‘Talking for Clapping’
remains Patton Oswalt’s stand-up aim
Is John Schneider a
‘White Hot’ villain?
+
Jussie Smollett Farnoosh Torabi Jason Jones Juno Temple Zanna Roberts Rassi
Can science save the day in The CW’s
‘Containment’?
Bristol
beckons to NASCAR’s Matt Kenseth
What
Tom Hiddleston loved about playing ‘The Night Manager’
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CELEBRITY
‘Containment’
4 Jussie Smollett
brings the medical thriller to The CW
Role model
5 Farnoosh Torabi
plays ‘Follow the Leader’ with business titans
6 Jason Jones
Jon Stewart made him better
8 Juno Temple
A Briton does American
Patton Oswalt is ‘Talking for Clapping’ before a live audience
9 Zanna Roberts Rassi Getting to Know this Fashion Guru ‘Sandra Brown’s White Hot’ John Schneider poses new hazards
17
7 ‘Cheap Eats’
Food blogger has a passion
SPORTS
the story!
18-19 Kenseth
seeks a top finish in NASCAR’s Food City 500
‘The Night Manager’ a gripping spy caper
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Review, Our top DVD pick, and Coming Soon on DVD.
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20-21 Featuring: Theatrical
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22-23 Featuring: Our top
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REALITY 16 ‘Dancing With the
Stars’ is keeping Tom Bergeron a happy host
Editor's choice
STORY
‘The Night Manager’
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brings John le Carré spy caper to AMC By George Dickie At first blush, Richard Roper seems like the type of man you’d wish could run for president. Erudite, genteel and philanthropic to a fault, this billionaire British businessman is the very image of someone in whom you would entrust the greater good. But get beneath the surface and another picture emerges, one of a self-interested wheeler dealer who built his empire selling illegal arms to the highest bidder and buying a few souls in the process. As played by Hugh Laurie (“House”), he’s the devil in designer threads. It is into this man’s lavish world in “The Night Manager,” a six-part miniseries that premieres Tuesday, April 19, on AMC, that ex-British soldier Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston, “Midnight in Paris”) is thrust. Pine, an Iraq War veteran who has retreated from life as a night manager at a Cairo hotel, is recruited by intelligence operative Angela Burr (Olivia Colman, “Broadchurch”) to infiltrate Roper’s inner circle and get at the heart of his vast empire. But he must first withstand the interrogations of Roper’s suspicious chief of staff Major Corkoran (Tom Hollander, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”) and resist the wiles of his gorgeous trophy girlfriend Jed (Elizabeth Debicki, “Everest”). And worst of all, he himself must become a criminal. The series, based on a John le Carre espionage novel, is set after the Cold War and was filmed in locations ranging from Switzerland and England to Morocco and the Spanish island of Majorca, where Roper’s Mediterranean villa is situated. “What I found fascinating about Jonathan Pine in John le Carre’s novel and in the adaptation,” Hiddleston said to a recent gathering of TV critics in Pasadena, Calif., “is there is a tension between a very calm exterior and a turbulent and chaotic interior, that he’s someone who actually has a great amount of vulnerability and a huge amount of doubt. Le Carré describes him as a self exiled creature of the night
Pictured: Hugh Laurie
and a sailor without a destination. And Angela Burr, played by Olivia Colman, compels him to make a commitment, and she lights a spark within him that impels him to act and to follow through on that commitment, which is to take down Richard Roper. And I think all the way through Susanne (Bier, an executive producer and director) always encouraged me to lean into the tension between his obligation to be very, very calm and very passive on the surface while he’s actually on fire beneath that, and that tension I enjoyed playing very much.” As for Roper, Laurie describes him as a psychotic who operates in an almost medieval fashion outside the boundaries of society. “There’s a sort of Colonel Kurtz aspect to it, I think,” he says, alluding to the unhinged character played by Marlon Brando in the 1979 war drama “Apocalypse Now,” “that he has surrounded himself with people whose livelihoods depend on his good opinion. That’s always likely to drive somebody psychotic, as any studio head will attest. “It’s not good for one’s sanity, I think, to be able to operate unopposed,” he continues, “and this is a man who has created a world for himself where he can operate unopposed, unchallenged. And yes, he has given way to the dark side in a very, very big way. A very big way. He is described in the story as the worst man in the world, which is a pretty exciting challenge to take on as a character to play, but a thrilling one too.” “I love everything, every word le Carré ever wrote, but this is a story that, in particular, I found incredibly compelling. Right back when the book was first published, I was three chapters in, and I tried to option it. I never optioned anything in my life before or since. But that’s how compelling, how romantic and how powerful I found this story to be.”
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CELEBRITY John Crook’s Q&A
JussieSmollett of ‘Empire’ Wednesday on Fox
Last year you came out as gay, like your “Empire” character, on “Ellen.” Do you embrace being a role model? Here’s the thing. Everybody’s journey is different. My journey is to (convey) a sense of “You’re good. You’re not alone.” I’ve gotten so many letters, had so many people come up to me and say, “You make me feel a little bit less alone.” That’s something I’m really proud of. When we can do something like that, it creates a ripple effect. I gladly accept that responsibility.
