This week: celebrating Dick Van Dyke, ‘Frontline’ tackles Netanyahu, and ‘Extended Family’ arrives
1. I’ve always adored Dick Van Dyke, most of all from his 1960s sitcom in which he played a comedy writer and husband to Mary Tyler Moore. He was endearingly human, and a far cry, thankfully, from some of the know-it-all, morally upright family men we saw on TV in the 1950s. Now CBS is honoring him for his long career, which included “Mary Poppins,” “Cold Turkey,” “Diagnosis: Murder,” “Bye Bye Birdie,” and “The Comic.” On Thursday at 9 p.m., the two-hour “Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic” will include lots of old footage, recreated TV and movie sets, and special guest stars including Jason Alexander, Zachary Levi, Rita Ora, and Weird Al Yankovic. Alas, many of his co-stars — Moore, Morey Amsterdam, Rose Marie, Carl Reiner — are gone.
2. On Tuesday, PBS’s “Frontline” is featuring a new 90-minute documentary called “Netanyahu, America & the Road to War in Gaza.” It looks at the political evolution of Israel’s longest serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and it includes accounts from those close to him. The film, at 10 p.m. on GBH 2, tries to provide some context for the war unfolding today. It will be followed by “Failure at the Fence,” a documentary short made in collaboration with The Washington Post that examines the failures that lead to Hamas’s brutal attack on Israeli civilians.
3. The podcast-based anthology series “Dr. Death” returns with an eight-episode season about a charming surgeon known as the “Miracle Man.” You guessed it: He’s not all he’s cracked up to be. An innovator, he catches the attention of a reporter, who winds up getting in over her head with him. He is played by Edgar Ramirez, she is played by Mandy Moore. It premieres Thursday on Peacock. Looks like the pendulum has swung away from the hero doctors of “ER.”
4. NBC is premiering a new sitcom, “Extended Family,” on Saturday night at 8 during the holiday season, a fairly dead zone. Created by Mike O’Malley, and set in Boston, it’s about a couple who have an amicable divorce and continue to live together to raise their kids. Comic situations will indeed ensue. The cast features Jon Cryer and Abigail Spencer as the divorced pair, and Donald Faison as her boyfriend. Next year, the show will move to Tuesday nights, where it will stand a better chance.
5. “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is a series adaptation of Rick Riordan’s Young Adult fantasy novels about present-day Greek gods. The cast of young ’uns features Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Aryan Simhadri, and the impressive recurring and guest casts include Megan Mullally, Glynn Turman, Toby Stephens, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jay Duplass, and the late Lance Reddick. It premieres on Wednesday on Disney+ and Hulu.