The A&E network has announced that it is pulling a reality show about the Ku Klux Klan, which was set to air next month, after executives discovered that outside producers for the series paid members of the group for their participation. The network said that “Escaping the KKK,” a series about...
For many, the holiday season is deeply rooted in tradition, whether that means eating the same cookies, hanging the same decorations or even feeling a bit glum in the face of festive exuberance. For others, that tradition could be sitting down to watch the Christmas specials they grew up with. ...
SERIES Terry Crews Saves Christmas This limited series, in which the “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” star helps everyday folks plan their holiday parties, ends its run with a pair of new episodes. 8 and 9 p.m. KTLA Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives It’s all about meat as Guy Fieri’s foodie travelogue wraps another...
Guillermo del Toro, the horror art-movie director, has created a cartoon series, "Trollhunters," based on the 2015 young adult novel of the same name he wrote with Daniel Kraus ("The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch"). Produced by DreamWorks Animation and premiering Friday on Netflix (home also...
It turns out that Riverdale is not quite the perfect, peppy town it makes itself out to be. A new trailer for “Riverdale” has been released, and it gives fans an extended look at the murder mystery at the center of the CW’s upcoming show. With the “Riverdale” series premiere just a little over...
Alan Thicke famously dispensed reassurance, fatherly wisdom and hearty laughs as beloved patriarch Dr. Jason Seaver on the popular 1980s sitcom “Growing Pains.” Since his death from a sudden heart attack last week at age 69, Thicke has been warmly remembered for those same attributes in his personal...
Ok, class. Time for a pop quiz. Which of the following is not an actual show released by Netflix in the last six months? a) “3%,” a dystopian thriller from Brazil b) “Quinnsurrection,” a loosely autobiographical dramedy starring Colin Quinn as a mistanthropic comedian c) “Beat Bugs,” a kids’ show...
Riz Ahmed knows what you’re thinking: His character in “The Night Of” could have benefited from having a ride-sharing app like Uber or Lyft installed on his phone. “If we had filmed the series more recently, there would be no story,” Ahmed said during a recent visit to the Los Angeles Times. “I...
Russian oligarchy, suburban America and the not-so-sweet hereafter collide in “The OA” when a young blind woman goes missing, only to return some seven years later with her vision restored. But what really happened to Prairie Johnson (played by the show’s co-creator Brit Marling) is the mystery...
SERIES Terry Crews Saves Christmas Night three of this four-night series finds Terry and his ace team of party wizards trying to salvage one family’s half-hearted party. 8 p.m. KTLA Project Runway Actress-singer Zendaya serves as a guest judge as the latest winner is crowned in the season finale...
The entertainment industry has always suffered from a host of personality issues — self-aggrandizement, an unhealthy obsession with youth and beauty, a chronic repetitive disorder — but this year it experienced a full-on existential crisis. Beset by changes internal and external, social and technological,...
SERIES Undercover Boss The chief executive of Build-A-Bear Workshop goes undercover in the unscripted series’ season premiere. 8 p.m. CBS Inside the Actors Studio Jessica Chastain (“Miss Sloane”) is the guest of host James Lipton in this new installment. 8 p.m. Bravo Nightcap Janeane Garofalo...
Sorry, folks: She’s not running. In a frequently compelling hour-long conversation Monday night on CBS with Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey asked about the difficulties of life in the White House and her role as the nation’s first black first lady. Obama was, as ever, the personification of a class...
More details have emerged about the third season of the acclaimed FX series “Fargo,” which is set to begin filming in January. In a natural bit of casting for the series’ Minnesota roots, Midwestern-raised comic Jim Gaffigan will join the cast as a police deputy. He joins “Harry Potter” veteran...
SERIES Terry Crews Saves Christmas The “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” costar helps everyday folks plan their holiday parties in this new limited series. 8 p.m. KTLA So Cosmo Get a sneak peek at this upcoming reality series about the young staffers at Cosmopolitan Magazine. 8 p.m. E! Barbara Walters Presents...
Michelle Obama told Oprah Winfrey in an interview airing Monday night that the past election was "painful" to watch and she didn't learn Donald Trump had won until the next morning, when she looked at the result on her phone. "This past election was challenging for me as a citizen," the Chicago-born...