Did you have a role model like that when you were younger?
I had the full support of my family, but I remember when (openly gay actor) Wilson Cruz did “My SoCalled Life.” I never saw that show, but I remember reading an article about him in a teen magazine that my family also had been in because we were on the same network that season. I was inspired by him, because he just seemed so comfortable, and this was 1995, when I can remember being scared of anyone even seeing me reading that article.
Your “Empire” character is based on series creator Lee Daniels. Does that put extra pressure on you?
I wouldn’t call it pressure, but I definitely felt a strong sense of responsibility. The day before “Empire” started filming, I cried the entire day. I’m a Cancer, so I’m already an emotional wreck. In the two months from casting to filming, Lee and I had built a bond that I had never had with someone like him before. He became a mentor, a father figure, so quickly, and I would look at him and think, “If this is me at 55 years old, I’m going to be good with my life.” And I don’t even mean the career success he has had, I just mean the honest and truthful person that he is.
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CELEBRITY Jay Bobbin’s Q&A
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FarnooshTorabi of ‘Follow the Leader’ Wednesday on CNBC As each episode of “Follow the Leader” gives you 48 hours with a top business entrepreneur, do you find it a good fit for the type of reporting you’ve done for some time? I’ve been in this space for about 15 years ... in personal finance, in business news, following entrepreneurs. I think what was really the catalyst and the stars aligning was CNBC doing the great work that they’re doing and realizing this niche and realizing a need for bringing this kind of information and service to viewers, then myself also getting more entrenched in financial news, understanding that there is this whole spectrum of people who want to be aspirational. They are very curious about entrepreneurship, and there is a lot of finance that goes into that. I started a podcast last year, And that has me interviewing entrepreneurs and billionaires, but also everyday people – and through them, learning their process, how they see the world, what makes them successful. That, for me, has been a great training ground for now taking that to television.
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Before your association with CNBC, you’d done business reporting at other outlets including CBS, TheStreet.com and Yahoo! What makes the timing particularly right for it, and for you, now? I think after the recession, there was a maturity that people took on about money, that it wasn’t just about cutting coupons and saving money on lattes. The conversation really became more mature and more elevated, like, “How I do actually build wealth that’s forever? How do I create financial security for myself?” And sometimes, that means not working at a 9-to-5 (job). It’s becoming entrepreneurial. The economy’s changing, and through that, there are entrepreneurs that are being born out of necessity. April 17 - 23, 2016 YOUR TV LINK Courtesy of Gracenote Page 5
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CELEBRITY George Dickie’s Q&A
of ‘Empire’ Wednesday on Fox You came through one of the great comedic incubators in TV history on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” Yeah, I was talking to (Steve) Carell about that just this morning because I was saying, “I missed you at the final night,” because I was shooting so I just rolled in a piece of tape. And he was like, “Yeah, it was crazy looking around the room going ‘Oh, you came through here and you came through here. You came through here.’ ” It was nuts. It was a crazy night. That’s like coming out of the Ivy League. Yeah, yeah. You know, (John) Oliver’s got a show, Stephen (Colbert) has got a show, Sam (Bee) has got a show. Just that pedigree. (Larry) Wilmore’s got a show. I’ve got the show now. Wyatt (Cenac) has got a show that’s starting on TBS as well. Like just those guys, we were all a part of that same team and it was kind of an amazing time. It had to be a gratifying feeling that you could hang with those guys. Yeah, not only hang but make them laugh. Like there was never a competition with any of us. This was the great thing about it. I would go to joke meetings for other people’s pieces and (they) likewise for mine and it was like, “Here’s a good joke. Take it.” We were all working on the same team then. It was great. ... It was a great show. How was Stewart as a boss? You know, I think Stephen said it best on the final night. ... We’re all better performers and writers and storytellers because of him. Colbert got in his face in the finale. It was great. It was amazing. And everything he said that night, I went, “Yup, yup, yup.” I watched it later on after it aired because I couldn’t make it – I was shooting all day – and I was just going, “Yup, yup, yup. That’s exactly how I feel.”
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Stewart was trying to turn away from him. Yeah, he hates human emotion. (Laughs) I think he didn’t want to cry and Stephen was pretty close to making him cry.
