Tony-Winning ‘Suffs,’ Sally Field in ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures,’ ‘Amadeus’ Retold, ‘Deadliest Catch’ Returns

Great Performances

Winner of 2024 Tony Awards for Shaina Taub’s rousing score and inspiring book, the musical about the suffragists who fought to earn U.S. women the right to vote, Suffs,  launches Great Performances’ annual “Broadway’s Best” season. Taub, who’s currently appearing as Emma Goldman in the Tony-nominated Broadway revival of Ragtime, also heads the ensemble cast as Alice Paul, an indefatigable crusader who led a group of female activists in the campaign to pass the 19th Amendment a century ago. The performance was captured in December 2024 on the Music Box Theatre stage with the original Broadway cast.

Remarkably Bright Creatures

Two-time Oscar winner and three-time Emmy winner Sally Field could easily add another nomination to her illustrious credits in director/co-writer Olivia Newman’s heartwarming adaptation of Shelby Van Pelt’s popular novel. Field stars as Tova, a widow who finds new purpose when she begins working at an aquarium in the Pacific Northwest and forms a special connection with a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus, whose thoughts we hear courtesy of Alfred Molina‘s mellifluous voice. An unusually perceptive creature of the sea, Marcellus takes a special interest in Tova and her budding friendship with a drifter, Cameron (Lewis Pullman), who’s arrived in town seeking family connections. From its watery perch, Marcellus will do what it can to help them both find happiness.

Amadeus

Peter Shaffer’s mesmerizing play imagining the rivalry between Austrian court composer Antonio Salieri and the genius upstart Mozart was a Tony-winning Best Play in 1981, and three years later, under the direction of Miloš Forman, won an Oscar for Best Picture. Now it’s TV’s turn to tackle the story, in a lavish five-part limited series from Joe Barton, starring WandaVision‘s Paul Bettany as the envious Salieri and The White Lotus alum Will Sharpe as the brilliant but vulgar prodigy who appalls yet awes the more mediocre composer. Rory Kinnear (The Diplomat) co-stars as the mercurial Emperor Joseph II, who delights in Mozart’s bravado if not his irreverence, with Gabrielle Creevy as the lusty Constanze, who becomes Mozart’s bride and greatest champion.

Deadliest Catch

The long-running docuseries depicting the dangerous and grueling trade of crab fishing is back for a 22nd season, with the captains and their crews chasing a new population of king crabs 225 miles farther north than usual in the frigid Bering Sea, off the coast of St. George Island. Capt. Sig Hansen hopes to beat the rest of the pack by launching an underwater drone into the uncharted seas to locate the prize catch. In a redemptive storyline, Jake Anderson starts over as a deckhand before grabbing an opportunity to restore the Cornelia Marie and become a captain again.

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars

The queens you know and love to cheer for are back for an 11th edition of the all-star competition. This season’s format divides the pack of 18 glamazons into three groups of six, competing over three episodes, with the top two contestants in each bracket moving on to the semi-finals. The season builds to a Lip Sync Smackdown for the Crown, with the champion winning $200,000 and Drag Race Hall of Fame bragging rights. Legends include Morgan McMichaels from Drag Race‘s second season and the third All-Stars, Silky Nutmeg Ganache (Drag Race Season 11 and All-Stars 6), Kennedy Davenport (Drag Race Season 7 and All-Stars 3), Season 2’s Mystique Summers, and so many more. Among the season’s fabulous guest judges: Christina Ricci, Gina Gershon, Abbott Elementary‘s Janelle James, La Toya Jackson, Kate Hudson, Juno Temple, Atlanta alum Brian Tyree Henry, and Renée Rapp.

INSIDE FRIDAY TV:

• Outlander (8/7c, Starz): Book series author Diana Gabaldon penned the penultimate episode of the time-travel romance, with Jamie (Sam Heughan) and William (Charles Vandervaart) racing to rescue Lord John (David Berry), who’s now in the clutches of the villainous Capt. Richardson (Ben Lambert).
• Sheriff Country (8/7c, CBS): A federal crackdown by the DEA puts Sheriff Mickey Fox (Morena Baccarin) and all of Edgewater on edge. Followed by Fire Country (9/8c), where series star Diane Farr directs an episode that forces Bode (Max Thieriot) to face his past during an off-duty rescue.
• The Andy Griffith Show Reunion: Back to Mayberry (8/7c, MeTV): A highlight of the channel’s “Month of Mayberry,” the 1993 reunion special brings together Andy Griffith, Don Knotts, Jim Nabors, and Ron Howard to share memories.
• The Gunfighter (8/7c, Turner Classic Movies): The weekly “Star of the Month” tribute to Gregory Peck focuses on the actor’s many Western movies, including 1950’s fable about a notorious gunslinger, followed by David O. Selznick‘s 1946 Duel in the Sun (9:30/8:30) and 1971’s Shootout (midnight/11c) in another anti-hero role.
• The Longest Day (8/7c, FMC): The centerpiece of FMC’s daylong VE Day Marathon is the 1962 all-star epic recreating the events of the D-Day landings in Normandy.
• True Crime Watch: On ABC’s 20/20 (9/8c, ABC), John Quiñones reports on the 2022 disappearance and murder of Georgia teenager Susana Morales. Dateline NBC (9/8c, NBC) revisits the 2020 murder of 29-year-old single mom Morgan Fox, shot in the head in her Ohio driveway.
• Boston Blue (10/9c, CBS): Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) and Lena (Sonequa Martin-Green) do double duty, solving a murder while protecting a college basketball star who’s being threatened.

 ON THE STREAM:

• For All Mankind (streaming on Apple TV): Months into the standoff on Mars, grim reality sets in, while in deeper space, the Sojourner mission to Titan faces a critical decision.
• Your Friends & Neighbors (streaming on Apple TV): When a family funeral becomes too overwhelming, Coop (Jon Hamm) goes bowling—and makes a profoundly poignant discovery.
• Unconditional (streaming on Apple TV): An eight-part Israeli political thriller, launching with two episodes, depicts a desperate mother’s (Liraz Chamami) crusade to free her 23-year-old daughter (Talia Lynne Ronn) after she’s arrested by Russian authorities on charges of drug smuggling.
• Broad Trip (streaming on Roku Channel): Lauren Holly and Sophia Bush star in a road-trip comedy as mother and daughter Jeanie and Alice, who’ve got some issues to work out while Alice tries to talk Jeanie out of marrying the guy she just met (Steve Guttenberg).
• Whistle (streaming on Shudder): Yellowjackets‘ Sophie Nélisse and Marvel star Dafne Keen star in a supernatural shocker about teens who learn they should have known better than to blow an ancient Aztec Death Whistle.
• Greenland 2: Migration (streaming on HBO Max): A grim sequel to the 2020 post-apocalyptic disaster movie Greenland makes its streaming debut, once again starring Gerard Butler and Sheriff Country‘s Morena Baccarin as parents forced to flee their bunker and find a new home on a planet ravaged by a comet. The movie premieres on HBO Saturday at 8/7c, after a screening of the original Greenland at 6/5c.