Long before Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, there was Zsa Zsa, dahlink — famous for being famous. Although she appeared in films, Gabor cemented her celebrity (some would say notoriety) as a larger-than-life persona, particularly on television. Let’s be clear: She was in on the joke before anyone...
What did Zsa Zsa Gabor do, exactly? She acted a little, got married a lot. Mostly she was a professional presence, the lively public performance of a fabulous self. She was a confectionary sort of person, sugar and cream spiked with something a little stronger, as soft as her name, as hard and...
SERIES The Great Christmas Light Fight The competition wraps up its fourth season with back-to-back episodes. The first hour takes judges Carter Oosterhouse and Taniya Nayak to a home where a family has re-created landmarks of the American Northwest, and to a Nevada residence that boasts replicas...
As news spreads about the death of iconic socialite and actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hollywood celebrities shared their condolences on social media. Gabor died Sunday of heart failure in her Bel-Air mansion, according to her publicist Edward Lozzi. She was 99. Read some of the online tributes, from the...
Along with the comedian Norm Macdonald and the singer Kiiara, Donald J. Trump appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on Sept. 15, a lifetime ago. That was the night that, in a gesture that for some viewers said more about the host than the guest, Fallon rumpled Trump's hair. It was...
Donald Glover may want to invest in a trophy cabinet. Last Sunday, the creator and star of FX's “Atlanta” picked up a Critics’ Choice award for actor in a comedy, and this week he was nominated for two Golden Globes and three NAACP image awards. The distinctive "Atlanta” has been a fixture on many...
SERIES Project Grizzly Bear trainer Jeff Watson is almost ready to release his two raised-in-captivity grizzlies into the wild in this documentary series’ first-season finale. 10 p.m. Animal Planet Saturday Night Live Casey Affleck (“Manchester by the Sea”) hosts, and musical guest Chance the Rapper...
SUNDAY Neither nuns nor Nazis can hold Julie Andrews back in the beloved 1965 tale “The Sound of Music.” With Christopher Plummer. 7 p.m. ABC Scientists, mathematicians and miscellaneous brainiacs collect kudos and cash in the special “Breakthrough Prize.” Morgan Freeman hosts and Alicia Keys...
The cast of Disney’s upcoming “DuckTales” reboot has been announced. David Tennant, Danny Pudi, Ben Schwartz, Bobby Moynihan, Beck Bennett, Toks Olagundoye and Kate Micucci were assembled for a video reveal with the stars of the new series singing the fan-favorite “DuckTales” theme song. Tennant...
In recent years, writer-producer-director John Ridley has been hailed for using his pointed storytelling abilities to spotlight edgy, uncomfortable topics ranging from the horrors of slavery (“12 Years a Slave”) to the explosive human drama of race and socioeconomic clashes in ABC’s anthology series...
New series I loved in 2016: 13 shows in 10 items, in no particular order. "Baskets" (FX) / "Atlanta" (FX) Zach Galifianakis and Donald Glover find themselves back home and struggling in these personal, downbeat, guardedly hopeful, suddenly beautiful comedies. Louie Anderson, as Galifianakis' mother,...
It’s unlikely to go down as a banner year in American history, but 2016 has undeniably been a fertile period for television, which continues to be the most exciting, dynamic medium in contemporary pop culture, and the one most attuned to the current mood. Over the last 12 months, much of TV, from...
SERIES Last Man Standing Jay Leno reprises his recurring role on a new episode of the Tim Allen sitcom. 8 p.m. ABC Hell’s Kitchen Crystal Hefner, Melissa Rivers, “Twilight’s” Ashley Greene and Drew and Jonathan Scott from “Property Brothers” are the celebrity diners in this new episode. 8 p.m....
A certain generation of Chinese remember Hollywood actor Alan Thicke as the man who taught them about psychiatrists and shoulder pads. His sudden death this week saddened many across the nation who first encountered America through the celebrity and his persona as a befuddled, loving father. “Growing...
After seven years, you get a chance to know somebody. Effectively, it’s the duration of a presidency, a broken mirror’s threat and the first sparks of an itch, if bygone Marilyn Monroe movies are to be believed. But after seven years of tossing bite-size judgments around in this little sandbox, the...