FOOD George Dickie's What’s for Dinner
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Food blogger
Khan goes in search of ‘Cheap Eats’ on Cooking Channel Blogger Ali Khan considers himself a connoisseur of inexpensive dining and he brings his knowledge to bear in his appropriately titled new Cooking Channel series “Cheap Eats.” The six-episode half-hour series, which premieres Tuesday, April 19, brings Khan to various locales around the country, where’s he’s challenged to seek out delicious meals – breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack – that cost a total of $35 or less and do it within a 12-hour span. Along the way, he meets the chefs who create these unlikely masterpieces of flavor. “They key to it is, you will find someone who’s had a great deal of training and for whatever reason they don’t want to work in fine dining,” he explains. “And when you meet someone like that who is so content in cooking something simple, you’re stoked. Because God is in the details, the devil is in the details, so the consistency, the training they can bring to the cooks on the line, that’s pretty hot. And you’ll never know it until you have a couple of bites and you go multiple visits to see that, wow, the hash browns are always crispy when I ask for them crispy. ... What’s really surprising is when you find a chef who for whatever reason could cook like at a crazy restaurant ... but for whatever reason they’re happy cooking at a diner and that’s an amazing thing.” In going to diners, burger joints, taco stands and other humble eateries in cities such as Chicago, Miami, Albuquerque and Austin, Texas, Khan has uncovered one inescapable truth: Cooks who cook on the cheap rely more on technique than ingredients. “Most of the time the ingredients are going to be modest, so the technique steps up,” he says. “And traditionally, like when you talk about cool cheap eats, we’re talking about, like back in the day, we’re talking about country food, which meant eating low on the hog, which meant, ‘Alright, I am going to slowly, slowly simmer this cut of meat until it is so tender and it’ll inspire Sunday dinner memories for a lifetime.’ ... But yeah, it’s definitely for me all about the technique, finding these guys who just demonstrate amazing technique, trained or not trained.”
What book are you currently reading?
“I’ve been reading ‘The Tummy Trilogy,’ which is actually three books by Calvin Trillin. ... But I totally left it on a plane so I’m literally waiting for Amazon to ship me my second one.”
What did you have for dinner last night? “Daal. I had lentils. (laughs) I have a 4year-old and ... daal was one of the few dishes of my parents’ (Bangladeshi) culture that I really love, so I’ve made it and he likes it. So that’s kind of a kid favorite in our house.”
What is your next project?
“I’m expanding (my blog) ‘Bang for Your Burger Buck’ to include probably my second love after burgers, which is absolutely tacos. And because I’m in Austin, I’ve just experienced so much with barbecue as well. So I’m going to be expanding ‘Bang for Your Burger Buck’ into a myriad of cheap eats.”
When was the last vacation you took, where and why?
“That was last week. ... I married someone as an officiate. I do weddings. ... So I went to L.A., married these people, met with my tax guy, then went to Vegas. Came back from Vegas, came back to Austin and then we actually were just shooting some extra footage in Boulder (Colo.). So I actually was in four cities last week. That was a busy week.”
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CELEBRITY George Dickie’s Celebrity ScooP
Many actors will tell you that doing accents isn’t so much a matter of imitation as it is of capturing a character’s particular voice. For Juno Temple, a Brit who plays ambitious New York record company assistant Jamie on HBO’s “Vinyl” (which ends its first season Sunday, April 17), it’s also how the words sit in your mouth.
Juno
Temple Trivia: Was named after a mountain called Juno Temple near the Grand Canyon, which her parents visited during her mother’s pregnancy
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“To me, playing Southern is the easiest,” says the 26-year-old Somerset, England, native, who has also played American characters in such movies as “Brass Teapot,” “Afternoon Delight” and “Greenberg.” “I am a generation that grew up watching ‘Clueless.’ I can sound very Valley Girl. And then the hardest accent I’ve ever had to do is Boston, and I spent definitely most of the time I possibly could pretending to be from Boston, as if that helped. ... “I mean, phew, it was challenging because definitely being English, the words don’t sit in your mouth like a Bostonian at all similarly,” she says with a laugh. “... If I put on an accent, my voice just instantly ... gets deeper when I’m being standard American and it gets softer when I try and be Southern. Because the way dialect works is it does literally sit in different places in your mouth. So your voice box completely approaches making sounds differently.” In addition to playing an American, Temple also gets to immerse herself in all things 1970s on “Vinyl,” from the fashions and pop culture of the day to the music. She considers herself a fan of ‘70s rock, naming Iggy Pop, the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed and David Bowie as being among her favorite artists. And her format of choice is, well, vinyl. “I think it’s the only way to really listen to music, actually, because I think listening to vinyl, your whole body listens to the music, whereas if you listen to your iPod it’s like only your ears,” she says.“ ... It just envelops your whole body. And sometimes if a song really affects you, it really makes your blood change and it makes your temperature change and it makes the hair on your skin truly stand up. It really does have that effect on you, listening to vinyl.”
CELEBRITY CelebritY profile
Z anna R o b e r ts R a ss i
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- Born Suzanna Kate Roberts in Manchester, U.K. - She started out as an intern at (now defunct) Looks magazine in London, before getting her first job as a beauty assistant at Marie Claire U.K. In six years she worked her way up to beauty and style editor. - Years later was offered a role in the American office, and now holds the position of senior fashion editor at Marie Claire USA. She styles A-list celebrities such as Naomi Watts, Jennifer Aniston, Sienna Miller and Drew Barrymore. She writes a monthly page in Marie Claire called Zanna Days, focused on her life and style. - She’s also in front of the camera as a fashion correspondent for “E! News,” “Fashion Police,” “Access Hollywood” and many more. She is a red carpet regular and has covered the Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmys. She also has hosted a “Project Runway” spinoff ‘’After the Runway” and has a weekly segment on “The Rachael Ray Show” called “Zanna’s Style School.”
