Danny Pudi, Donald Glover
Welcome to May sweeps (albeit still in April) and, more important, the countdown to the end of the official broadcast season on May 23. Meaning an end, for now, to those pesky repeats and the start-and-stop scheduling of favorite shows. Reason enough to celebrate? Wait until you see what NBC has in store for you tonight (or at least for those choosy few who gravitate toward the network's better Thursday night comedies).
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The Central Park Five
Renowned for his epic PBS documentaries, Ken Burns is aiming for his first proper theatrical release in 27 years with a controversial new feature. The filmmaker, his daughter Sarah Burns, and her husband, David McMahon, have jointly produced and directed The Central Park Five, a two-hour documentary about five New York teenagers whose convictions in the infamous 1989 Central Park jogger rape case were overturned after years spent in prison, and their current search for justice.
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Katie Couric and Josh Elliott
One lesson learned in this wearying week of morning-show warfare: Some people should never give up their dream day job. Which is why it was so gratifying for the week to end with the announcement that Today's Matt Lauer was staying put for years to come. I'd like to think he saw the future — or maybe Today's future — staring at him on Wednesday, when he sat across from...
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Henry Ian Cusick, Kerry Washington
With a title like Scandal, surely you didn't expect subtlety to be on the menu of Shonda Rhimes' latest ABC potboiler. But as a companion piece to her enduring and still entertaining breakthrough Grey's Anatomy, it's just what the doctor ordered. If your doctor happens to be an indulgent "Dr. Feelgood" ...
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Keith Olbermann
This is one of the more jam-packed weeks of a seriously overstuffed TV summer, so let's break it down by night.
MONDAY
COMEBACK: The mercurial and always opinionated Keith Olbermann, most recently ousted from his MSNBC perch, brings his act back to cable with the same title (Countdown) but a new network (Current TV). His eclectic roster of contributors will include documentarian Ken Burns, comedian Richard Lewis and filmmaker Michael Moore. Let the ranting begin.
GUILTY PLEASURE: [As seen in TV Guide Magazine] RuPaul's Drag U, Logo at 9/8c. Think...
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Michael Moore
Filmmaker Michael Moore joins a growing list of commentators who will contribute to Keith Olbermann's upcoming Current TV show, the network announced Wednesday.
Moore, a regular guest on Olbermann's MSNBC show, will be joined by...
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The Good Wife
And you thought premiere week was over. There are still a few new arrivals to sort through — check in Wednesday for some last-minute thoughts on NBC's Law & Order: Los Angeles (which only this week became available for preview) — so let's start with one of the more promising underdogs.
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Here's now I welcomed ABC's No Ordinary Family (8/7c) in TV Guide's Fall Preview ...
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Barry Bonds
The star of Ken Burns' The Tenth Inning — besides baseball itself — is Barry Bonds.
"He had to be," Burns says.
While Babe Ruth did it on hot dogs and beer and Hank Aaron on a diet no one ever questioned, Bonds is suspected to have set baseball's all-time home-run record on steroids. So Bonds looms large throughout the four hours of Burns' follow-up to his Emmy-winning 1994 documentary series Baseball.
Burns and partner Lynn Novick — whose credits include the masterful The Civil War and Jazz — expansively cover the last 16 years of the sport, including...
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Glee
Glee (Tuesday, 8/7c, Fox)
What do you do for an encore when your second-season opener bursts out of the gate, more than holding its own against a hit like NCIS, especially in the coveted younger demos? Time for a stunt! Britney Spears is the theme of, and makes a cameo appearance in, this week's "Britney/Brittany" episode in which we learn of a connection between the pop superstar and New Directions' more endearingly daffy member. While the glee club argues with Mr. Shue that they'd rather do Spears' greatest hits at the school assembly — cue playlist — Will is distracted by meeting Emma's new beau, played by John Stamos...
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Lucy Kate Hale, Michelle Ryan and Molly Price in Bionic Woman by Mitchell Haaseth/NBC Photo
First, an important public-service announcement: Tonight on The War, we relive D-Day, a momentous turning point in military history brought to vivid life by those who lived through it, courtesy of Ken Burns' masterful way with documentary narrative. I know this is premiere week, and Wednesday is the most competitive night for new shows this season, but I wouldn't be doing my duty if I didn't remind everyone that this is TV you not only shouldn't miss, but it's an experience you'll never forget. (The reality, though, is that PBS is giving viewers multiple opportunities to see these episodes, and I can't think of a better gift DVD for holiday season.) Back to the network game, where only one of the nine new series being launched on Wednesdays is MIA: ABC’s marvelous Pushing Daisies, its premiere pushed back a week by the tsunami-like launch of Dancing with the Stars, which once again is turning out to be the ratings monster everyone expected. (And the men, by and large, had a bla...
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