Popular sports broadcaster Craig Sager has died after a long battle with cancer, Turner Broadcasting President David Levy announced in a statement on Thursday. He was 65. “Craig Sager was a beloved member of the Turner family for more than three decades and he has been a true inspiration to all...
SERIES The Big Bang Theory Wolowitz and Bernadette’s (Simon Helberg, Melissa Rauch) baby is on the way, and it’s Amy’s (Mayim Bialik) birthday. Jim Parsons also stars with guest stars Pamela Adlon and Vernee Watson. 8 p.m. CBS The Great Indoors When the human resources department rescinds its rule...
Sonequa Martin-Green, who plays Sasha Williams on AMC’s "The Walking Dead," is joining Starfleet as Lt. Cmdr. Rainsford on the upcoming CBS All Access series "Star Trek: Discovery." Rainsford had been touted by the project’s original show runner, Bryan Fuller, as the central character of the show,...
When Bryce Dallas Howard got a call from her agent early Wednesday morning, she didn’t imagine it was good news about, say, a SAG nomination for outstanding performance by a female actor in a television movie or limited series. “I really thought there had been some catastrophe,” she told The Times,...
The nominations for the 23rd Screen Actors Guild Awards were announced Wednesday. “Manchester by the Sea” led the field with four total nominations, including for performance by a cast in a motion picture. “Fences” and “Moonlight,” also nominated for their casts, followed with three nominations...
At first glance, “Star,” a music-business drama about an aspiring R&B girl group, seems like a transparent attempt by Fox to replicate the success of the hip-hop soap opera “Empire.” It even shares a co-creator in Lee Daniels. But “Star” is not exactly cookie-cutter television. For starters, the...
In Lee Daniels’ newest TV musical drama, “Star,” Queen Latifah plays Carlotta, a beauty salon owner in Atlanta who is a fairy music godmother of sorts to an up-and-coming all-girl trio. “I’m telling you now, there’s going to be GIFs of Carlotta making the rounds once the show airs,” says Queen...
As news of Alan Thicke's death spread, fellow stars shared their remembrances and condolences on social media, recalling his love of hockey and praising him for his role as beloved dad Jason Seaver on the hit ’80s sitcom “Growing Pains.” Leonardo DiCaprio, who appeared on “Growing Pains” early...
Alan Thicke, an actor best known for helping set a template for parenting ideals in the ’80s sitcom “Growing Pains,” has died. He was 69. His death was confirmed with The Times on Tuesday evening by the publicist of his son, pop-soul singer Robin Thicke. The Times spoke with Robin Thicke on Tuesday...
SERIES Jay Leno's Garage Leno heads to Edwards Air Force Base with astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, then drives the $2.5-billion Mars Rover. Tim Allen also appears in the season finale. 7 and 10 p.m. CNBC Survivor The remaining castaways vie for a chance at the $1-million prize in the season...
The 48th NAACP Image Awards nominations were announced Tuesday with Oscar contender “Moonlight” and Nate Parker’s embattled “The Birth of a Nation” each scoring six nods, with “Loving” nabbing five. The awards aim to celebrate accomplishments of people of color in television, music, literature...
SERIES NCIS A Navy officer’s murder appears to be connected to Ducky’s (David McCallum) late mother. The case gives Ducky conflicted feelings about a decision he made almost four decades earlier. With Mark Harmon, Joe Spano and guest star Adam Campbell appears again in flashbacks as the younger...
When they received news of their Golden Globe nominations, actors, writers and filmmakers expressed surprise, delight and gratefulness. But in this politically charged year, where issues such as racism and sexism were front and center during the presidential election, many nominees talked about...
The husband-and-wife team behind HGTV's "Flip or Flop" have announced their separation six months after police were called to their Orange County home over what the couple called an "unfortunate misunderstanding." Tarek and Christina El Moussa said in a statement Monday that police were called...
Cable powerhouses HBO and FX, armed with the buzziest series on TV such as “Game of Thrones” and “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” respectively, dominated the 74th annual Golden Globe nominations. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which bestows the Globes, also saluted several...
