. (CBC — 8 p.m.)
Raising Hope airs a cautionary but funny tale, in which well-meaning ne’er-do-well Burt (Garret Dillahunt) rediscovers the joy of gambling. (Fox, Citytv — 10:30 p.m.)
New Girl is back with a new episode in which Jess (Zooey Deschanel) looks to a connected friend (guest star Lizzie Caplan) to get her out of a traffic ticket. (Fox, Citytv — 10 p.m.)