‘Vanity Fair,’ New Season of ‘Runaways,’ 20th Anniversary of ‘Home for the Holidays’
A critical checklist of notable Friday TV:
Vanity Fair (streaming on Amazon): Like a PBS Masterpiece classic seen through a snarky Gossip Girl filter, this seven-part adaptation of the Thackeray novel is a colorful and proudly shallow wallow in bad behavior and high melodrama. Olivia Cooke charmingly smirks at the camera as ruthlessly opportunistic Becky Sharp, who flirts and schemes her way through 19th-century London. She experiences so many reversals of fortune, even before the battle of Waterloo, that the head spins as the hours fly.
Marvel’s Runaways (streaming on Hulu): Marvel’s footprint may be fading on Netflix, but Hulu continues with a second season (13 episodes) of the adolescent fantasy thriller. The action picks up with the runaways having fled their evil parents and learning to survive on their own, while seeking to take down PRIDE. But is there a mole among them?
A Home for the Holidays — The 20th Anniversary (8/7c, CBS): The annual inspirational special, spotlighting stories of adoption from foster care, marks its 20th year with music from Gwen Stefani, Train and Lukas Graham, with Andy Grammer performing from the Grove’s tree-lighting ceremony in L.A. NCIS: Los Angeles star LL Cool J hosts the special, which includes updates on three families previously profiled and introduces a family from Syracuse, N.Y. who took in 17-year-old Ethan from a troubled home, and who’s now a star rower who earned an athletic scholarship to Syracuse University.
Bird Box (streaming on Netflix): Sandra Bullock, Sarah Paulson and John Malkovich star in director Susanne Bier’s dystopian thriller that does for sight what A Quiet Place did for sound. Sandra Bullock, Sarah Paulson and John Malkovich star in the story of a family’s journey through a dangerous world in which blindfolds are mandatory, because coming face to face with the menace will kill you.
Among the many, many, many other Netflix premieres: 7 Days Out, a docuseries all about anticipation, each episode counting down a week’s worth of preparation before cultural events ranging from a Karl Lagerfeld fashion collection to NASA’s Cassini mission; Guillermo del Toro’s animated series 3Below, the latest in the Tales of Arcadia trilogy, featuring the voices of Diego Luna, Tatiana Maslany and Glenn Close in the story of teenage aliens who crash-land on Earth while escaping bounty hunters; and from OWN, the third season of the juicy melodrama Greenleaf, about intrigues within a Memphis megachurch.
American Dream/American Knightmare (8:30/7:30c, Showtime): Director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) explores the rise and fall of rap mogul and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight in a documentary that features a series of interviews with the controversial music maestro. Currently in jail, sentenced to 28 years after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter in a 2015 hit-and-run death, Knight frankly discusses his successes, setbacks and such notorious incidents as the Las Vegas shooting that claimed the life of Tupac Shakur while seriously injuring Knight.
Inside Friday TV: Logo celebrates feminist icon Laverne DeFazio (aka that late Penny Marshall) with an eight-hour marathon of classic episodes of Laverne & Shirley, starting at noon/11c… Need a holiday fix? Hallmark Movies & Mysteries is there for you, with Christmas at Grand Valley (9/8c), starring Danica McKellar as a struggling artist who comes home to Wyoming and commits herself to saving the town’s fabled lodge from the wrecking ball. Her Wonder Years co-star Dan Lauria also appears… PBS’s Peabody-winning Craft in America returns with back-to-back episodes (9/8c, check local listings at pbs.org), looking at arts-and-crafts practices throughout the state of California, and then celebrating visionaries in a variety of craft disciplines… Outspoken comedian Sommore takes the mike in Miami Beach for Showtime’s stand-up comedy special, Sommore: A Queen With No Spades (10/9c).
Conversation21 Comments
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Finally populated on my screen! We did have a power outage last night, but that doesn't explain why I'm seeing the latest Worth Watching pages later than everyone else.
TCM is airing Breakfast at Tiffany's tonight. One of my favorite Audrey Hepburn movies. I recall decades ago there was a marathon of her films including Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Charade and others. I watched them all, what a great marathon that was.
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C
More new episodes for me than any other night this week: Z Nation, Graham Norton, and Midnight, Texas! I miss MacGyver!
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I assume you've probably head that the Jack Dalton character is leaving MacGyver. Too bad, I like him,and the actor always seems like he's having fun with the role.
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Yeah. Some rumors have him storming off the set after an altercation. Supposedly, there were similar problems when he was on CSI. Who knows for sure?
I like the black guy better. He always makes me laugh.
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You must mean Bozer, MacGyver's friend who joined the team later in the first season. Yeah, he's funny. Incidentally, that actor, Justin Hires, starred in the short-lived CBS show Rush Hour. I kind of liked that show, but the network must have known the show wouldn't work, because Rush Hour aired in the spring/summer of 2016, and Hires then appeared in MacGyver, which began in fall of 2016.
As for the guy who plays Jack Dalton (just remembered his name is George Eads), yeah, maybe he has some anger issues, I don't know. But again, it always looks like fun times on MacGyver, so who really knows.
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I don't think I ever saw Rush Hour. I don't even remember it being a TV show.
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If you only have time for one, make it Manifest!
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What an odd movie to want to see.
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I'd never heard of it. I had to look it up to see what it was.
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Rush Hour (the TV show) was a spring show, so it only lasted through the summer, like 12-13 episodes.
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What about Michael Weatherly of Bull? Is CBS keeping him on? If he leaves , the show is over. That's my mom verbatim. She loves that show.
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It's not so much his behavior (which he supposedly apologized for) but that she was fired for complaining about him which he may or may not be responsible for.
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Whether Weatherly was responsible or not, SOMEONE connected with the show (producer or writer or whatever) wrote her character off, supposedly after she made a complaint. THAT's what the beef is all about.
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Isn't that what I said? For 9 million dollars, she ought to just shut up about it. I'm sure she signed some sort of nondisclosure agreement to get it.
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I know she wasn't the first one to say anything, but I thought nondisclosure meant she should never even comment on it. At this point, what good is it going to do her to keep carrying on about it?
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Since the show is named Bull, and Weatherly's character IS Bull, then I really don't think the show would survive without him. I don't watch it, so I don't really care one way or the other.
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True. I think I'll watch The Bishop's Wife this holiday weekend. My friend told me its a must see.
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The Patrick Stewart Christmas Carol is on now, on TNT. But it started at 6pm. After that the network is airing The Wizard of Oz, which I recall always being aired in the spring, around Easter.
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It's a decent movie, but it's rather sappy by today's standards.
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I already watched the remake The Preacher's Wife . I'll keep my expectations low for The Bishop's Wife.
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I'd watch The Bishop's Wife again, rather than one of the newer holiday movies on Lifetime and Hallmark.
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