SERIES The Voice The final four artists compete in this new episode. 8 p.m. NBC Gotham Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) charts a new course for himself as a bounty hunter. Donal Logue also stars. 8 p.m. Fox Man With a Plan When a blizzard disrupts holiday travel plans, Adam and Andi (Matt LeBlanc, Liza...
T.J. Miller, the “Silicon Valley” star who made headlines this weekend for allegedly hitting his car service driver, promised via a tweet to “address the elephant in the room” during his hosting gig of the 22nd Critics Choice Awards Sunday night. But it turns out he didn’t mean being detained for...
Walter White lives! Well, at least he did for a few minutes on “Saturday Night Live.” Emmy winner Bryan Cranston revived his high school science teacher-drug lord character from the now-defunct “Breaking Bad” during Saturday’s show. Imagine if Walter White was selected by President-elect Donald...
Jimmi Simpson is getting around. He was spotted amid the knotted timelines of the recently wrapped first season of HBO’s “Westworld” on Sunday and then on Tuesday in the fall finale of the weepy NBC drama “This Is Us.” In the process, Simpson has proved that he could — spoiler alerts! — portray someone...
SERIES Caribbean Pirate Gold This new series takes viewers along on a treasure hunt for 18th century buccaneer Calico Jack’s missing booty, imagined to be worth $250 million (if it exists). Noon Travel 30 for 30 This new episode tells the story behind the infamous 1988 “Catholics vs. Convicts”...
“What just happened?” The query was raised via an on-screen prompt following the confusing Season 1 finale of HBO’s “Westworld.” Perplexed viewers were then directed to a website where they could get some answers. But that question has also been ruminating in our collective consciousness since...
John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, died Thursday at 95. Glenn was part of Mercury Seven, NASA’s select group of seven astronauts to make the first journeys to space. In a tiny space capsule called the Friendship 7, Glenn circled Earth for almost five hours. He gained instant fame on...
SUNDAY Watch out for that ottoman! The new special “The Dick Van Dyke Show – Now in Living Color!” presents two episodes of the classic 1960s sitcom, colorized for your viewing pleasure. With Mary Tyler Moore. 8 p.m. CBS Let it go? Unlikely. The broadcast premiere of Disney’s “Frozen” is followed...
Powerful women have always captivated the world, from Cleopatra to Catherine the Great, but this year their stories felt more vital than ever. Hillary Clinton’s historic presidential run fell short, but she still has the distinction of being the first woman to win the nomination of a major party....
It’s a very happy Friday for people looking to distract themselves from the slow march toward the end of the year, as the Internet is abuzz with new trailers for television and film projects alike. In addition to the trailer for “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” fans also got first looks at both the next...
When “The Colbert Report” ended so its star could move to “The Late Show,” many wondered what could ever replace it. Now we have our answer: the presidency. In one of the most meta media moves in history, Donald Trump has become the new “Stephen Colbert.” He even has a “Trump bump.” Back when the...
UNDERRATED Teenage Fanclub’s ‘Here’: Now 10 albums in, this Scottish band is one of music’s quiet constants since bursting on the alternative radio landscape with the feedback-laden power-pop of “Bandwagonesque” in 1991. Still armed with the winsome, preternaturally catchy work of its three songwriters,...
Since the presidential election of Donald Trump last month, white nationalist Richard Spencer has been getting a lot of media attention. This week, news crews turned out in force to cover a protested speech he gave at Texas A&M University. “I’m trying to normalize ‘racism,’ as you call it,” he...
SERIES MacGyver John Heard (“Home Alone”) guest stars as MacGyver’s (Lucas Till) favorite middle school science teacher, whose best student (guest star Amiah Miller) has been kidnapped. Jeremy London also guest stars with George Eads, Justin Hires and Sandrine Holt. 8 p.m. CBS Last Man Standing...
“Captive,” a documentary series premiering Friday on Netflix, aims to be the fact-based version of one of those taut suspense thrillers starring Liam Neeson. Each of the show’s eight episodes tells the story of a different hostage crisis, dramatizing tense, high-stakes negotiations through a combination...