Zanna Roberts Rassi is a fashion editor, stylist and TV personality who can currently be seen mentoring contestants on Lifetime’s “Project Runway All Stars.” - She took over from Joanna Coles as mentor of the contestants on the reality competition series “Project Runway All Stars,” starting with its third season. - Off camera, she styles and consults for clients such as Target, Victoria’s Secret, Intermix and L’Oréal – all of whom call upon her editorial eye to style their campaigns, catalogues and look books. - In 2009, she married Mazdack Rassi the founder and creative director of Milk Studios. They were married at St Patrick’s old cathedral in Manhattan’s Nolita, in a 1920’s inspired wedding. - In 2014, she gave birth to paternal twin girls, Juno, named after the Roman goddess and Rumi, named after the Persian poet. - She is one of the co-founders, along with her husband, of the recently launched Milk Makeup line.
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CELEBRITY
“It’s the best position ever. I’m EP, showrunner, I wrote five of the 10, directed one – which I won’t do again. That was the one week where I went, ‘I just took on one too many jobs. I don’t need this.’ … . I loved directing but it was just too many jobs.” – Jason Jones on being executive producer of “The Detour” (in which he also stars) on TBS
“I’ve just been very blessed, very lucky. People ask me a lot, ‘What are you going to do next?,’ and my answer is always, ‘I have no idea. I’m going to enjoy my ride and see what happens.’ And I’ve been able to live the life I’ve dreamed of, which is really, really special.” – Alana De La Garza of “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders” on CBS
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“I live in New Hampshire and make all of the films up there … and we make maple syrup, too. And it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. And that’s the process of, at least, the documentary filmmaking that we do. It’s at least a 40:1 ratio. So you learn, you gather, and you learn a lot of information. And much is left out, and you always mourn for the stuff that isn’t there.” – Ken Burns, co-director of the recent “Jackie Robinson” on PBS
CELEBRITY
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ON DVRs
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Juno Temple of “Vinyl” on HBO I’ve been watching so many, but on Netflix actually. I watch ... ‘The Fall,’ that English show. Oh, it was brilliant. And then I actually watched all of ‘Girls,’ which I’d never seen before. I watched ‘Love,’ the new show on Netflix. I really enjoyed it. ... ‘The Killing,’ oh, that show was so good. I thought they were extraordinary on it. ... Oh, ‘Orange Is the New Black’ I love.
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Ian Kahn of “TURN: Washington’s Spies” on AMC “I like the political world very much, and the show I can’t stop watching is ‘With All Due Respect,’ which is the Mark Halperin and John Heilemann show. It’s an offshoot of my old favorite show, ‘Pardon the Interruption,’ which they very wisely made a political show. Those two guys are the best. They ask tough questions, they don’t take soft answers, and it’s always informative.”
Tom Bergeron of “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC “ ‘Billions’ on Showtime. I’m completely hooked on that. And my oldest daughter got Lois (Bergeron’s wife) and I watching ‘Jane the Virgin,’ which I just think is amazingly, consistently good. And we just started watching ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,’ too; those musical numbers are laugh-out-loud funny. I’m late to the party with some of these shows.”
Rachael Harris of “Lucifer” on Fox “I love TV so very, very much. Good TV. Even good/ bad TV; see ‘The Bachelor/ Bachelorette.’ My list, in no particular order: ‘Homeland,’ ‘House of Cards,’ ‘Bloodline,’ ‘The Good Wife,’ ‘Girls,’ ‘Empire,’ ‘The Last Man on Earth,’ ‘Scandal,’ ‘Anderson Cooper 360,’ ‘ABC World News With David Muir,’ ‘Live With Kelly and Michael’ and ‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.’ ”
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STORY
It’s science and government vs.
