What’s Worth Watching: ‘Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe’, ‘Rizzoli & Isles’, ‘Harley and the Davidsons’ and more for Monday, September 5.
Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe (10/9c, Comedy Central): As if the premature cancellation of his excellent The Grinder weren’t enough, former Brat Packer Rob Lowe submits to a profane shellacking by an eclectic panel including Jewel, Peyton Manning, SNL’s enfant terrible Pete Davidson, the inevitable Jeff Ross and Roast Master David Spade. But Lowe is in good (or bad, depending on your POV) company, because one of his roasters apparently takes just as brutal a beating: notorious and unrepentant political flame-thrower Ann Coulter. As they say, if you can dish it out …
Rizzoli & Isles (9/8c, TNT): After seven seasons and more than 100 episodes, the popular female buddy-cop crime drama takes a final bow with a “Bon Voyage” party and a goodbye video to give fans closure, as TNT’s brand continues moving away from conventional meat-and-potatoes procedurals to darker, edgier shows like Animal Kingdom and the upcoming Good Behavior. Time will tell how that strategy pays off.
Harley and the Davidsons (9/8c, Discovery): A scrappy ode to the era of enterprise and invention, this jaunty three-part miniseries (airing through Wednesday) dramatizes the establishment of the iconic motorcycle brand through the stories of the three men who went the extra mile in the early 1900s to prove their newfangled “motorized bicycles” were up to the challenge: brash brothers Walter (Michiel Huisman) and Arthur (Bug Hall) Davidson, and studious engineer Bill Harley (Robert Aramayo). Walter’s harrowing road races are a highlight of the first night.
Inside Monday TV: History’s 15 Septembers Later (9/8c) looks back at the tragedy of 9/11 with untold stories, new interviews and an examination of recently declassified intelligence materials and photos. … TV’s true-crime boom has now fallen on the infamous JonBenét Ramsey case 20 years later, with at least four projects this fall rehashing the unsolved Christmas 1996 murder of the 6-year-old beauty queen. First up: A&E’s The Killing of JonBenét: The Truth Uncovered (9/8c), a two-hour special that includes an interview with father John Ramsey. My advice: Hold out for CBS’s six-hour docuseries that begins Sept. 18. … PBS’s POV series goes deep inside The Birth of Saké (10/9c, check local listings at pbs.org) as filmmaker Erik Shirai immerses himself in the family-owned Yoshida Brewery’s painstaking production of the fabled Japanese rice wine, which is becoming something of a lost art.
