(ABC, 9 p.m., midseason premiere, back-to-back episodes, special time): We last saw the intrepid detectives of Dewell-Hoyt Investigations (Kylie Bunbury and Katheryn Winnick, respectively) back in February, when their first mystery came to an end with the death of one baddie and the flight of another. And while we’re guessing that we haven’t seen the last of Brian Geraghty’s Ronald, it’s time for some new villains to enter stage left.
Tonight’s even bigger
Big Sky kicks off an hour earlier than usual to accommodate an extra hour of Jenny, Cassie, Jerrie, and the rest of the returning gang. Keep an eye out for Allison Shoemaker’s recap.
Wonder Showzen contains offensive, despicable content that is too controversial and too awesome for actual children… If you allow a child to watch this show, you are a bad parent or guardian.” As viewers of the short-lived sketch series know, though, that doesn’t mean children were precluded from actually appearing on
the show. On the contrary, kids made up the vast majority of
Wonder Showzen’s on-screen talent, often appearing alongside puppets voiced by the show’s co-creators, Vernon Chatman and John Lee.
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One instance where kids flew solo, though, was in the much-discussed segment Beat Kids, in which precocious elementary school students played investigative reporters. Armed with microphones and clad in Kermit The Frog-style trench coats, the Beat Kids ventured into adult spaces like butcher shops and racetracks, sidled up to grown-ups, and asked the tough questions. One kid reporter set up on Wall Street and asked traders, “Who did you exploit today?
(TBS, 10:30 p.m., series premiere): “The new comedy
Chad has been a long time coming. Created by and starring Nasim Pedrad, the show has been in development since 2016, and has moved networks from Fox to TBS. Pedrad has not only written and directed the show; she also takes on the challenge of playing the eponymous 14-year-old boy who legally changed his name from Ferydoon to Chad Amani to sound more American. He only has one goal as high school starts: to befriend the crowd he perceives as ‘cool.’ It’s a familiar narrative, but Chad, who is Iranian American, has to additionally navigate his cultural identity along with his teenage experiences, although he often chooses not to do so. Chad puts his Iranian heritage on the back burner as a way to fit in, even though he’s the only one who views it as a hindrance. After some unsteady initial episodes, the series manages to explore some heartfelt narratives through its extremely uncomfortable humor.” Read the rest of Saloni
In the title story of
I’m Waiting For You, the first of Korean science fiction writer Kim Bo-Young’s works to be translated into English, the unnamed protagonist says he felt he was prepared for solo space travel because he’d once spent a few months without leaving his home. After a year in which so much of the world has experienced an even more extreme version of such isolation, that idea might seem trite. But then the character goes on to explain how wrong he was:
That wasn’t actually living alone. I have never once really lived alone. Someone cleared away the trash I left out for collection, and emptied the septic tank… In another place they boiled noodles and put them in a dish and delivered them… I had never lived alone, not once. How would really living alone even be possible?
John Oliver digs into the surplus of crap that is the GOP s sudden national debt alarmism
Screenshot: Last Week Tonight
“I don’t know,” is a blessed phrase all too infrequently uttered in this age of sneering snap judgements and people who think a farting Peter Griffin gif is a killer comeback to one’s nuanced point about social justice. And yet,
Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver readily admitted, partway through his Sunday main story about the national debt, that he truly doesn’t know all the ins and outs of whether America’s current $28 trillion debt is the sort of red alert a number that big sounds like. Even if, Oliver notes, he’s the sort of guy who looks like he has thoughts about the relative merits of different brands of graphing calculator, he’s a late-night comedian, and not an economist. (Who also occasionally screws with the purveyors of Big Debt.) The thing is, anyone who examines the complex issue of debt and deficits (there’s a difference, as Oliv