Worth Watching: ‘Twilight Zone’ Finale, Big Bird Lip-Syncs, NBA Finals
A selective critical checklist of notable Thursday TV:
The Twilight Zone (streaming on CBS All Access): The first season of Jordan Peele‘s successful reboot of the iconic supernatural anthology comes to a close with one of the most meta episodes in the entire series’ history. Forget about breaking fourth walls, this surreal tale about a sinister “Blurryman” freaking out a writer (Atlanta‘s Zazie Beetz) smashes the entire artificial edifice of a fictional series. To say more would be to give too much away, but there’s joy to be had as well in a Seth Rogen cameo as a star of the show-within-the-show. And even if you catch on — as I did — to the identity of the “Blurryman” a few moments before the eventual reveal, it’s still something a true Twilight Zone fan is likely to savor all the way until a second season arrives next year.
Lip Sync Battle (10/9c, Paramount Network): From childhood, we’ve all known that anything is better when Big Bird is involved. And so it will presumably be as the mock musical competition returns with Sesame Street‘s avian hero facing off against Jason Schwartzman, which doesn’t seem a fair fight at all. With the help of Elmo and Cookie Monster, Big Bird performs Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling,” while Schwartzman brings feeling to his rendition of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” And it’s pretty clear how Big Bird feels about playing with fire.
NBA Finals (9/8c, ABC): The Toronto Raptors upset Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference, and as they host the Golden State Warriors in their first-ever NBA Finals game, the underdog team faces a likely uphill climb, as they must overcome a 3-15 all-time record in first games. Plus, Golden State is a much more rested team, having enjoyed nine days off after beating Portland. Let the games begin, but not before things kick off, as they have for 12 years, with a special edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live: Game Night (8/7c, following the game on the West Coast), featuring scheduled guests Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston.
Inside Thursday TV: The second season of Freeform’s Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger (8/7c) wraps with Tyrone (Aubrey Joseph) and Tandy (Olivia Holt) heading to the Loa dimension to stop the evil forces threatening New Orleans… NBC double-stacks remaining episodes of its sitcoms A.P. Bio (8/7c), which was recently canceled, and Abby’s (9/8), which is still awaiting word on renewal… VH1’s Emmy winning spec-drag-tacular RuPaul’s Drag Race (9/8c) will crown a lip-syncing queen in the season finale… A transcontinental challenge awaits Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Watson (Lucy Liu) in CBS’s Elementary (10/9c), because they’re stuck in London trying to investigate the shooting of a gravely wounded Capt. Gregson (Aidan Quinn) back in New York.
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