Television is filled with familiar faces. But how many of them virtually invented an original TV genre? Martha Stewart returns for the second season premiere of “Martha Knows Best” (8 p.m., HGTV).
There were gardening, cooking and lifestyle series before Martha Stewart came along. But nobody seemed to blend them into such an unmistakable personal statement. She was a “brand” before that term was (over)used.
Both aspirational and instructive, Stewart was never afraid to teach, to share ideas and advice and to discern the “good things” from the merely mediocre.
And like all good teachers, Stewart inspired the jests of smart alecks. Myself included. I used to love reviewing her chilly Christmas specials that always seemed to involve her making the decorations and table settings for a perfect home devoid of people.
But Stewart’s years of hardship, including a prison sentence for a hard-to-comprehend financial miscue, have altered her image. As with Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, a stint behind bars appears to have bestowed street credibility and humanizing bona fides on her mere celebrity.
When the social history of the late-20th century is written, Martha Stewart will be in its pages. At the time she burst upon the scene in the early 1980s, feminism was all but defined by the pursuit of professional careers and achieving equality with men in the workplace. Stewart demonstrated how a lucrative business could emerge from some of the old-fashioned “domestic arts” long seen as mere “women’s work.”
Now that so many have retreated from offices to homes for the duration of the COVID quarantine, Stewart’s lessons and accent on domesticity seem more relevant than ever.
In tonight’s “Martha Knows Best,” she welcomes viewers to her home and shares ideas about preparing the garden for its long winter’s nap.
— After Martha Stewart emerged as America’s domestic doyenne in the early 1980s, Roseanne Barr would strive to be her complete opposite. Her comedy routine and subsequent sitcom were about cranky, opinionated mothers just barely getting by, whose decor was scrounged haphazardly from thrift shops. In its first incarnation, “Roseanne” had some of the best set design on TV. While so many sitcoms, particularly those on ABC, featured the most generic sense of affluence, Roseanne’s character and decor seemed perfectly in sync.
With the titular character long-since jettisoned, “The Conners” (9 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) returns for its annual Halloween extravaganza, with Darlene and Becky trying to keep the holiday spirit alive after trick-or-treating has been canceled.
While inventive, the festivities seem underwritten by a bottomless budget that undercuts the series’ theme of economic hard times. Not unlike the Dunphys’ rituals on “Modern Family,” the Conners approach Halloween as if money were no object.
— A fearless young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) from hardscrabble circumstances strives to learn the fate of her father in the 2010 drama “Winter’s Bone” (8 p.m., Cinemax). A star-making turn for Lawrence, it seems remarkable that she’s been in the public eye for only a decade.
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— Performing under wraps on “The Masked Singer” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14).
— First impressions on “I Can See Your Voice” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
— Offers prove too good to be true on “The Con” (10 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
— Restoring a natural balance may be the best remedy to galloping climate change on the finale of “The Age of Nature” (10 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings).
CULT CHOICE
— Written by Gore Vidal and adapted from his stage drama, the 1964 drama “The Best Man” (8 p.m., TCM, TV-PG) stars Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson as candidates vying for the presidential nod at their party’s convention. Allusions to real candidates Adlai Stevenson and the Kennedy brothers were easy to draw. Franklin J. Schaffner directed.
SERIES NOTES
“The Amazing Race” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … “The Wall” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG) concludes its season … College daze on “The Goldbergs” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … Dominic springs a trap on “Devils” (8 p.m., CW, TV-14) … Lobbying the principal on “American Housewife” (8:30 p.m., ABC, TV-14) … “Big Brother” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … The finals round begins on “American Ninja Warrior” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-PG) … Murder in the suburbs on “Coroner” (9 p.m., CW, TV-14) … Social distancing cramps Junior’s style on “black-ish” (9:30 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
LATE NIGHT
Jaime Harrison and Elvis Costello appear on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (11:35 p.m., CBS) … Jimmy Fallon welcomes Ken Jeong, Pete Buttigieg and Sam Hunt on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … Bette Midler and Bryan Washington visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC).
