‘Plainville’ recreates a painful case
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Streaming now on Hulu, the limited series “The Girl From Plainville” recalls the disturbing case of Michelle Carter. Viewers may recall her as the young woman who stood trial for sending hundreds of texts to her depressed boyfriend urging him to commit suicide.
Elle Fanning stars as Carter. Thanks to adroit work in the hair, makeup and eyebrow-sculpting department, she bears a remarkable resemblance to the real thing. Look for Chloe Sevigny as the victim’s mother, who apparently had no idea of her son’s morbid relationship.
Were Carter’s texts deliberate coaching, depraved indifference or a confused teen’s messedup notion of a Romeo & Juliet-style romance?
› “Frontline” (10 p.m., PBS) presents “The Plot to Overturn the Election,” a look at the groups and individuals who created lies and conspiracy theories that bounced between the Trump White House in late 2020 and the right-wing media that offered currency to fabricated falsehoods that had been rejected by dozens of judges and branded “bull——” by Trump’s own attorney general.
Having poured acid on the foundations of American democracy for “fun” as well as ratings, audience size and profits, these same media outlets went on to cause thousands of needless deaths by spreading false rumors about COVID vaccination efforts and have recently graduated to promulgating “fair and balanced” pro-Putin propaganda.
› Netflix presents the documentary “Johnny Hallyday: Beyond Rock,” a profile of the popular musician, who died in 2017. While it might be easy for Americans to dismiss him as one of many Elvis knockoffs to emerge in the late 1950s, Hallyday remained a celebrity in France for seven decades.
If early American rock symbolized the affluence of the Eisenhower era, Hallyday offered a link to a much more troubled generation, born under German occupation and who came of age against the backdrop of French defeats in Indochina, Suez and Algeria.
› Hector Elizondo narrates “Zoot Suit Riots” on “American Experience” (9 p.m., PBS, check local listings), a 2002 documentary about 1943 clashes between white servicemen stationed in Los Angeles and gangs of flamboyantly dressed Mexican-American males who refused to “know their place.”
› Similar to “Plainville,” the NBC series “The Thing About Pam” (10 p.m., NBC, TV-14) features a big-screen star (Renee Zellweger) in a limited scripted series story that seems more appropriate to a true crime docuseries.
It’s interesting to note that “Pam” went almost un-watched when first broadcast on NBC. The pilot earned a 0.4 rating. But nearly nine million viewers caught up with it later, streaming “Pam” on Hulu and Peacock. Is this good news for NBC? Or a sign of broadcast’s demise?
This is hardly unique to “Pam.” Many network and cable series were discovered only when they streamed on Netflix, including Lifetime’s reality show parody “Unreal,” and the creepy voyeuristic “You,” which also originated on Lifetime.
› The 2022 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile,” directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, begins streaming on HBO Max.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS ›
An immigration agent is targeted when a fight breaks out at a hockey game on “FBI” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-14). ›
Raines’ sister vanishes in the Balkans on “FBI: International” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14).