Worth Watching: Oprah and ‘When They See Us,’ ‘First Responders Live,’ Bob Dylan’s ‘Rolling Thunder Revue,’ ‘Younger’ Premiere, Game 7 of Stanley Cup
A selective critical checklist of notable Wednesday TV:
Oprah Winfrey Presents When They See Us Now (10/9c, OWN and Netflix): Ava DuVernay‘s shattering docudrama miniseries for Netflix about the Central Park Five — now being referred to as The Exonerated Five — continues to resonate. In a throwback to the days when her own daytime talk show dealt with issues of the day, Oprah Winfrey (an executive producer of the four-part series) sits down with all five of the wrongly convicted men, as well as director-cowriter DuVernay and cast members for an in-depth conversation about the issues raised by the series as well as its cultural impact. (Just ask Linda Fairstein.)
This special follows the fourth-season premiere of OWN’s Queen Sugar (9/8c), also from executive producer DuVernay, in which the Bordelons prepare for the impact when Nova (Rutina Wesley) publishes her memoir exposing family secrets.
First Responders Live (9/8c, Fox): Because the success of 9-1-1 isn’t enough, Fox joins the live-TV craze with a new series from Dick Wolf that gives viewers a night-in-the-life look at firefighters, police and paramedics answering emergency calls from around the country. Josh Elliott hosts with live analysis and commentary from a team of experts.
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (streaming on Netflix): The famed filmmaker Martin Scorsese returns to the subject of his 2005 documentary, No Direction Home, with this look back at Bob Dylan’s legendary 1975-76 tour, which featured guests including Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Mick Ronson and Roger McGuinn. Culling from more than 100 hours of original footage, much of it abandoned and now lovingly restored, Scorsese also includes new interviews with Dylan, the late Sam Shepard and Rubin “Hurricane” Carter.
Younger (10/9c, TV Land): Six seasons into this delightful comedy, and 40something Liza (Sutton Foster) is still fooling most people into believing she’s a millennial. And yet much has changed — including her relationship with former boss Charles (Peter Hermann), which is now going public, and her professional partnership with Kelsey (Hilary Duff), who’s now running the Millennial Print business with Liza as an editor. While Liza and Charles are happy, she is still unnerved by the thought of her tattoo-artist ex Josh (Nico Tortorella) becoming a father, as his pregnant green-card-seeking wife Clare (Phoebe Dynevor) moves to New York City from Ireland. No one said getting older was easy.
Inside Wednesday TV: For the first time in eight years, the Stanley Cup (8/7c, NBC) has been forced to a seventh and deciding game, with the St. Louis Blues heading to the Boston Bruins’ home turf of TD Garden in hopes of bringing home hockey’s most coveted trophy… ABC’s fun-and-games summer strategy takes up residence on Wednesdays, with Press Your Luck (8/7c) moving into its regular time period, followed by a new version of Card Sharks (9/8c) hosted by Joel McHale, and the return of Match Game (10/9c), hosted by Alec Baldwin… Zoey (Yara Shahidi) gets a visit from brother Junior (black-ish star Marcus Scribner) on Freeform’s grown-ish (8/7c), and when she uses him as a wingman for a night out at Titanium, things don’t go as planned after Junior makes a connection with one of her college friends… Syfy’s Superman prequel Krypton (9/8c) is back for a second season, with the Man of Steel’s graddaddy Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe) still trapped in the Phantom Zone with the villainous Brainiac (Blake Ritson), unaware that his home planet has been overtaken by the Zods. Sounds like a job for you-know-who.
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