Anthony Mackie ("The Falcon and the Winter Soldier") hosts the 2021 ESPYs (Saturday, 8 p.m., ABC) live from the New York City waterfront. ESPN, the network that gives the awards their name, or at least their letters, is broadcasting an ultimate boxing match instead.
These annual roundups of sports highlight reels have never risen to the level of the Oscars. But this year’s ESPYs may suffer that award ceremony’s fate. How excited can you get for a commemoration of a sports year put largely on hold due to COVID?
— Sitcoms are a whole lot more interesting than "History of the Sitcom" (9 p.m., and 10 p.m., Sunday, CNN), an eight-part docuseries about the TV genre. It’s hard to say a survey can have too many clips and too many interviews, but this "History" does. It’s more of a parade of well-worn cliches and observations than a serious consideration of a durable art form.
The first hour, a focus on "family" sitcoms, basically presents the standard version, that "I Love Lucy" was the Big Bang that created the universe and that the sitcom evolved from white-bread families (Ozzie and Harriet) to controversy ("All in the Family") and diversity ("black-ish"), reflecting a changing society.
You could write 10 histories with the history "History" leaves out. But that’s television. "Family" never acknowledges TV comedy’s roots in radio comedies like "The Goldbergs," "Our Miss Brooks" and "Ozzie and Harriet" or how the two mediums coexisted for TV’s first decade.
"History" presents comedies as an upward trend of socially progressive reflections of changing society, but never considers the whole swaths of society ignored by the sitcom universe. CBS became the home to sophisticated comedies in the early 1970s only after it jettisoned highly rated "rural" comedies and Westerns that appealed to viewers that advertisers disdained.
We hear that Fox and then the WB created racially diversified comedy, but that was largely because those fledgling networks saw such "urban" audiences (often people without cable subscriptions) as the only viewers they could get. Once Fox produced "mainstream" hits ("Beverly Hills, 90210," "The X-Files") that appealed to a wider and whiter audience, it dropped its Black comedies. The WB did the same after "Dawson’s Creek" became a hit.
It’s hard to discuss "Modern Family" without mentioning its docuseries structure, but "History" does. It’s interesting to note that "Modern" became a hit during the Great Recession by showcasing an almost contemptuous affluence shot through with brazen product placements. At a time when an entire generation became completely estranged from "the economy," Phil Dunphy’s greatest problem was that he couldn’t buy a new iPad fast enough.
With so much talent on hand, it would have been interesting to ask Norman Lear, Candice Bergen, Tim Allen and Kelsey Grammer their thoughts on the structure of a punchline setup, and the role of timing and even choreography in situation comedies. From "I Love Lucy" to "Will and Grace" and "Veep," physical comedy has played a crucial role. It’s not mentioned in the first hour and may come up later. I never forget that Mary Tyler Moore could never have become Mary Richards had she not first been trained as a dancer. Her moves and timing were more than funny. They were elegant. Viewers are smart enough to learn about the nuts and bolts of this wonderful art form. We’ve heard the "history" and pop sociology part a thousand times before.
— Welcome to "The White Lotus" (9 p.m., Sunday, HBO, TV-MA). Set at a posh resort in Hawaii, it presents a social satire of the pampered upper class at "rest."
Rachel, a honeymooning bride (Alexandra Daddario), discovers that Shane, her new husband and rich real estate heir (Jake Lacy), seems more obsessed with being booked into the wrong room than in consummating their marriage. A tech tycoon, Nicole (Connie Britton), and her husband, Mark (Steve Zahn), hope their teens enjoy paradise, but Mark is too obsessed with the swelling in his testicles to enjoy himself.
Jennifer Coolidge is typecast as Tanya, a complete mess who has come to the resort to scatter her mother’s ashes. Suffering from any number of physical ailments and emotional scars, she takes a liking to the head masseuse (Natasha Rothwell), who may not have enough time for her.
Except for the cruel asides of girls (Sydney Sweeney and Brittany O’Grady) caught up in their own teenage universe, there are precious few laughs or satirical insights in the first hour of "Lotus." The ensemble comedy follows a familiar narrative tradition, but nobody would have watched "Grand Hotel" if it were filled with boring people.
— A tradition since 1988, "Shark Week" has become the longest-running and most anticipated programming stunt in TV history. The water will turn crimson with 45 hours of new documentaries about our finned friends, beginning with "Crikey: It’s Shark Week" (8 p.m., Sunday, Discovery), "Tiffany Haddish Does Shark Week" (9 p.m.) and "Jackass Shark Week" (10 p.m.).
SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— MLB baseball (7 p.m., Fox). Check local listings for regional coverage.
— Auto racing (8 p.m., CBS).
— A worried wife didn’t sign up for extortion in the 2021 shocker "Framed by My Husband" (8 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).
— Sencha’s options dwindle on "Meerkat Manor: Rise of the Dynasty" (8 p.m., BBC America).
— The 2021 biographical drama "Judas and the Black Messiah" (8 p.m., HBO) recalls the police murder of activist Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) and the FBI’s extensive efforts to infiltrate radical organizations.
— Half-siblings turn Christmas decorating into a competitive mayhem in the 2021 romance "Crashing Through the Snow" (9 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
SUNDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— Scheduled on "60 Minutes" (7 p.m., CBS): Efforts to clean up the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, with specialized robots; a profile of author Colson Whitehead.
— The broadcast of the 2021 Major League Baseball draft (7 p.m., ESPN), instead of an actual baseball game, shows how important "fantasy" leagues have become.
— Tampa Bay hosts Montreal in game 7 of the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs (7 p.m., NBC).
— The Bucks host the Suns in game 3 of the NBA finals (8 p.m., ABC).
— 21st century spirits track our heroes to Shakespeare’s time in "A Discovery of Witches" (9 p.m., AMC, TV-14).
— "Unforgotten" on "Masterpiece" (9 p.m., PBS) enters its fourth season.
— "Animal Kingdom" (9 p.m., TNT, TV-MA) returns for a fifth season.
— Lucy cooperates with the CIA to entrap her father on "Little Birds" (9:30 p.m., Starz, TV-MA).
CULT CHOICE
— Obsessed with grooming, consumption, brand names and status, a yuppie (Christian Bale) becomes a serial killer in the 2000 adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ violent social satire "American Psycho" (9:30 p.m., Saturday, Showcase).
SATURDAY SERIES
"America’s Got Talent" (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG) … "48 Hours" (10 p.m., CBS) … "Dateline" (10 p.m., NBC).
SUNDAY SERIES
Julie Chen hosts "Big Brother" (8 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … Ancient grudges on "The Simpsons" (8 p.m., Fox, r, TV-PG) … A forgotten milestone on "DC’s Legends of Tomorrow" (8 p.m., CW, TV-PG) … Encounters with a legendary mountain man on "The Great North"(8:30 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
Low-hanging fruit on "Love Island" (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … Home alone on "Bob’s Burgers" (9 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … The CW imports the New Zealand comedy "Wellington Paranormal" (9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., CW, TV-14) … Brian forms new bonds on "Family Guy" (9:30 p.m., Fox, r, TV-14).
