Weekend TV: New Steel Magnolias, Simpsons' Halloween Special, PBS Goes Upstairs
Is there a more perfect Lifetime movie property than Steel Magnolias? This tragicomic celebration of female bonding through gossipy good times and bad, all while getting their hair done at Truvy's Beauty Spot in suburban Louisiana, has been a crowd-pleaser since its first incarnation as an off-Broadway stage play (my preferred version, where the men are kept entirely offstage). The epitome of a leave-'em-laughing-while-weeping heart-warmer, Magnolias reached its pop-cultural apex in the all-star 1989 film version, but its can't-miss universality is underscored in Lifetime's oddly genteel but ultimately affecting new TV-movie (Sunday, 9/8c), whose big twist is in the casting of an all African-American ensemble.
