Turner Classic Movies profiles Joe Caroff, who designed some of the most iconic movie posters and logos you’ve ever hung on your wall. A new season of Somebody Feed Phil features a tribute to world-traveling foodie Phil Rosenthal’s late parents. Fox’s Monarch puts the fictional country-music family in the spotlight during awards season. Hulu’s behind-the-sitcom-scenes comedy Reboot reveals just how hard it can be to loop a line of corny dialogue.
By Design: The Joe Caroff Story
It’s hard to imagine some movies and cinema icons without picturing the posters that made them famous. “You think that movies sell themselves?” quips delightful designer Joe Caroff, now 101, as he looks back at the legendary graphics he produced—including the gun-laden “007” James Bond logo, the original posters for West Side Story, A Hard Day’s Night, Cabaret and corporate logos including ABC News and ABC Olympics. TCM follows the documentary with screenings of films whose posters he helped immortalize: Manhattan (9/8c), Cabaret (midnight/11c) and A Hard Day’s Night (2:15 am/1:15c).
Netflix
Somebody Feed Phil
Phil Rosenthal, formerly best known as Everybody Loves Raymond’s executive producer, is enjoying a robust second act as host and star of his Emmy-nominated food/travel series, now in its sixth season. The new episodes, each embracing a new location’s culture and cuisine, take Phil to Croatia, Santiago and stateside to Philadelphia, Nashville and Austin. In a special tribute episode, Phil remembers his late parents, Helen and Max, who spiced up many a past episode (and whose antics also inspired many Raymond moments). He’s also produced the inevitable companion cookbook, “Somebody Feed Phil: The Book,” with recipes, production photos and stories from the first four seasons, available in bookstores and online today.
FOX
Monarch
It’s unlikely this tuneful soap will win any TV awards, but for the fictional Romans, the first family of Texas country music, it’s always a big deal when the nominations for the Country Music Legacy Awards are announced. That’s especially true this year, given the rivalry between sisters Nicky (Anna Friel) and Gigi (Beth Ditto). Personally, I side with Aunt Nellie (the underused Faith Prince), who quips, “It’s an honor just to be inebriated.” They all might need a drink once district attorney “Uncle” Tripp (D.W. Moffett) enters the picture with some alarming news about a family scandal.
Hulu
Reboot
Looping dialogue is one of those technical aspects of TV production you rarely see depicted. Maybe for good reason. The fun begins on the sitcom-within-a-sitcom satire when exec producer Gordon (Paul Reiser) tricks daughter/partner Hannah (Rachel Bloom) into supervising Clay’s (Johnny Knoxville) looping session, where she learns that he’s the “Michael Jordan of being terrible at looping.” What follows next is unprintable. But Hannah gets her revenge, inviting actress Bree (Judy Greer) to visit the writers’ room, where her eager input is not what anyone wants to hear. Off the set, Reed (Keegan-Michael Key) joins Zack (Calum Worthy) for a basketball game that gets even uglier than Clay’s inept looping.
Inside Tuesday TV:
- FBI (8/7c, CBS): Things get personal for Tiffany (Katherine Renee Turner) when she turns for help to an ex-NYPD friend who’s related to the drug kingpin they’re trying to take down for an informant’s murder. Followed by FBI: International (9/8c), where the search is on for the Romanian surrogate carrying the baby of an American couple, and FBI: Most Wanted (10/9c), with the team scrambling to rescue a kidnapped Hana (Keisha Castle-Hughes).
- The Resident (8/7c, Fox): It’s déjà vu for Conrad (Matt Czuchry) when he recognizes an ER patient as someone he treated as an intern.
- The Winchesters (8/7c, The CW): The new running gag in the Supernatural prequel: Every time John (Drake Rodger) and Mary (Meg Donnelly) face demonic danger, he’s the one who ends up covered in goo or blood. And so it is as they track a Mother Earth-style spirit who has a special taste for disobedient kids. Maybe not the best time for John to be defying his mom Millie (Bianca Kajlich) by chasing monsters all the time.
- Mama’s Boy (9/8c, HBO): Based on Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black’s (Milk) 2019 memoir, a deeply personal documentary explores Black’s upbringing in a Mormon home in the South and his relationship with his mother, Anne, a survivor of childhood polio and two abusive marriages. She would be forced to reconcile her faith with her devotion to her son, who came out as gay to her at 21 and who credits her support and strength with his activism.
- White Coat Rebels (9/8c, Fuse): A Fuse Docs special spotlights young doctors and medical students fighting back against the influence of Big Pharma to address inequities in health care.
- Michael Flynn’s Holy War (10/9c, PBS): Frontline investigates the political influence of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who’s become a central figure in a hard-right movement attracting election deniers, conspiracists and insurrectionists.
- Netflix premieres include a third “volume” of Unsolved Mysteries, with episodes released on Tuesdays through Nov. 1, and Gabriel Iglesias: Stadium Fluffy Live from Los Angeles, the first comedy special to be performed at a sold-out Dodger Stadium.
- Dancing with the Stars (streaming on Disney+): The second night of “Stars’ Stories Week” relives “Prom Night” for the 11 remaining couples, featuring a dance marathon segment where the Hustle and the Lindy Hop will be performed.
- Reasonable Doubt (streaming on Hulu): A flashback episode reaches back 16 years to when Jax, then an idealistic public defender, first met Damon.