Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is vast. Here are some of the shows, specials, and movies hitting TV this week, April 11-17. Details and times are subject to change.
Monday
2022 CMT MUSIC AWARDS 8 p.m. on CBS. Country pop singer Kelsea Ballerini and actor Anthony Mackie will host this year’s CMT Music Awards ceremony, broadcast live from the Nashville Municipal Auditorium in Tennessee, about a 10-minute walk from Broadway’s honky-tonk bars. The singer Kane Brown has the most nominations of the evening with four. Ballerini, Mickey Guyton, Breland and Cody Johnson are also among the most nominated acts. The lineup of artists includes Brown, Guyton with Black Pumas, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Maren Morris with Ryan Hurd and Jason Aldean with Bryan Adams.
INDEPENDENT LENS: JIM ALLISON: BREAKTHROUGH (2019) 10pm on PBS (check local listings). When James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo were awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine, a statement from the Nobel Committee said it all: The two researchers’ pioneering work, using the body’s immune system to attack cancer, amounted to “a completely new principle for cancer therapy.” This documentary by Bill Haney (“The Price of Sugar”) profiles Allison, looking at the life that led him to his groundbreaking research—partially losing family members to cancer—and the challenges he faced in order to survive his unconventional ideas forward. In his review for DailyExpertNews, Ben Kenigsberg wrote that the documentary itself doesn’t have the kind of innovative touch it celebrates in its subject matter, but still “does well explain the barriers—justifiable skepticism, professional groupthink, the high cost of long-term research—with which Allison was faced with proving that a new kind of treatment could work.”
ABBOTT ELEMENTARY 9 p.m. on ABC. The first season of Quinta Brunson’s sitcom ends Tuesday night with an episode about a school field trip to a zoo. On the show, Brunson plays a teacher at a public elementary school in Philadelphia, whose staff are as passionate as they are crazy — and it’s been a very big hit this season. In a recent article, James Poniewozik, The Times’ chief television critic, called it the season’s best sitcom. It’s “not an annual supply of pencils,” he wrote. “But it’s something else important: continued attention for a profession that, no matter how much lip service we pay to it, is mostly lost among the TV stable of doctors, lawyers and police.”
Wednesday
THE FLORIDA PROJECT (2017) 5:20 p.m. on Showtime Showcase. After offering a quirky, iPhone-shot slice of Los Angeles in “Tangerine” (2015), writer-director Sean Baker traveled across the country to tell a story about a trio of kids living in a ramshackle neighborhood near live from Disney World. sorbet-colored motel called the Magic Castle. This is the setting of ‘The Florida Project’, a drama about a 6-year-old girl, Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), who experiences summer adventures as she and the adults around her struggle with the stress and despair of poverty. The result is a film that is “honest about the limits of benevolence, and about the wishful thinking that can cloud our understanding of the world,” said AO Scott in his review for The Times. “The final scenes,” he wrote, “are devastating, and also wonderfully ambiguous, full of wonder, anger, and lucid self-criticism.”
Thursday
THE TIME MACHINE (1960) 8 p.m. on TCM. HG Wells’ formative 1895 novella “The Time Machine” was one of the first books to propose a device that would allow humans to jump through time. This 1960 film adaptation begins its story in the same Victorian era in which the original book came out. Watching the protagonist (played by Rod Taylor) feels especially surreal when the viewer is in 2022.
Friday
ROOM MUSIC SOCIETY RETURN 10pm on PBS (check local listings). This two-part documentary looks at the efforts of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to make a full comeback from a pandemic hiatus. It addresses the challenges of bringing live performances back to Alice Tully Hall and planning a multicity tour that must account for the uncertainty of the era. Part 1, which debuted last week, is now available to stream on PBS.org and the PBS app; Part 2 will be broadcast Friday evening.
Saturday
FABULOUS ANIMALS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM (2016) and GREAT BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD (2018) 7:55 PM and 10:53 PM on USA Network. The third film in the “Harry Potter” spin-off series “Fantastic Beasts” – subtitled “The Secrets of Dumbledore” – hits theaters this week. These first two entries weren’t particularly well received, but for families looking to brush up on the knowledge, this dual feature offers a refresher. And for those watching the new film, it offers an interesting opportunity to review two takes on one character: the titular evil wizard in “Crimes of Grindelwald” was played by Johnny Depp, who has been replaced by Mads Mikkelsen in the new film.
Sunday
THE FIRST LADY 9 p.m. on Showtime. In reality, the singular “lady” in the title of this new drama series is a bit misleading: there are three. The show features the stories of a trio of United States first ladies — Michelle Obama, Betty Ford, and Eleanor Roosevelt — who compare and contrast their experiences navigating the White House during different eras of American political life, but struggle with many. common expectations. It has three heavy-hitting performers in Viola Davis (as Obama), Michelle Pfeiffer (Ford) and Gillian Anderson (Roosevelt).
