What’s Worth Watching: ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’, ‘Jane the Virgin’, ‘Telenovela’ and more for Monday, January 25
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (8/7c, The CW): Bravo, Rachel Bloom. This is how an underdog builds buzz during a winter break: winning a Golden Globe and a Critic’s Choice Award over two successive January weekends as comedy actress for her fearlessly inventive performance as delusional romantic Rebecca Bunch on this truly unconventional musical-comedy farce. Pushy, needy and outrageously impulsive, Rebcca is not the easiest heroine to love, and yet we root for her as she once again tries to insinuate herself into the inner circle of her still-unsuspecting sweet-souled jock crush Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III). Her strategy this time: Hire a party bus to take Josh and his friends to the beach—including Josh’s jealous and calculating girlfriend Valencia (Gabrielle Ruiz), who gets the night’s funniest production number in a paean to “Sisterhood,” full of veiled insults to all of her backup singers. (With this show and ABC’s Galavant, this is a boom time on TV for clever parody songwriting.) As silly as Crazy can sometimes get, the episode builds to a poignant, pivotal finish. It’s time more people make Rachel’s, and Rebecca’s, acquaintance.
Jane the Virgin (9/8c, The CW): Also back from winter break is last year’s Golden Globe winner, Gina Rodriguez, as Jane, now a harried single mom trying to sleep-train her beloved little Mateo. Recent Kennedy Center Honoree Rita Moreno returns as Jane’s paternal grandmother, revealing a 40-year-old family secret to Rogelio (Jaime Camil). And that’s not the only skeleton spilling out of family closets.
Telenovela (8:30/7:30c, NBC): Jane the Virgin is a telenovela at heart, and this sitcom goes behind the scenes of a fictional Latino soap, where the romance brewing between Ana (Eva Longoria) and her handsome boss, James (Zachary Levi), is moving too fast for the insecure diva.
Supergirl (8/7c, CBS): A White Martian isn’t the only visitor to National City this week. Cat’s (Calista Flockhart) son Adam has come to town—and if he looks familiar, it’s because Blake Jenner used to co-star with title star Melissa Benoist on Glee, and they’re now husband and wife. Will sparks fly on camera, too?
Recovery Road (Freeform, 9/8c): And a long road it will be for Maddie (Jessica Sula) in this earnest new young-adult drama, which opens with the high-schooler passed out from her latest drunken blackout on a lawn, awakened by sprinklers. But the real wake-up call comes when her counselor discovers vodka in her water bottle and orders her into detox and 90 days at a residential outpatient treatment facility. She’s surly and uncooperative at first, but you know that won’t last.
Inside Monday TV: Marking the 30th anniversary this week of the tragedy that played out in front of a horrified and grieving nation, National Geographic Channel’s Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes (9/8c) reconstructs the events around the space shuttle’s explosion in 1986, claiming the lives of seven crew members, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. … BBC America’s campy The Graham Norton Show moves to a new night and time (10/9c), with Ride Along 2‘s Ice Cube and Kevin Hart among Norton’s guests, joined by Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman from the upcoming The Night Manager, naturalist Sir David Attenborough and a performance by Elle King. … TBS’s Conan (11/10c) entertains the troops at an air base in Qatar, with Michelle Obama accompanying host Conan O’Brien on his second international trip to perform for the military. (He visited Kuwait and Bahrain in 2003 on a USO tour.) Comedian John Mulaney and musician Grace Potter join the party.
