Lift up your voice and give praise for the second coming of Gillian Anderson—and all five episodes of The Fall
Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Tuesday, May 28. All times are Eastern.
TOP PICK
The Fall (Netflix, midnight): For a dispiritingly long period of time, it appeared that Gillian Anderson would never escape the long shadow of The X-Files. (Or the creepy, shadowy-conspriacy shadows within that shadows.) But 2013’s shaping up to be quite the comeback year for the woman who was Agent Dana Scully, with a recurring role on the surprisingly great Hannibal, a spot on NBC’s recent midseason pickup, Crisis, and the première of the BBC detective series, The Fall. All five episodes of the series (which also features The Good Wife’s Archie Punjabi) plopped on Netflix overnight—Ryan McGee will let you know whether or not her latest crime-solving exploits are good enough to officially declare 2013 “The Year of Anderson.”
REGULAR COVERAGE
Awkward. (MTV, 10 p.m.): Jenna gives a revealing reading at the local coffeehouse, which should be no more embarrassing than Myles McNutt spit-taking half-caf non-fat soy latte (no whip) all over his computer screen during the episode’s big scene.
TV CLUB CLASSIC
The Shield (11 a.m.): Brandon Nowalk saw that the first of this week’s episodes is titled “Scar Tissue,” and now he can’t stop singing the Red Hot Chili Peppers single of the same name. Too bad he could never quite nail down those lyrics; it just keeps on coming out like “Scar tissue that I wish you saw / sarcastic biddy blah blah blah / Close a case with Vic and crew ’cuz / with the blood I shed? Is this one of those Chili Peppers songs about shedding blood? Seems like it should be, with a title like that.”
WHAT ELSE IS ON
Tyler Perry’s The Haves And The Have Nots (OWN, 9 p.m.): This soapy-looking drama initiates OWN’s two-night attempt to pull itself from the brink through the sheer power of Tyler Perry. Can Tyler Perry’s Tyler Perry Network For Tyler Perry be far behind?
Reaper Reunion (FEARnet, 9 p.m.): Rival Chiller has done some halfway re-animation jobs on Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies, but FEARnet ups the ante in the cable-reruns-of-a-beloved-but-canceled-genre-series game by introducing its Reaper repeats with this special, where the stars of the Kevin Smith-produced horror-comedy reunite, reminisce, and, given the tenor of events like this in times like these, probably talk about Kickstarter.
Ke$ha: My Crazy Beautiful Life (MTV, 11 p.m.): A week after Ke$ha finally got someone to pay attention to her reality series—all she had to do this whole time was quaff some of her own urine!—the show wraps its first season. Which means Ke$ha never has to do anything gross ever again.
Never Ever Do This At Home (Spike, 11 p.m.): How’s this for TV globalism: A Canadian acquisition based on Norway’s Ikke gjør dette hjemme that proves “That blowed up real good” is a phrase that cuts across the language barrier. Do the Farm Film Report guys know about this?
High School Musical (Disney, 8 p.m.): It’s 2013: Do you know where your squeaky-clean Mouse House stars of 2006 are? Supposedly tomcatting around with Charlie Sheen, posing for Maxim, feeding the Harmony Korine chaos machine, and co-starring in 3-D Paz De La Huerta movies with NSFW poster art. Here’s an all-singing, all-dancing reminder of what all that “edgy” stuff is supposed to make you forget.
Hard Times (TCM, 8 p.m.): Charles Bronson and James Coburn star in a Walter Hill film about Depression-era bare-knuckle boxers. Also known as Testosterone: The Movie.
MLB Baseball: Yankees at Mets (ESPN, 8 p.m.): Subway series! Interleague play in which the first-place Yankees have a distinct advantage, but nonetheless: SUBWAY SERIES! (At least the Yankees will be forced to make its pitchers bat—that has to even the playing field, right?)
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Arrested Development: You can force Todd VanDerWerff to shotgun the new Arrested Development episodes, Netflix—but he doesn’t have to like it. Or maybe he did like it. We’re writing this well before the episodes have dropped, so it’s still anyone’s guess at this point.