‘My Brilliant Friend,’ ‘Mars’ Goes Dark, Fall Finales of ‘9-1-1’ and ‘Manifest’
A critical checklist of notable Monday TV:
My Brilliant Friend (9/8c, HBO): In its second week, the engrossing coming-of-age series set in 1950s Naples has transitioned into the teenage years of Elena (the subtly moving Margherita Mazzucco) and Lila (the fiery Gaia Gerace). As Elena advances to high school, Lila marks her own path within the family shoe shop, fending off the affections of understandably smitten neighborhood lads. The story builds to a New Year’s Eve climax with rooftop fireworks leading to an explosive showdown between rival clans.
Mars (9/8c, National Geographic): There’s always something endangering the fledging colonies on the Red Planet, and this time it’s a solar flare that knocks out power and communications. In most immediate jeopardy: geologist Marta (Anamaria Marinca), who’s stuck on the surface doing field research as the temperature drops with limited air supply.
9-1-1 (9/8c, Fox): Yuletide spells catastrophe for the first responders in the fall finale, with Christmas lights getting too hot to handle in one emergency call, and a toy-store stampede causing injury in another. Off duty, Bobby (Peter Krause) contemplates his future with policewoman Athena (Angela Bassett) while Eddie (Ryan Guzman) deals with “ex-mas” issues.
Manifest (10/9c, NBC): Also going on a holiday hiatus: the high-concept conspiracy drama, in which Ben (Josh Dallas) and sister Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh) risk everything to save the missing passengers of Flight 828 with calamitous results. The aftermath further challenges the marriage of Ben and Grace (Athena Karkanis), while bringing Michaela and her ex, Jared (J.R. Ramirez), together again.
Inside Monday TV: ABC’s The Great Christmas Light Fight (8/7c) returns with back to back episodes of blindingly ostentatious holiday lawn displays… Fans pick the songs performed live by the Top 11 on NBC”s The Voice (8/7c)… Premium network Epix premieres The Panama Papers (9/8c), a documentary from director Alex Winter (Deep Web) that looks into the journalistic data leak which exposed a web of global corruption involving a Panamanian law firm hiding money for politicians, cartel bosses, dictators, the wealthy and famous.
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Arrow and Legends on my schedule tonight. (Magnum is a repeat.) I find it surprising and, I must admit, disappointing that NatGeo is lowering itself to air a scripted show these days. 🙁
An observation about football on TV: many's the time people complain and bemoan that CBS is sometimes pushed to running late on its Sunday shows due to run-overs in football games. Yet CBS always shows college games on Saturday and NOT ONCE have I ever seen the network's Saturday programming run late. ???
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Perhaps the Sunday games air later and are more padded. I don't watch football so not so sure.
Speaking of football, CBS will air a special highly promoted episode of Magnum after the big championship game. I guess CBS feels this show has potential to be a long term player.
The mid season finale of Manifest for me tonight. The family sometimes choses to watch The Good Doctor live so might watch Manifest later.
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I watched the series Genius on National Geographic. The first one, Einstein was quite compelling. I also watched the second season's Picasso, not quite as engrossing, but very well acted. I could sum up Picasso in one sentence : Picasso loved painting and making love to all sorts of women until his old age.
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Their own website explains it best: "The series combines scripted drama paired with documentary sequences featuring scientists and innovators who are leading the research and development of space technology that will make a future mission to settle Mars possible." The scripted portion of the show is maybe 50% of each episode, and although I enjoy the story okay, I actually enjoy the real science and technology discussions better.
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Sunday's "CBS/Fox NFL Run-Over Hassles" when DVRing are quite easy to resolve...just set the DVR to also record the FOLLOWING Hour...
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Yeah, I don't DVR anything, and I also understand that football games sometimes run long, so a little overrun doesn't bother me. But heaven knows that EVERY FALL there are complaints from viewers who get absolutely livid about their precious shows being delayed for 15 or 20 or 25 minutes. Like it's the end of the world, lol.
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That's good to know, that the scripted part is only used as illustration for the info being discussed by scientists. I guess I was burned by History Channel selling out with scripted drama in place of actual historical documentaries.
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Another slow Monday for me...just Legends, Good Doctor, and Manifest.
Did anyone end up watching Dirty John last night? I was thinking of watching it when it repeats at 11:30 tonight if you think it's worth it.
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