Monday, Feb. 6, 2012

	THE VOICE NBC, 8 p.m. ET SEASON PREMIERE: Part 2 of 2. Last night's returning installment was full of high-energy fun, from the judges as well as the auditioners. Tonight, concluding the Season 2 opener that began last night, this NBC series tries to carry viewers from post-Super Bowl Sunday to what it hopes will be a new, competitive NBC Monday. If viewers stay tuned tonight, and return to The Voice with numbers even stronger than last year, then NBC, like this reality show’s contestants, truly will have something to sing about.
	HOUSE Fox, 8 p.m. ET Jeffrey Wright, who played Belize in both the Broadway and HBO miniseries versions of Angels in America, guest stars as the former mentor of Omar Epps’ Foreman, who is brought in to question House (Hugh Laurie) and his team after a violent outburst at the hospital brings them all under tight scrutiny.
	FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT TCM, 8 p.m. ET In 1940 – the year after England was engaged in war with Germany, but a year before the United States joined the battle – Alfred Hitchcock, a recent emigrant to the U.S., made this outstanding thriller as a thinly veiled plea for the U.S. to get involved. Joel McCrae stars as a stateside newspaper reporter who is sent to cover unrest in Europe, and quickly becomes swept along by the story, and some deadly intrigue. And, as always, the director himself makes a cameo.
	SMASH NBC, 10 p.m. ET SERIES PREMIERE: This is NBC’s all-in bet for 2012. It’s a risky, gutsy gamble, hoping that viewers will tune in, and stay tuned over the next months, for a serialized drama about the making of a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe. But this is a show that deserves the chance, justifies the risk, and celebrates New York, the Broadway musical, and creativity itself in grand fashion. Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty play two of the Marilyn wannabes vying for the leading role. For a full review, see BIANCULLI’S BLOG.
	CASTLE ABC, 10:01 p.m. ET On a night when NBC is launching its new musical drama series, ABC fights fantasy with fantasy. This new episode of Castle presents a page – or a chapter or two – from the imaginative author’s mind of Castle (Nathan Fillion), who sees himself as a 1940s detective in a film noir daydream. But he’s really dreaming the most about Beckett (Stana Katic), whom he sees, in this fantasy, as a gangster’s very seductive moll.

'Frozen Planet' -- Not Your Father's Wild Kingdom

Jane Boursaw

With the hundreds of nature documentaries that have aired over the years, you start thinking there must be nothing left for us to see on this Big Blue Planet. But that's just silly. This year alone, we've had James Cameron venturing to the deepest part of the ocean in a torpedo-shaped submarine, and shows like Discovery Channel's Frozen Planet. If you haven't yet checked it out, Discovery Channel is airing an all-day Frozen Planet marathon Sunday, April 22, from 1-9 p.m. -- this time the original UK version with David Attenborough narrating...(more)

'Veep' Is Hardly a Washington Monument

Ed Bark

Here's a new comedy series for those who expect absolutely nothing but incompetence, cynicism and crass opportunism from their elected leaders in Washington. Which might well cover most of us these days. Still, the timing may not be quite right for HBO's Veep, which is about as far removed from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and The West Wing as many able-bodied Americans are from a decent job . . . (more)

HBO's 'Veep': Four More Years!

Theresa Corigliano

I am still smiling, and I watched HBO's three preview episodes of Veep 10 hours ago. It's just that funny. In this new and very welcome half-hour comedy (debuting Sunday at 10 p.m. ET), Julia Louis-Dreyfus is pitch perfect as Selina Meyer, vice president of the United States. The catch to being the free world's second-in-command has always been . . . (more)

Thanks for Being a Part of Our Lives, Mr. Clark

Ed Bark

No one gets out alive, not even the man known for most of his adult life as "America's Oldest Teenager." Dick Clark died Wednesday at age 82 of a heart attack . . . Clark's principal legacies are American Bandstand, that staple of teen life in the 1950s and '60s, and the New Year's Rockin' Eve specials that date back to Dec. 31, 1972 . . . (more)

Reasons to Celebrate: Fox is 25, and Bart Simpson Is Still in Grade School

Crazy like a Fox! It's impossible to overstate the influence this outrageous "fourth network" has had on TV since it stormed into prime time in April 1987 -- yes, 25 years ago, which accounts for Sunday night's clips-and-reunions salute, Fox's 25th Anniversary Special (April 22 at 8-10 p.m. ET)... (more)

TRUE CRIME: The 9/11 Deception

Real life these days seems to provide the best mystery tales of all. And there's a doozy told Friday night in The Woman Who Wasn't There, the 8-9:30 p.m. ET encore of the film that earlier this week delivered the highest ratings ever for cable's Investigation Discovery channel. It's a 9/11-centered suspenser that's thankfully far from ID's usual focus on deadly women, killer trials, stalkers, motives and murders . . . (more)

THE UNIVERSE

It's not quite the claimed "Complete Series Megaset" (Season 6 comes out May 15), but it looks great on Blu-ray anyway -- especially at $59 for 16 discs as Amazon's TV deal of the week.

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