Summer TV preview 2016
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Forget parting -- season finales are such sweet sorrow, especially all these months later when it’s time to remember what they wrought.
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Filmmaker Cameron Crowe may be best known for such beloved big-screen teenage touchstones as “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Say Anything...” and hits like “Almost Famous” and “Jerry Maguire,” but beneath his celluloid exterior the former Rolling Stone writer’s heart is still pure vinyl.
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There’s a moment that happens early in Season 2 of “Casual,” Hulu’s indie take on a family comedy, when divorcée Valerie Meyers (played by Michaela Watkins) is sitting at a bar, her face lit up by her phone as she woefully waits for a text that never comes.
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When John Wells and Jonathan Lisco set out to create a television drama inspired by the critically acclaimed 2010 Australian movie “Animal Kingdom,” which chronicles the dramas of a working-class crime family, they had to update the story and make it more palatable for American viewers.
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Like scads of kids in the mid-’80s, producer Joaquim Dos Santos was drawn to his local toy store by “Voltron: Defender of the Universe,” imploring his favorite uncle to buy him the giant title robot.
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Unless you were the right age for Miley Cyrus’s hit Disney Channel series “Hannah Montana” in the ‘00s, the name Billy Ray Cyrus conjures memories of his omnipresent ‘90s pop-country hit “Achy Breaky Heart” and a business-in-front, party-in-the-back hairdo long since relegated to theme parties.
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Oscar-winning screenwriter and part-time director Steven Zaillian has delved into the crime world over his long Hollywood career, with screenplays for “American Gangster,” “Gangs of New York” and “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”
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Almost four decades after its premiere, “Roots” still stands as an elite landmark in TV history.
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One thing you can say for the summer: It’s all just reruns on TV, leaving you room to catch up on shows you’ve missed or to read or watch the sunset or — sorry, I thought I was back in the 20th century for a second.
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Game shows To Tell the Truth (June 14, ABC) The $100,000 Pyramid (June 26, ABC) Match Game (June 26, ABC) Drama The A Word (July 13, Sundance) Docudrama The American West (June 11, AMC) FULL COVERAGE: See our complete Summer TV preview Comedy Bizaardvark (June 24, Disney) HarmonQuest (July 14, Seeso) Night Train With Wyatt Cenac (June 30, Seeso) Reality Vintage Flip (June 2, HGTV) Ride With Norman Reedus (June 12, AMC) Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge (June 13, NBC) Awards CMT Music Awards (June 8, CMT) 70th Tony Awards (June 12, CBS) Variety Maya and Marty (May 31, NBC) Talk Any Given Wednesday With Bill Simmons (June 22, HBO) This story is part of The Times’ special summer television issue.
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If you were anywhere near a television in January 1977, you were probably watching “Roots.”
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“Roots” premiered on ABC in January 1977, just a few months after Alex Haley published the historical novel upon which it was based -- a phenomenon on the back of a phenomenon.
