Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Wednesday, June 25. All times are Eastern.
TOP PICK
Inside Men (BBC America, 10 p.m.): It only took a short pitch from Meredith Blake—“The lead guy in it is sort of a Walter White type—a mild-mannered everyman who gradually becomes this ruthless maniac”—to elevate Inside Men from a set of nondescript screeners sitting on our desk to a regular part of the TV Club rotation. And though we’re not at liberty to say exactly why, we think you ought to tune in tonight for the latest installment of the British heist drama—once you’ve caught up with last week’s episode (or gotten the lowdown from Meredith’s first review of the series), of course.
REGULAR COVERAGE
So You Think You Can Dance (Fox, 8 p.m.): It’s down to the Top 20 dancers, including… that guy, as well as that one female dancer who did the impressive thing in an earlier episode. Honestly, 20 contestants is too many to keep track of at this point—maybe Oliver Sava can pass us his SYTYCD crib notes.
Dallas (TNT, 9 p.m.): The revived primetime soap is slowly turning into a wish-fulfillment fantasy for Baby Boomers who want to get one over on their pesky offspring—you know, because doing so in every real-world corridor of power simply isn’t enough. Steve Hyden is glad to sell out his Generation X comrades, so long as it’s in the service of a victory for J.R. Ewing.
Futurama (Comedy Central, 10 p.m.): Hot tip: 1,000 years in the future, running for office will still be an absolute nightmare, and even the most qualified candidate can be undone by something as dumb as a birth certificate. Until Zack Handlen releases his certificate of live birth, Donald Trump refuses to read any Futurama reviews on The A.V. Club.
TV CLUB CLASSIC
Arrested Development (11 a.m.): “…and, starting at catcher for your Bluth Company softball team, Ann ‘The Wall’ Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal!” She has a really low center of gravity—just try to knock her down. Noel Murray thinks he can. He won’t, but he can.
The Sopranos (1 p.m.): Writing from an undisclosed location—wondering all the while why Vito didn’t stick to a similar “undisclosed location” strategy—in the Great Plains, Todd VanDerWerff weighs in on the penultimate episode of season 6 (part 1), “Cold Stones.”
Sports Night (3 p.m.): While Twitter debates rage over whether or not The Newsroom is, in fact, “the worst”—because if there’s something that’ll keep Aaron Sorkin from writing about modern media, it’s highly nuanced discourse like that—Donna Bowman visits with the surrogate family of friends and co-workers forming over on Sorkin’s Sports Night. Unlike your real family, friends, and co-workers, you’ll want to visit with the Sports Night crew, because they haven’t been yammering nonstop about The Newsroom for the last 48 hours.
WHAT ELSE IS ON
Final Witness (ABC, 10 p.m.): Today in TV Club Trial By Fire: Farihah Zaman receives her first A.V. Club byline on a review of ABC’s new true-crime show, which begins its run with a re-enactment of a triple homicide in East Texas. Wish her luck!
The Real World (MTV, 10 p.m.): With its various debaucheries no longer tolerated in the continental United States, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Alaska, or the European Union, The Real World shelters itself on the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Thomas. The race to make the first “not-so-Virgin Island” pun in the comments begins… NOW!
School Spirits (Syfy, 10 p.m.): Actually, it’s a word-play-happy night in cable, what with this “haunted schoolhouse” program recounting paranormal experiences on the co-dead campus of the State University of Boo York, told from the perspective of a g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-graduate…
Twintervention (TLC, 10 p.m.): …as well as this twintriguing twinvestigation twinto twins whose lives may be irreversibly twintertwined.
Hot Boyz (BET, 8 p.m.): The TV Guide capsule about this 1999 crime drama begins “Yet another ’hood story”—which is a totally dismissive manner of describing the fourth feature-length directorial effort by from Percy “Master P” Miller (and his second collaboration with Gary Busey!). Have you no shame, TV Guide? HAVE YOU NO SHAME?
Delicious (TCM, 8 p.m.): ’s wonderful that George and Ira Gershwin were brought to Hollywood to provide music for this early experiment in color filmmaking. ’s marvelous that the score would eventually produce George’s “Second Rhapsody.” ’s awful nice that the George Eastman House eventually preserved the film so that we can watch it today.
MLB Baseball: Tigers at Rangers (ESPN, 8 p.m.): A rematch of the 2011 ALCS, which sent the Rangers’ to their second straight World Series defeat—and dashed the hopes of a Tigers squad looking to avenge its loss in the 2006 Fall Classic. Good news for both teams: The winner of this series doesn’t move on to be trampled by the Cardinals.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Frontline: Get out your jokes about British dental hygiene while you can, warns Meredith Blake. From the looks of the latest Frontline report, fewer and fewer Americans can afford a trip to the dentist these days.