Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Tuesday, June 2. All times are Eastern.
Top pick
Community (Yahoo!, 3:01 a.m.): The season finale that goes live in just a couple hours might be the last Community episode ever … or it might not! Let’s not pretend we have the slightest idea we can predict the future of this lovably unkillable show. Either way, Community is now officially one movie away from fulfilling the joke/meme/prophetic blood oath of making six seasons and a movie, and it’s going to get there the only way it knows how: By being meta as all get out, with Abed asking everyone to imagine what a seventh season of a TV show might look like. Yep, that sounds right. Joshua Allston will be on the scene.
Also noted: All Dead Division
iZombie (The CW, 9 p.m.): Television as a whole is feeling pretty meta, actually, as we move on from the death of another TV season with a bunch of shows all about people who don’t let little details like their demise slow them down. Case in point: “Liv is taken back to high school when she investigates a teen’s death following a late-night joyride that ended in disaster and a cover-up. Later, one of the victim’s friends dies, which raises some serious questions about the case.” Man, iZombie, even for a zombie show and/or a network crime procedural, that feels like a lot of death. Carrie Raisler is just wondering whether everyone has now got the gag about the undead character being called “Liv.”
Stitchers (ABC Family, 9 p.m.): Meanwhile, ABC Family is getting into the procedural drama game with this offering, in which a young woman joins a government agency “to help solve crimes by gaining access to the memories of the recently deceased.” Wait … isn’t that exactly the premise of iZombie, just without the snarky brain-eating medical examiner bit? Um, we’d like to go ahead and issue a formal apology to iZombie for any and all crap we’ve given it up to this point. Similarities aside, Stitchers might be worth a watch—we’re considering adding it to the TV Club rotation—and you can check out Kate Kulzick’s pre-air review for a sense of what to expect.
Regular coverage
Finding Carter (MTV, 10 p.m.)
Younger (Nickelodeon/TV Land, 10 p.m.)
Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central, 10:30 p.m.)
Elsewhere in TV Club
Matt Crowley takes a celebratory look at the zany single-season Andy Richter sitcom with the word “Andy” in the title that isn’t Andy Richter Controls The Universe, as One-Season Wonders, Weirdos, and Wannabes examines Andy Barker: P.I. Since you’ve been good (and even if you haven’t, we really haven’t been paying close attention this week), here’s a little taste:
Andy Barker is no Inspector Clouseau, nor is he a Sam Spade. He’s sort of a Columbo, but more than anything, he’s an everyman: a little schlubby, a little naïve, a nice guy just trying to do his best. Richter excels at this Regular Joe character work, guiltily admitting that he watched Judging Amy without his wife (Clea Lewis) and deadpanning lines like, “Tax return? Things just got interesting.” His grounding serves him well as a fish-out-of-water in the hardboiled detective world, and as the straight man for a game ensemble of eccentrics.
What else is on?
Southern Fried Homicide (ID, 9 p.m.): “A woman loses her husband to a mysterious illness, which also threatens her daughter.” Look, we don’t want to lecture the South about book-learning and what-have-you, and maybe we’re jumping to conclusions based on the “homicide” part of the title, but “murder” is not generally considered an illness, mysterious or otherwise.
Secrets And Wives (Bravo, 10 p.m.): Here’s the main description: “Gail Greenberg hosts a fashion show with a plastic-surgery theme in the series premiere of this reality show that zeros in on the inner circle of six Long Island women.” Not doing it for you? What if we told you about the “also” part of the description? “Also: A volatile relationship explodes in public.” A volatile relationship exploding in public! Like you’re going to find that anywhere else on reality TV this evening!
Knife Fight (Esquire TV, 10 p.m.): Tonight’s schedule is so barren that we checked back into this show to see what it was, desperately hoping somebody would be fighting with knives to bring a little excitement to the proceedings but totally forgetting that we had long ago found out that it’s just some cooking show. We are now preparing a class-action lawsuit for blatant false advertising.
Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero (Disney XD, 10:30 p.m.): “Rippen tries to rob the world of all its color.” We assume this makes sense to somebody: children, mostly, but also probably an unhealthily high percentage of the A.V. Club commentariat. Not that we’d have it any other way, of course.
Mission: Impossible III (Showtime, 6:55 p.m.): Slightly heterodox opinion alert: This is both the best Mission: Impossible movie and the best J.J. Abrams movie. Nothing against the giddy fun of Ghost Protocol (or the absurdist bombast of Mission: Impossible 2), but Philip Seymour Hoffman is just so ridiculously great as the villain in this. Also, there’s a scene where Tom Cruise pretty much runs through the entirety of China in a single shot. It’s the alpha and omega of Tom Cruise running.
Con Air (CMT, 9 p.m.): We assume a country-themed channel is airing this because of the movie’s trenchant insights into “Sweet Home Alabama.” It certainly isn’t because of Nicolas Cage’s accent, which is from no country whatsoever.
Women’s College World Series: Finals Game 2: Florida vs. Michigan (ESPN, 8 p.m.): We can’t pretend we know a whole lot about college softball, but we’re betting this is pretty damn good if you’re into that sort of thing. Given the two teams involved, we’re kind of hoping that the schools’ new football coaches—Florida’s Jim McElwain and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh—are both in attendance, leading to a split-screen that makes one of those fanbases just kind of angry and confused. (Spoiler alert: Not Michigan.)