deadly disease
Claudia Black stars in “Containment,” premiering Tuesday on The CW. Story on next page
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STORY
A deadly epidemic decimates Atlanta in The CW’s ‘Containment’ By George Dickie A deadly contagion breaks out in Atlanta, forcing healthcare professionals and government officials into overdrive as they try to stop its spread in a medical thriller series premiering this week. In “Containment,” which debuts Tuesday, April 19, on The CW, that bug is called H7N2, and its symptoms are ugly: fever, headaches, swollen lymph nodes, bleeding from multiple orifices and, finally, death within a few days – and it is fatal in 100 percent of cases. After it kills a Syrian refugee, his doctor, her boyfriend and others they came into contact with, a quarantine of a portion of the city is declared, forcing those trapped on the inside to fight for their lives. That includes Katie (Kristen Gutoskie, “Rookie Blue”), an elementary-school teacher under lockdown with her class and young son; pregnant teen Teresa (Hanna Mangan Lawrence, “Spartacus: War of the Damned”) and Dr. Victor Cannerts (George Young, “Casualty”), a government researcher who made the call on the cordon and is now trying to find a cure. On the outside, Dr. Sabine Lommers (Claudia Black, “Farscape”) heads the government’s efforts to contain the outbreak, and she enlists well-respected police officer Lex Carnahan (David Gyasi, “Interstellar”) to help enforce the cordon in the face of deteriorating public trust. His job is made more difficult by the journalist (Trevor St. John, “The Mentalist”) with a conspiracy theory to prove, and the fact that his girlfriend (Christina Moses, “The Invention of Lying”) and best friend (Chris Wood, “The Vampire Diaries”) are trapped inside. And then, of course, there is the vial of mysterious white powder found in
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Click or tap on icon for more! the belongings of the Syrian – aka Patient Zero – which suggests possible bioterrorism. As order descends into chaos on the inside, those on the outside race to find a cure. “It’s a good opportunity for science to win,” Black said to a recent gathering of TV critics in Pasadena, Calif. “As in the film ‘The Martian,’ you know, it’s a big win for science when he says at the end of the film – not a spoiler – ‘You just have to work the problems, and if you work enough of them, you get to go home.’ So this is a similar environment. Whether the truth or not is going to save more lives comes into question in the series. “But also, one of the major aspects of containing a virus is contact tracing,” she continues, “and that will determine, as far as an epidemiologist is concerned, how much people will survive. So science has its chance to work through the problem throughout the series about who Patient Zero is and where they come from and how it affects Atlanta.” To ensure the series’ medical facts were solid, the producers and actors spoke with scientists and physicians and also consulted with state and federal health officials to make sure they had their government protocols straight. “There’s a lot of ways to ruffle feathers and to get people very upset if you make assumptions,” executive producer Julie Plec says. “I said, ‘Well, when does the World Health Organization come in?’ They were, like, ‘That’s the worst question you could have ever asked us. We are offended deeply.’ So it’s a whole world of politics and hierarchy, but it’s fascinating. And we made sure that, when we talked to people, we would say, ‘Would this happen this way?’ And either they’d say, ‘Absolutely, that’s how it would happen,’ or they’d say, ‘Not specifically, but we accept it,’ you know. So we were pretty diligent about that.” April 17 - 23, 2016 YOUR TV LINK Courtesy of Gracenote Page 13
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STORY
The comedian keeps stand-up in his career mix “Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping” premieres Friday on Netflix. Story on next page Page 14 YOUR TV LINK Courtesy of Gracenote April 17 - 23, 2016
STORY
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Patton Oswalt
stands for standup again on Netflix By Jay Bobbin Stand-up comedy still is his main calling card, but Patton Oswalt seems to be everywhere these days. Formerly a regular on “The King of Queens” and “United States of Tara,” the comedian has had other television roles lately on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “Veep,” “Archer” and (as the show’s narrator) “The Goldbergs,” and in such movies as “The Confirmation” and “Freaks of Nature.” He’s also making an office-sitcom pilot for CBS, but he hasn’t gone far from the job that brought him to the dance, and the frequent live-performance talent proves it when Netflix premieres “Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping” – his sixth stand-up special – Friday, April 22. “I seem to be getting employed on a lot of shows that I’m a huge fan of,” the bemused and amusing Oswalt says, “so I’m so enthusiastic to get to be there, it always feels like they’ve hired a radio-contest winner: ‘I get to do a role on “Veep”!’ I guess word gets around that it’s really ‘fun’ to work with me, for lack of a better word. Then also, I’m on a lot of shows that get streamed on Netflix, and the kind of shows I do are the kind of shows that get shared and networked about and talked about … and have very, very rabid fan bases. So, it is nice that both things build on each other very, very nicely.” Oswalt reasons that he likes having Netflix as a base for his own programs because the streaming service is “very fortunate in that they’ve seen years of other networks doing specials. They’ve seen how they’ve succeeded and how they’ve failed, so they’re already starting at an advantage of, ‘OK. We know what worked. We know how to stay out of the performers’ way so that they do the best show.’
“What’s also kind of weird,” adds Oswalt, “because Netflix is streaming and you can just put stuff in your queue and watch it, they’ve re-created the experience of fans of stand-up comedy that used to buy albums and tapes and tell their friends, ‘Oh, this one bit he does, you’ve got to see that.’ It’s very easy to then e-mail and tweet and Facebook each other, ‘Oh, make sure to check this one part out.’ It’s almost like you have a cassette tape (or) LP library, but it’s in digital form on your TV as far as stand-up is concerned.”