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we owe NBC an apology. Three years ago, when the network started what it hoped would be an annual live musical tradition with “The Sound of Music,” many of us tuned in to do a bit of ironic rubbernecking. But what started as a collective snark-a-thon has morphed...
For seven seasons, the Massachusetts-born Jeffrey Donovan starred as Michael Westen in the USA crime drama “Burn Notice,” a series that stayed light on its feet with a mix of dry humor and the expected helping of style that comes in the on-screen espionage business. Last year, his bulked-up turn...
Here’s a spoiler alert TV fans didn’t see coming in 2016 — the ottoman Dick Van Dyke trips over in the opening titles of his classic 1960s sitcom is olive green. Several generations of viewers have enjoyed Van Dyke and costar Mary Tyler Moore on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which 50 years after completing...
SERIES DC’s Legends of Tomorrow The team lands in the Roaring ’20s Chicago in this new episode. 8 p.m. KTLA Alone The remote Argentinian region of Patagonia is the destination as this outdoor-survival returns with a preview special followed by the third-season premiere. 8 and 9 p.m. History Channel...
Maddie Baillio, who makes her professional acting debut as the star of NBC’s live musical production “Hairspray Live” on Wednesday, is lounging on the couch in her sparse dressing room, holding an important paper. “It's crazy — I just opened this,” says Baillio, who plays the dance-loving teen...
On his first post-election late-night stop, Vice President Joe Biden took some time Tuesday on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” to have a family meeting with America. Cue the cozy sweaters and bring on the father figures. “Hey, champ, how ya doing?” Colbert said to the country, with Biden...
It appears Donald Trump has no plans to stop watching “Saturday Night Live.” Or stop tweeting about it. On Wednesday during an interview on the “Today” show, Matt Lauer asked Trump about his habit of picking fights and sharing his grievances over Twitter. Specifically, Lauer was curious about...
When “Good Girls Revolt” premiered on Amazon in late October, shortly before an election Hillary Clinton was widely predicted to win, it seemed like a perfectly timely celebration of second-wave feminism. The series, created by Dana Calvo, is a tale of workplace revolt that plays like a cross between...
SERIES Nightcap Debra Messing, Tim Gunn and Mark Cuban guest star as themselves on the talk-show spoof. 8 p.m. Pop Criminal Minds “The Player’s” Damon Gupton joins the cast of the procedural drama as profiler Stephen Walker. 9 p.m. CBS Frequency Raimy and Frank (Peyton List, Riley Smith) learn...
Veteran British character actor Peter Vaughan, who played the enigmatic Maester Aemon in "Game of Thrones," has died. He was 93. He died Tuesday, surrounded by his family, according to his agent, Sally Long-Innes. Vaughan's face — if not his name — was familiar to generations of television viewers...
A calorie-rich serving of bright colors and a motley crew of star power is making for a hallucinogenic visual on a soundstage here in Universal City. Kristin Chenoweth skedaddles across the floor. Harvey Fierstein and Martin Short bow in front of a swarm of adoring dancers. All the while pop powerhouses...
Netflix Inc. helped make binge-watching a national pastime with its tens of millions of subscribers eagerly gobbling up their favorite shows. But now the streaming giant is facing accusations of a different kind of binging — the poaching of executives from the competition. The company’s recent...
SERIES NCIS Vance (Rocky Carroll) leads a team assigned to protect a congresswoman (Mary Stuart Masterson) who is the target of threats that appear to be escalating. Mark Harmon, Pauley Perrette, Sean Murray, David McCallum, Emily Wickersham, Wilmer Valderrama and Jennifer Esposito also star. 8...
Playing an expectant mother to triplets was already daunting for Mandy Moore. But playing a 66-year-old mother to three thirtysomething children? That was not something she was prepared to do. “There are no YouTube videos for that!” Moore, 32, says, emphatically enough to make you wonder if she...
As 2016 comes to a close, the American people can rest easy knowing their suffering is nearly over: “The Bachelor” is about to return. ABC announced Monday that the landmark dating reality show would be returning for its 21st season on Jan. 2 with 30 beautiful, accomplished women competing for...
