Remembering Robin Williams, ‘Frasier’ on CBS, Dancing to Disney, Inside the Navajo Police

Documentary Premiere

10/9c

A new season of the docuseries that explores the tragedy lurking behind a comic façade returns with a profile of one of the masters: Robin Williams. The episode celebrates his quicksilver genius, first popularized on TV in Mork and Mindy with movies and classic stand-up showcases to follow. Friends and fellow comics recall his brilliance, illustrated in vintage footage. But Williams also struggled with alcoholism, drug addiction and depression, and in 2014, unaware he was suffering from Lewy body dementia, he died by suicide. None of which lessens the enduring appeal of the joy he displayed at his improvisational, soul-baring best.

For one night only, the reboot of the Emmy-winning comedy gets a showcase on CBS, where it seems a more appropriate fit than behind the Paramount+ streaming paywall. The first two episodes, directed by comedy master James Burrows (Cheers), air back-to-back, running longer than the usual half-hour, which isn’t always a plus. Kelsey Grammer returns to the role that won him four Emmys, as pop psychologist Frasier Crane returns to Boston to reconnect with his son Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), who’s more a kindred spirit to his working-class grandpa Martin (the late John Mahoney). Frasier’s pomposity is once again played for laughs, when he pursues a role at Harvard aside his former college buddy Alan, a misanthropic professor colorfully played by scene stealer Nicholas Lyndhurst. Though there are callbacks to Frasier and Cheers, none of those classic characters appear in the early episodes, leaving Grammer to carry the comedy. It’s an uneven start, but as characters go, Frasier is still one for the ages.

8/7c

ABC and other Disney platforms are going all in to celebrate Disney’s 100^th anniversary this week, and naturally the dancing competition is doing its part. The remaining 11 couples dance to some of the best-known songs from the Disney movie catalog, with numbers from Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Toy Story, Dumbo, Coco, Fantasia and Frozen II set to routines in the styles of Contemporary, Jazz, Quickstep, Paso Doble, Viennese Waltz and Waltz. The show opens with the pros dancing to Encanto’s signature tune, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” and how will the campiest of judges Bruno Tonioli respond to that?

Documentary Premiere

9/8c

This has been quite a year for Indigenous portrayals on TV, with AMC’s mystery Dark Winds, the final season of FX/Hulu’s Reservation Dogs and ABC’s one-and-done Alaska Daily. HBO provides a further jolt of contemporary and timely realism in a three-part docuseries that spends a year following recruits of the Navajo Police Training Academy, a group known as Class 57, as they go through the rigorous procedure to join the understaffed Navajo Police Department, which numbers just 180 to service a population of over 190,000 in the nation’s largest Native reservation. Two episodes premiere tonight, with the third airing Wednesday.

Series Premiere

International pick of the week is a hit drama from Italy that has been likened to a blend of Orange Is the New Black and Gomorrah with a 90210 youth vibe. Already generating buzz on these shores, the series is set in a juvenile prison overlooking the Sea of Naples where two young men of very different backgrounds are trying to survive. Filippo (Nicolas Maupas), from an affluent family, dreams of becoming a pianist. Carmine (Massimiliano Caiazzo) hails from a crime family but would rather be a hairdresser. As they’re enmeshed in the co-ed prison’s violent culture, romantic subplots also percolate amid the criminal intrigue.

INSIDE TUESDAY TV:

• The Voice (9/8c, NBC): With two steals each, the celebrity coaches send their teams into the Battle Rounds, with singers going head-to-head on their way to the 3-way Knockouts.
• Binged to Death (9/8c, MTV): A raucous comedy stars Loni Love as Kristen, whose extreme attachment to reality-TV relationship shows takes a bizarre turn when she and her BFF Terry (Carl Anthony Payne II) kidnap three former TV couples in hopes of bringing them back together—even if it kills them.
• The Swarm (9/8c, The CW): The mysterious ocean intelligence creating global havoc finally has a name: Yrr. But can the world’s top marine scientists contain it?
• Found (10/9c, NBC): While the team hunts for a missing doorman, Margaret (Kelli Williams) deals with personal fallout from having neglected the rest of her family while spending every night for 13 years in the bus station where her son disappeared.
• Welcome to Wrexham (10/9c, FX): Back-to-back episodes follow the resurgent soccer team during a punishing schedule of nine matches over 28 days, then celebrity owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney make the tough call to bring in a retired superstar goalie, which sidelines the loyal backup player who took the team to the top during a tough season.

ON THE STREAM:

• The Devil on Trial (streaming on Netflix): A true-crime documentary revisits the notorious 1981 murder trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, whose defense strategy of demonic possession (investigated by paranormal team Ed and Lorraine Warren) made national headlines—later inspiring the 2021 movie The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.
• Crush (streaming on Paramount+): A harrowing two-part docuseries marks the first anniversary later this month of the tragic crowd disaster in Seoul, South Korea in which more than 100,000 young Halloween revelers began to panic in the narrow streets of the Itaewon neighborhood, resulting in a crush that claimed 159 lives, including two American students. The film features first-person accounts of those trapped in the mob and others who tried to help rescue the suffocating victims.
• Shoresy (streaming on Hulu): On a lighter note, the raunchy Letterkenny spinoff returns for a second season, with Shoresy (Jared Keeso) continuing to try to keep the underdog Sudbury Bulldogs hockey team from being iced.