Today, Tuesday, September 29
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TV Insider
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In advance of the Season 39 premiere of The Amazing Race on Wednesday and Thursday, a prime-time special celebrates the Emmy-winning reality competition’s 25th-year anniversary. An HBO documentary revisits the polarizing decision to add comedian Dennis Miller to the Monday Night Football broadcast booth in the early 2000s. Dancing With the Stars cues up yacht-rock classics for the remaining teams.
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Special | 8/7c |
Oh, the places they’ve been! And will continue to go. The Emmy-winning competition series is gearing up for its Season 39 premiere this week, a two-parter airing Wednesday and Thursday. But first, host Phil Keoghan and others who’ve been around for the wild ride reflect on the show’s quarter-century history with Entertainment Tonight‘s Nischelle Turner. The hourlong special features the show’s most memorable moments, with return appearances by fan-favorite contestants.
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Documentary Premiere | 9/8c |
For many, it was no laughing matter when former Saturday Night Live jokester Dennis Miller was recruited in 2000 to join Al Michaels and the NFL’s Dan Fouts in the Monday Night Football broadcasting booth. The experiment, which lasted two seasons, was intended to refresh the show, which had lost some of its ratings luster, and broaden its appeal. Whether Miller was the right fit was the subject of heated debate, given his esoteric style and tortured metaphors: describing New England coach Bill Belichick as “wrapped tighter than an expectant father’s watch,” or a losing team “as dilapidated as Snoopy’s Christmas tree.” (Wasn’t it Charlie Brown’s tree anyway?) An “NFL Shorts” documentary examines the fun, the folly and the fallout, with commentary from Miller, Michaels, MNF producers and execs and Miller’s SNL colleague, Dana Carvey.
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8/7c |
Depending on the routine and the execution, it will feel like The Love Boat for some teams and a shipwreck for others when the 13 remaining couples tackle songs from the easy listening “Yacht Rock” genre, with plenty of Hall & Oates, Toto and their contemporaries on the playlist. Dance styles include the foxtrot, jive, pasodoble, quickstep, salsa, cha-cha and samba. Oddsmakers wonder how long Jimmy Kimmel sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez will continue to survive at the bottom of the leaderboard. (He and partner Witney Carson will be dancing to Rupert Holmes‘ “Escape: The Pina Colada Song,” and we might all need a drink afterward.)
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Documentary Premiere |
At the other extreme of reality TV was The Swan, a ghoulish exercise in exploitation that aired in 2004 on Fox, which continually tested the boundaries of taste during that anything-goes era. A new documentary catches up with some of the women who participated in the show, which deemed them “ugly ducklings” and subjected them to cosmetic surgery and other alterations before displaying the results in a pageant-style contest to decide who’d become the loveliest “swan.” What could possibly be wrong with that?
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8/7c |
A mystery unfolds in quirky Port Wenn when Sally (Clea Lewis) reports a break-in at her pharmacy. Though her sheriff son Mark (the hilarious Josh Segarra) is pumped to be present at a “legit crime scene,” Dr. Martin Best (Josh Charles) suspects something more troubling is at play that could require his medical attention. Elsewhere in town, Salty Breeze proprietors Greg (Stephen Spinella) and George (Jason Veasey) feud with a pizza food-truck operator who sets up shop outside their restaurant, and Aunt Sarah (Annie Potts) tries to make nice with Martin’s sort-of girlfriend from Boston, Dr. Eden Montgomery (Eliza Coupe).
INSIDE TUESDAY TV:
- Major League Baseball Wild Card Series (2 pm/ET, NBC, streaming on Peacock): The best-of-three series begins with the Phillies vs. the Braves and the Red Sox vs. Yankees (8 pm/ET). Airing on NBCSN and streaming on Peacock: games between the White Sox and Astros (5 pm/ET) and the Cubs vs. Padres (10 pm/ET).
- Moonshiners (8/7c, Discovery): The 16th season opens on a topical note, when Virginia distillers Tim and Tickle accept a $70,000 order for corn whiskey from Canadian clients seeking tariff-free American liquor.
- Doc (9/8c, Fox): The arrival of charismatic Dr. Ben Grant (Blair Underwood) triggers more disorienting memories for amnesiac Amy (Molly Parker) in the medical drama.
- The Drop: A Snowfall Saga (9/8c, FX): When the label pulls Lamar’s (Asante Blackk) track from radio airplay, Wanda (Gail Bean) takes to the streets to get his music heard, adopting strategies from her and Leon’s (Isaiah John) time in the drug trade.
- Secret Life of a Vegas Casino (9/8c, Discovery): A reality series goes behind the scenes of the fabled Golden Nugget casino in Las Vegas, revealing such drama as the search for a missing $1,000 chip.
- Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen 20th Anniversary Special (9/8c, CBS): The comedy roundtable that replaced Late Show With Stephen Colbert in the network’s diminished late-night lineup looks back at its 20-year history.
- Dark Side of the Cage (9/8c, Vice TV): The docuseries dissects the UFC feud between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov.
- Frontline (10/9c, PBS): The investigative series kicks off its 45th season with a report, in collaboration with the Associated Press, that explores the industry of online scams which have cost victims billions of dollars.
- R.J. Decker (10/9c, ABC): After Emi’s (Jaina Lee Ortiz) arrest for her father’s murder, R.J. (Scott Speedman) teams with detective Mel (Bevin Bru) to get to the bottom of the mystery.
ON THE STREAM:
- Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence (streaming on BritBox): Amateur investigators Tommy (Josh Dylan) and Tuppence (Antonia Thomas) get much closer while solving their latest case, but their professional and personal relationship gets complicated when her estranged husband shows up from America.
- The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue (streaming on Paramount+): A documentary depicts retired Israeli general Noam Tibon’s harrowing mission to rescue his family during the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023.
- LEGO One Piece (streaming on Netflix): A two-part animated special depicts the characters from the live-action adaptation of the manga series in LEGO form.
- Sam Morril: Incorrect (streaming on Netflix): The deadpan comedian riffs on an unfortunate one-night stand and his crusade against rats in his latest stand-up special.
- Murder in a Small Town (streaming on Netflix): The streamer has licensed the first two seasons of the low-key crime drama, which returns to Fox at midseason.