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STORY
Tom Bergeron
remains “astounded” by Season 22 By Jay Bobbin For Tom Bergeron, returning to “Dancing With the Stars” has been less work than relief. One of television’s most popular hosts has had an emotional time lately, given the loss of both of his parents within four months of each other. Now back for Season 22 of ABC’s Monday competition series with co-host Erin Andrews – who was coming off of her own rollercoaster of emotions, due to the peephole-recording trial that yielded a $55 million judgment in her favor – two-time Emmy winner Bergeron is glad to be on familiar turf again, while thinking of his father Ray and mother Kay with great love. To be with his dad toward the end, he missed a week of “Dancing With the Stars” last fall. The ever-amiable Bergeron recalls warmly that at the time, “I put out a tweet, a black-and-white photo of me as a little boy with him with his arm around me. And I said something like, ‘He supported me my whole life. I’m returning the favor.’ So I was at his bedside, and I said, ‘Dad, I’m going to miss the show, so I put a tweet out. And here it is.’ He looked at it, he paused and then he said, ‘That’s good. How many hits did we get?’” Bergeron was grateful to have the time to spend back home in Massachusetts, which might have been more complicated were he also still hosting ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” After a 15-year run, he turned that show over to Season 19 “Dancing” winner Alfonso Ribeiro in 2015, and he notes leaving it was “almost serendipitous” given his recent personal circumstances. “I made the decision purely because it felt like the right time to tie a bow on it for me. What I couldn’t have Page 16 YOUR TV LINK Courtesy of Gracenote April 17 - 23, 2016
predicted was how fortuitous that was. Even prior to that, I was offered the opportunity to do an episode of (TLC’s genealogy series) ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ that took me to France to explore my dad’s side of the family, and we all got to watch that together in my childhood home. There were a lot of things that aligned themselves beautifully and came as sort of an aftereffect of me deciding not to continue with (‘Home Videos’).” As “Dancing With the Stars” now proceeds with celebrity contestants including “Good Morning America” meteorologist Ginger Zee and deaf “America’s Next Top Model” Season 22 winner Nyle DiMarco, Bergeron deems the show’s ongoing run “wonderfully surreal. It’s been one of the great gifts of my career and continues to be, and I continue to be fond of the (production) team and excited about the show, loving live television as I always have.” The live aspect fuels spontaneity often embodied by Bergeron’s exchanges with famously finicky “Dancing” judge Len Goodman, back this season after taking the last one off. “We have a wonderful friendship,” Bergeron says, “and it translates into an ability to tease each other on the air, and to enjoy the whole give-and-take.” Bergeron also has enjoyed the expanded production value of “Dancing With the Stars” over its 11 years: “What the crew and producers and director are able to pull off every week would make some of those early (episodes) look like regional theater. I look at the visual effects, or watch our incredible crew completely change from one set to another against a ticking clock during commercial breaks. I’m in the midst of it, and there are times when I’m astounded.”
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STORY
John Schneider
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tries to hide small-town secrets
By Jay Bobbin If anything can be said about both Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and LMN, it’s that their viewers have come to know what to expect from them. Such is the case with new movies that the networks are premiering on Sunday, April 17, and they both have the phrase “thriller” pasted all over them. Moreover, that’s “female-centric thriller,” since the protagonists of such films typically are women who find or rediscover their strength in the face of extremely challenging odds. The Hallmark offering is “Sandra Brown’s White Hot,” based on a novel by the best-selling author. It gives Shenae Grimes-Beech – best-known as Annie on The CW’s “90210” update – another chance to move away from that teen image, since she’s done several cable movies since her run on that show. She now plays an interior designer drawn back, by her brother’s funeral, from San Francisco to her Louisiana hometown and her estranged family. Anyone who’s ever seen such a tale can guess the visit will uncover hidden secrets that are potentially lethal. Indeed, the returnee comes to believe her sibling’s death wasn’t the accident it was purported to be, and her mission to uncover the truth shakes up the town. It also doesn’t do much for her already strained relationship with her strong-willed father (“The Dukes of Hazzard” and “Smallville” alum John Schneider), a local factory owner with secrets of his own. While that mystery is unfolding on another channel, LMN will debut “House of Darkness,” which also uses San Francisco as its initial backdrop. A supernatural story said to be based on actual occurrences, the story casts Sara Fletcher as a young family matriarch who moves with her husband and daughter (Gunner Wright, Mykayla Sohn) to a seemingly tranquil farmhouse.
Note “tranquil” as the operative word there, since the site turns out to have a troubled history that has resulted in something horrible happening to everyone who has lived there over the past century. The wife and mother fears falling prey to the same curse when she believes the house’s walls are “talking” … and also when her spouse start displaying odd behavior bordering on violence. Both “White Hot” and “House of Darkness” hold to very familiar tropes that their respective networks are known for, but frankly, those are what keep their audiences coming back. And since both networks have a lot of movie hours to fill, with both new and older attractions, bet on them staying in the same veins for a long time to come.
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SPORTS
Kenseth
ready to repeat at Bristol Born: March 10, 1972
Height/Weight: 5 foot, 9 inches/195-pounds Racing Team: Joe Gibbs Racing
Birthplace: Cambridge, Wis.