SERIES Kevin Can Wait After Kevin (Kevin James) promises to spend time with his family, his resolve is tested when his buddies surprise him with tickets to a Billy Joel concert. 8 p.m. CBS The Voice The top eight artists perform in front of the coaches for America’s vote as the semifinals begin. 8...
Dennis Haysbert has made a career playing commanding authority figures — most memorably “24” President David Palmer — and he explores that territory again in “Incorporated.” Set in a dystopian 2074, the new Syfy series cast Haysbert as the head of security at the largest corporation in a world...
Bookaboo (Amazon Prime). Reading and being read to are necessary delights. And television has long paid reading its due, going back to "Ding Dong School" and up through "Reading Rainbow" and any number of hosted children's programs. "Captain Kangaroo" was, for me, a gateway to the works of Robert...
SERIES Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks Polly is taken prisoner by rebels, who are planning to use the Daleks to take control of the Earth colony in this animated resurrection of early episodes of the classic British science fiction series. 8:25 p.m. BBC America Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective...
There’s no real reason any of us should feel sorry for Mariah Carey, a singer-songwriter who’s sold roughly as many albums as there are people in Brazil. And yet it’s hard to walk away from an episode of “Mariah’s World” without the distinct sense that, after a quarter-century in the limelight,...
It’s dimly lit in here. Dimly lit and quiet. Inside an unused dressing-room suite on the NBCUniversal lot in Universal City, things are mostly unremarkable until Mariah Carey, dressed in a plunging black jumpsuit, saunters in. Two members of her team sit on a nearby sofa, toiling on their phones....
SUNDAY It’s orcas versus dolphins — advantage, orcas — in the new nature special “Killer Whales: The Mega Hunt.” 7 p.m. Animal Planet “A Very Soul Train Christmas” features vintage performance footage of such R&B favorites as Luther Vandross, Chaka Khan and Smokey Robinson. 7 p.m. BET Looks like...
UNDERRATED The return of Tracey Ullman: Like a sort of sketch comedy equivalent of Cindy Sherman, Ullman has built a career on sharply inhabiting and impersonating a wide variety of characters. Six years after her last series took aim at America, Ullman has returned to HBO with the BBC-produced...
SERIES The Vampire Diaries Stefan (Paul Wesley) tries to protect Caroline’s (Candice King) twins from the Siren on a new episode of the supernatural drama. 8 p.m. KTLA Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Rebecca (Rachel Bloom) plans a gals-only get-together on a new episode of the kooky musical comedy; Donna...
Just as the nation continues a peaceful transition of power with President-elect Donald Trump taking the reins of the federal government, so too does network television, which played its own role on Trump’s road to the White House. “The Celebrity Apprentice,” the business-tilted unscripted game...
Conservative political commentator Tomi Lahren braved the lion’s den that is “The Daily Show” on Wednesday for a heated conversation with host Trevor Noah about race and protesters. Much like how Noah became popular for his witty yet unapologetic political takedowns during the election, Lahren...
Start your engines. Disney has announced the premiere date for “Mickey and the Roadster Racers,” its upcoming show following the car-racing adventures of Mickey Mouse and his friends. Mickey’s newest show will debut Jan. 15 on both Disney Junior and the Disney Channel, with two more new episodes...
Weddings, babies and teenage emancipations — oh, my! Fans of “Nashville,” rejoice: New episodes of your favorite country music drama are on the way. CMT, which picked up the TV series for a fifth season after ABC had canceled it, released the first official trailer for the return of the show centered...
SERIES DC’s Legends of Tomorrow The CW’s four-night superhero crossover event concludes as the Legends are joined by Supergirl, the Flash and Green Arrow (Melissa Benoist, Grant Gustin, Stephen Amell) to do battle with the alien Dominators. 8 p.m. KTLA Rosewood Dr. Daisy Wick (Carla Gallo) from...
Television is a collaborative art, the work not just of writers, producers, directors and actors, but also of people who make decisions about what you will see and what you won't. As an art, it's also a business, and as a business, also a game, half-chance, half-skill — you have to know when to...
Grant Tinker, the plain-spoken, silver-haired executive who led a prime-time renaissance at NBC and developed shows that helped redefine series television in the 1970s and ’80s, died Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 90. NBC announced his death Wednesday morning. The cause of death was...