TV Club Classic performs 75 different versions of the chicken dance to celebrate Arrested Development's return
Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Wednesday, June 6. All times are Eastern.
TOP PICK
Arrested Development (11 a.m.): It’s taken almost a year, but Noel Murray is finally ready to dive back into season two of one of the best TV comedies ever made. For nine weeks over the summer, Noel’s going to take you on a voyage through a season of marauding seals, celebrity cameos, and Motherboy XXX. Is this the best season the show ever did? Here at What’s On Tonight, we still think the first season was one of the best, most consistent runs for a TV comedy ever, but if you want to say season two was better, we’re not going to be mad at you. Probably just a little disappointed in you. But that was inevitable.
REGULAR COVERAGE
So You Think You Can Dance (Fox, 8 p.m.): Another two hours of auditions takes the show to Atlanta, and while there will almost certainly be lots of dancing, Oliver Sava told us he hopes there’s a frank consideration of the depravity of the human condition, delivered in a monotone by Mary Murphy.
America’s Best Dance Crew (MTV, 10 p.m.): We’re already down to the top three? Someone can apparently call David Guetta a “superstar” with a straight face? These were things that shocked us when reading the summary for this one, but Rowan Kaiser told us Guetta is the biggest star of them all.
TV CLUB CLASSIC
The Sopranos (1 p.m.): “Johnny Cakes” is often held up as one of the show’s worst episodes, but Todd VanDerWerff is going to allege to you that it is an unfairly maligned classic that’s an emotional highpoint of season six. Disagree? We’re sure you do, but Todd does not allow anyone to question his wisdom!
Sports Night (3 p.m.): Why do writers keep writing the Big Speech? Why do actors so love the Big Fight? Donna Bowman gets into these issues when she looks at two episodes of this show, and she applies our world-famous, patented “TV Club Classic Breakdown” process to the question to find the answers.
WHAT ELSE IS ON
CMT Music Awards (CMT, 8 p.m.): Carrie Underwood’s nominated for five awards, the most of any performer, so of course she’ll be performing. But we’re hoping we get lots of chances to watch as Taylor Swift pretends to be surprised for winning something. That always makes for amusing animated .GIFs.
Adam Richman’s Best Sandwich In America (Travel, 9 p.m.): The Man Vs. Food host heads out into the country to find the sandwich that will earn the coveted title of “best sandwich in America, as judged by Adam Richman.” We’ll have a review, but we, sadly, won’t be able to tell you which sandwich is which.
Royal Pains/Necessary Roughness (USA, 9 p.m.): Donna Bowman checks out the “doctors in the Hamptons” series that’s often a lot of summer fun, and if you like that, then you can stick around to watch Callie Thorne psychoanalyze football players, because that’s a show that also exists.
Hot In Cleveland (TV Land, 10 p.m.): Another season ends, and we’re sure there will be some sort of cliffhanger or another. Probably, Wendie Malick’s character will finally have her victory over Jane Leeves’ character and blow half her face off, after Betty White sets the explosive charge. Amazing!
Wristcutters: A Love Story (Sundance, 8 p.m.): Enough people have told us this movie is good that it well might be worth checking out. We don’t know, because we haven’t seen it, but the description lets us know it will either be insufferably twee or kind of awesome. No middle ground on this one.
RoboCop (MoMax, 9 p.m.): Nobody ever expects the Rowboat Cop, and this ‘80s action spectacular introduced the world to, among others, Peter Weller and Paul Verhoeven. (Okay, both had done plenty of stuff before this film, but this was their first major breakthrough into the mainstream. Fact check!)
NBA Western Conference Finals: Game 6: Spurs at Thunder (TNT, 9 p.m.): Can the Thunder bump off the Spurs for good at home? Or will the Spurs tie it up and send everything to game seven? More importantly, can you name a single player for the Oklahoma City Thunder? We’re waiting.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Franklin & Bash (Tuesday): Are you a Franklin & Bash super-fan? We sort of doubt there’s anybody out there who is, but if you’d really like weekly coverage, here’s your latest chance to make us think we should force Kevin McFarland to watch his recommended dose of smarmy lawyers every week.