No.: 20
Full Name: Matthew Roy Kenseth
Sprint Cup Wins: 36 Page 18 YOUR TV LINK Courtesy of Gracenote April 17 - 23, 2016
Honors and Achievements: Winston Cup Champion, 2003; Daytona 500 winner, 2009, 2012; Rookie of the Year, 2000
SPORTS
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By Dan Ladd A year ago in Bristol, Tenn., Matt Kenseth ended a 51-race winless streak when he started from the pole and drove to victory lane at NASCAR’s Sprint Food City 500. Winning here in 2016 would be a resurgence of sorts for the driver of the DeWalt Toyota when this year’s Food City 500 airs Sunday, April 17, on Fox. Winning at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2015 kick-started a sporadic year for Kenseth, which saw him win five races and qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup only to sit out two of the last three races of the season due to a suspension. Teammate Kyle Busch went on to win the Sprint Cup Championship while Kenseth finished 15th in the Cup standings. However, this is a new season with months of racing ahead and while at press time Kenseth had yet to find victory lane, he has been his usual consistent self, which means he’s in the hunt once again. He started second at the Daytona and finished 14th, leading 40 laps along the way. His best finish was a top-ten (7th) in Phoenix. Although last year’s win at Bristol was his only win there in April, three times he’s been the victor at the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race typically held there in August.
MattKenseth
Bristol’s short track, meanwhile, remains a favorite among NASCAR’s drivers and fans alike. The half-mile, high-banking concrete oval is one of auto racing’s loudest and is also one of the sport’s oldest tracks. April 17 - 23, 2016 YOUR TV LINK Courtesy of Gracenote Page 19
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MOVIES JAY BOBBIN's Theatrical movie review
If you’re in the designated age group, maybe you don’t think there have been too many movie series inspired by young adult novels. For others, one indication is “The Divergent Series: Allegiant,” which continues novelist Veronica Roth’s adventures of Tris, the heroine in a world where she embodies several traits that usually separate the society into factions. Shailene Woodley is back in the role, with Theo James also among the returnees as Four, her love interest and comrade in fighting back against the evil ruling class. The bad guys want to keep Chicago, and our heroes, sectored off from the rest of the world. “Allegiant” tells us why. It’s a matter of scientists having fooled around with DNA, the reason that the populace differs genetically – making Tris the odd woman out, since the experimentation didn’t impact her the way it did so many others. She and her comrades intend to escape the walled-in Windy City and get to the bottom of the situation. Not that it really matters, especially to those who have been “Twilight” and “Hunger Games”-ed out. Those sagas make you feel like you’ve seen the “Divergent” series before, for as original as it tries to be ... and that’s too bad, because there are a lot of good actors involved here, including the talented Woodley and her “The Fault in Our Stars” colleague Ansel Elgort, plus Naomi Watts, Jeff Daniels, Octavia Spencer and familiar television faces Daniel Dae Kim (“Hawaii Five-0”) and Maggie Q (“Nikita”). The big problem is that the plot of “Allegiant” doesn’t advance things all that much. Technically, it’s the first half of the “Divergent” finale, and possibly the biggest cheat you can give an audience (particularly with today’s admission costs) is to make them feel that they’re just marking time with what easily could have been part of one movie. It’s nothing new for a series to split its conclusion into halves – “Harry Potter” and the aforementioned “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games” all have done it, too – but if you’re a studio executive or one of the filmmakers, you’d better make sure there’s enough story to support that strategy. Indeed, the fourth and final “Divergent” movie (“Ascendant”) arrives next year, but “Allegiant” already makes it feel like three’s a crowd. And also like one too many, which may not bode well for the forthcoming wrap-up.
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‘Divergent’ means more danger for characters – and moviegoers
MOVIES JAY BOBBIN's movie review movies to watch
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“THE REVENANT” With all the award-show success he’d had for this grueling, fact-based survival drama, Leonardo DiCaprio was a lock to receive the Oscar he received for his largely silent portrayal of Hugh Glass, a 19th-centurty frontiersman left by most of his trapping party to die after being savagely mauled by a bear (in a harrowing sequence that leaves nothing to the imagination). The film also made Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu one of the few directors to receive consecutive Academy Awards (after winning for “Birdman” the previous year). Tom Hardy, Domnhall Gleeson and Will Poulter also star ... but in the acting department, there’s no question the film belongs to DiCaprio. ››› (R: AS, N. P, GV) (Also on Blu-ray and On Demand)
Top Pick
DVD
Pictured: Leonardo DiCaprio
upcoming DVD releases
Coming Soon on DVD... “KRAMPUS” (April 26): A youngster (Emjay Anthony) disappointed at the holidays conjures up a Christmas demon; Toni Collette also stars. (PG-13: AS, P, V) “RIDE ALONG 2” (April 26): Kevin Hart and Ice Cube reunite as their characters team with a female cop (Olivia Munn) against a drug dealer. (PG-13: AS, P, V) “THE 5TH WAVE” (May 3): Though aliens continue to unleash attacks on Earth, a young fugitive (Chloe Grace Moretz) is determined to save her brother. (PG-13: AS, P, V)
“Krampus”
“JOY” (May 3): Jennifer Lawrence plays Miracle Mop inventor and marketer Joy Mangano in director David O. Russell’s comedy-drama, also reuniting the actress with Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper. (PG-13: AS, P) “LOU GRANT: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON” (May 24): Edward Asner carried his “Mary Tyler Moore Show” character into this drama series, which made Grant a Los Angeles newspaper editor. (Not rated: AS, P) “ANOMALISA” (June 7): The animated Oscar nominee focuses on an author (voice of David Thewlis) who gains a renewed appreciation of his life and family. (R: AS, N, P)
Family Viewing Ratings AS Adult situations
P Profanity
V Violence
N Nudity
GV Graphic Violence
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FAVORITE SHOWS
David Mazouz stars in “Gotham”
Sophia Bush stars in “Chicago P.D.”
