Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Thursday, August 1, 2013. All times are Eastern.
TOP PICK
The Awesomes (Hulu): Ahead of a busy slate of original and acquired fall programming, Hulu debuts this animated superhero parody from Seth Meyers and Late Night producer Mike Shoemaker. It’s about an up-and-coming hero (voiced by Meyers) taking charge of a legendary super team, a situation that isn’t at all analogous to recent events in Meyers’ life. The first two episodes post today, with weekly installments to follow—Gwen Inhat has seen the first and seventh installments, because her super powers entail bending the fabric of space and time (through Hulu screeners).
REGULAR COVERAGE
Orange Is The New Black (Netflix, 4 p.m.): Myles McNutt looks at “Blood Donut” and “Moscow Mule,” which sounds like a meal guaranteed to turn your stomach and eventually lead to Type 2 diabetes.
Wilfred (FX, 10 p.m.): Ryan seeks help in order to get a grip on a “past trauma.” Seeing as this episode is several weeks away from the season finale, Rowan Kaiser guesses that “past trauma” isn’t the one that enables Elijah Wood’s character to communicate with a dog.
Childrens Hospital (Adult Swim, midnight): Given this show’s stylistic adventurousness, it’s safe to assume that an episode that called “Triangles” involves the staff of Childrens spontaneously transforming into two-dimensional geometric figures. Safe, but stupid, David Sims assures us.
NTSF: SD: SUV:: (Adult Swim, 12:15 a.m.): Rob Riggle’s President of the Navy is charged with delivering an important speech, one that Riggle’s signature comedic rage is certain to derail. Kevin McFarland entertains fantasies of staging a pay-per-view shouting match between Riggle and Bob Odenkirk—“The Anger In Bangor” will lose a lot of money, but cause a lot of laughs.
TV CLUB CLASSIC
Monty Python’s Flying Circus (11 a.m.): Zack Handlen would like to introduce you to five of his best Bruces. They live by some extremely strict rules, but he’s sure you’ll all get along swell, so long as they don’t catch you not drinking in your room after lights out.
Gilmore Girls (1 p.m.): This week finds David Sims considering two monumental episodes, in which Rory sustains an incriminating injury and Lane finds her calling. As so often happens with these kinds of moments, both characters find these developments difficult to relate to their mothers.
Friends (3 p.m.): It’s February sweeps crossover madness, as Phoebe’s twin sister Ursula makes her first visit from all the way over in Mad About You’s part of New York. There’s also the matter of George Clooney and Noah Wyle, who’ll be acknowledged—alongside a whole batch of two-parter craziness—by Joe Reid and Sonia Saraiya’s identical twins.
WHAT ELSE IS ON?
The Hero (TNT, 8 p.m.): It’s in desperate times like these that the world couldn’t just use a hero—it needs the hero. Fortunately, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is ready to bestow that title upon one of this reality competition’s contestants, before everybody takes a brief break from heroism to watch Brendan Fraser save the day in Journey To The Center Of The Earth.
Please Like Me (Pivot, 8 p.m.): The first of two new cable networks angling for millennial viewers launches today, with Participant Media’s Pivot trying out the so-called “binge-viewing” trend that’s so hot right now, airing all six episodes of this semi-autobiographical Australian sitcom in a single shot.
Hatfields & McCoys: White Lightning (History, 10 p.m.): History scored its biggest ratings ever with a fictionalized account of America’s most storied family rivalry, and with this docuseries, it hopes to catch lightning in a bottle all over again—white lighting, to be specific, as in the moonshine powering the cars raced by descendants of the Hatfields and McCoys in tonight’s series première.
Takepart Live (Pivot, 11:59 p.m.): The other big debut for Pivot is this nightly news program, which invites its viewers to, well, “take part, live”—preferably by not splitting their attention between watching the show and tracking every use of the word “millennial” via sarcastic tweets.
The Big Sleep (TCM, 8 p.m.): With an assist from none other than William Faulkner, Howard Hawks put Humphrey Bogart in the hard-boiled shoes of Phillip Marlowe—shoes he would only wear once, before passing them on to the likes of Elliott Gould and Robert Mitchum.
Do The Right Thing (Encore, 8 p.m.): In which power is fought, radios are cranked, pizza is served, and the right thing is done less frequently than the wrong thing.
X Games Los Angeles: Moto X, skateboarding (ESPN, 9 p.m.): Oh sure, once your What’s On Tonight? correspondent leaves town, the excitement really kicks up around Los Angeles. (PS What if it turns out the X Games are the true reason President Obama is visiting Jay Leno on Tuesday? Then critics would have a legit reason to quibble with his EXTREME! views.)
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Sports Night: Only one more review remains in Donna Bowman’s look back at Sports Night. Remember them fondly and try not to get all weepy at the sight of Dan and Casey sharing a passionate bro-grab.