Summer TV is a time for tryouts
In the days of the three-network world, summer tryouts of primetime programming were a staple of every season.
That is a habit of the past, although ABC and CBS are both debuting some new fare this summer.
Channel 29, and its Fox parent, are acting more in the spirit of the summer peek, giving two new shows, both involving competitions, a chance to attract an audience.
Starting today, at 12:30 p.m., the station airs “Punchline,” a program that combines comedy with current events.
Mark Istook, the host, moderates two teams of comedians whose task is to come up with the best oneliners about news headlines.
Six comics are divided into teams called the Headliners and the Challengers. The show is set to run for four weeks. Riffing this first week are veterans of “Last Comic Standing,” “Chelsea Lately,” Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show,” Aspire Starz, and “Conan.” They are Tony Baker, Mitch Burrow, Trey Elliott, Ricarlo Flanagan, Nick Guerra, Michael Malone, Brian Monarch, Becky Robinson, Dulcé Sloan, Kira Soltanovich, Daphnique Springs, Ryan Stout, and Jenny Zigrino.
At 6:30 p.m. today is the debut of “iWitness,” enjoying a six-week skein.
John Henson is host as three contestants per show witness a scene and compete to see whose memory of it is the most accurate. The contestants’ recall will be confirmed or refuted by video clips and images. The person who reaches the final round stands to compete for a $20,000 prize.
Neshek is pride of Phillies ... This year
Relief pitcher Pat Neshek will be the sole representative for the Phillies when the National League best play their American League rivals in Tuesday’s MLB AllStar Game, set to air at 8 p.m. on Fox (Channel 29). Joe Buck, John Smoltz, and Ken Rosenthal are the broadcast crew.
Neshek’s lone status marks a far cry from palmier days when Chase Utley started four All-Star games in a row, and the Phillies contributed several weapons to the NL arsenal. I guess a team with twice as many losses as wins can’t expect else.
This year’s All-Star contest takes place in Miami. (May be the only time Marlins Park has a chance of being filled. I’d swear there are seats there that have never been occupied.) Crowds should also be flowing for tonight’s Home Run Derby, airing at 8 p.m. on ESPN. Participants are defending champion Giancarlo Stanton (Miami), Charlie Blackmon (Colorado), Cody Bellinger (L.A.), and Justin Bour (Miami) for the National League; Aaron Judge (New York), Gary Sanchez (New York) , Mike Moustakas (Kansas City), and Miguel Sano (Minnesota) for the American League.
No binge summer
The summer is a good time for binge watching. Except for “Game of Thrones” beginning an abbreviated seven-week season Sunday, summer fare seems slight. (Note to “Games of Thrones” fans, Xfinity offers the chance for subscribers to sample or catch up with the popular series from today through Friday by going to On-Demand freeview, which spares folks HBO’s fee. Besides every past episode, more than 70 bits of extra content are available, and X-1 subscribers can go to curated Pandora station devoted to the music from “Games.”)
For best binging, I recommend AMC’s “Better Call Saul,” which becomes richer as ongoing episodes unfold. Every character in the series is corrupt and revels in outsmarting or scamming rivals, but suspense, violence, fraud, and larceny combine with fun.
“Fargo” is even a giddier ride. Its blend of the macabre with the hilarious is delightful, and its acting matches “Better Call Saul’s,” quite a feat.
If “Fargo is the binge choice, I would recommend watching all three seasons. The plots are generally unrelated, but the mood and the plot development are consistent, and they show great creative storytellers at work.
One caution about the last season of “Fargo.” It becomes complex to the point of being muddy in spots in later episodes. Unlike the first two seasons, the latest series does not end with the decent, law-abiding people having a congenial dinner and talking about how bizarre the crimes they’ve recently solved are. Carrie Coon, as a one-time chief of police, busted to deputy by a jealous superior, stares in a mirror and wonders if the justice she thinks she’s wrought is going to be undone, as it has been in episode after episode thanks to the superior that demoted her, or reinstate some peace and order in rural Minnesota.
The opening scenes of this year’s “Fargo” has also caused some controversy. The series opens in Communist East Germany, where a man is interrogated and threatened with torture and prison, while claiming over and over again he is not the man the Stasi thinks it is taking into custody. This sequence is never referred to for the rest of the season.
My take is it is meant to show the universality of the device “Fargo” revolved around this year. So much this season depended on confusion, mistaken identity, wrong addresses, unwarranted suspicion, and the misinterpretation each of these can muster. The writers must have wanted to show that the same idiocy that was routine in oppressive Cold War East Germany can happen in Minnesota too.
Other good binge choices would be “The Night Manager,” “Yhe Night Of…,” Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon, who joins the cast of “Ray Donovan” next month, in “The Feud,” and, of course, that binger’s favorite, “Orange is the New Black.”
I can also live with a steady diet of The Food Network’s “Chopped” or watching the entire file of “Seinfeld,” “The Big Bang Theory,” or “Roseanne.”
Rather than just dismiss the summer and its offerings, I have made a list of shows that interest me and that I intend to sample. “GLOW” and “Snowfall” have already gotten my attention this manner.
Coming up at 9 p.m. Wednesday is CBS’s “Salvation,” about people mobilizing to prevent disaster from an asteroid that is scheduled to hit Earth in six months.
Netflix’s “Friends From College,” due for release on Friday, sound formulaic, being about college buddies who are now in their forties, but the cast is encouraging — Fred Savage, Keenan-Michael Key, and Cobie Smulders among it.
I will make a point to see AMC’s “Loaded,” which premieres 10 p.m. July 17, and is about four friends who become tech millionaires after selling their videogame to a distributor.
Anything with Laura Linney sparks my interest, and she stars with Jason Bateman in a Netflix series, “Ozark,” about Missouri money launderers, starting, July 21.
Cheers in Bucks County
Fans of two 20th century series, “Home Improvement” and “Cheers,” can see stars from those shows when they come to New Hope’s Bucks County Playhouse in shows later this season.
Patricia Richardson, who showed depth enough to give extra emotional heft to “Steel Magnolias” last season, returns to the Playhouse from August 18 to September 2 in Jon Robin Baitz’s “Other Desrt Cities.” She plays a wealthy woman who, with her husband, influences local politics and is dealing her daughter’s novel about the dynamics of her family, No other casting is known.
George Wendt, “Cheers’s” droll Norm whose order was at his place before he made his way from the tavern door to the bar, appears as J. Edgar Hoover in New Hope from September 12 to October 1 in a world premiere musical, “Rock and Roll Man,” about the career of seminal pop music deejay, Alan Freed. Alan Campbell, the original Joe from Broadway’s 1995 production of “Sunset Boulevard,” co-stars.