SUNDAY 9:30 p.m. on NBC Crowded Be careful what you sample ... a lesson that Mike (Patrick Warburton) would do well to heed in the new episode “Better Man.” He finds, and decides to try, some Viagra. The results are such that he and Martina (Carrie Preston) worry about being satisfied by moving on without it. Shea (Miranda Cosgrove) also makes a beneficial chemical discovery. Stella’s (Mia Serafino) enthusiasm over starting her own online channel is dashed by comments from haters. New
Zooey Deschanel stars in “New Girl”
MONDAY 8 p.m. on FOX Gotham Barbara (Erin Richards) tries to patch things up with Gordon (Ben McKenzie) after she departs Arkham Asylum in the new episode “Wrath of the Villains: Pinewood.” With Alfred’s (Sean Pertwee) help, Bruce (David Mazouz) locates some of his father’s associates, but Hugo Strange (guest star BD Wong) interferes. Nathan Darrow and Tonya Pinkins guest star. Donal Logue, Morena Baccarin and Michael Chiklis also star. New
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Carrie Preston stars in “Crowded”
TUESDAY 8 p.m. on FOX New Girl An hourlong presentation combining two new episodes begins with “Jeff Day,” as Jess (Zooey Deschanel) invents a male alias to try to get a better deal from a chauvinistic car salesman. Nick and Sam (Jake Johnson, guest star David Walton) unwittingly jinx the scheme. Then, in “Helmet,” Jess tries to interpret a dream she had about Nick, and the occupation of Aly’s (guest star Nasim Pedrad) boyfriend (guest star Kal Penn) adds new intrigue. New
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FAVORITE SHOWS WEDNESDAY 10 p.m. on NBC Chicago P.D. A possible, unlikely heroin dealer — a college professor — confounds Burgess (Marina Squerciati) in “A Night Owl.” He claims innocence, prompting Voight (Jason Beghe) to send Olinsky and Antonio (Elias Koteas, Jon Seda) to seek other potential suspects. Roman (Brian Geraghty) discusses his career aims with Platt (Amy Morton). Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) gets after-hours work via Mouse (guest star Samuel Hunt). Sophia Bush also stars.
FRIDAY 10 p.m. on CBS Blue Bloods A case of terrorism in the Middle East prompts Frank (Tom Selleck) to worry that a related attack on New York may be imminent in “Worst Case Scenario.” Advised as usual by Garrett and Gormley (Gregory Jbara, Robert Clohessy), he tries to determine how to take necessary precautions without alarming the city’s general population. Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes, Len Cariou and Amy Carlson also star.
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SATURDAY 8 p.m. on ABC Movie: Monsters University Disney-Pixar’s 2013 prequel to the animated hit “Monsters, Inc.” revisits the amusing teamwork of Billy Crystal and John Goodman, cast again as the voices of Mike and Sulley, the creatures who meet at the title college. When their rivalry gets them booted out of school, they set out to make their way in the world together. Helen Mirren is a fine addition to a voice cast that also includes Steve Buscemi and Alfred Molina. The score is by Randy Newman.
THURSDAY 9:01 p.m. on CBS Mom Christy (Anna Faris) has a hard time relating to the late Jodi’s boyfriend (guest star Jesse Luken) — and suppressing her true emotions — when he attends a recovery meeting she’s at in the new episode “Beast Mode and Old People Kissing.” Such gatherings also generate a problem for Bonnie (Allison Janney), whose beau Adam (William Fichtner) would rather have her spend the time with him. Mimi Kennedy, Jaime Pressly and Beth Hall also star. New 10 p.m. on COMEDY Inside Amy Schumer Currently one of the hottest multihyphenates in show business, Emmyand Peabody Award-winning actress, writer, producer and movie star Amy Schumer returns for Season 4 of the irreverent comedy series that helped launch her career. As before, these nine new episodes explore topics relating to sex and relationships via sketches, stand-up segments and interviews. Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore and Steve Buscemi are among the guests scheduled to appear, but it’s the cheerfully unfiltered Ms. S. who’s the real star. Season Premiere New
“Monsters University”
Bridget Moynahan stars in “Blue Bloods”
Anna Faris stars in “Mom”
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