by John Walters
A Medium Happy 58th to the founder and chief proprietor of Los Pollos Hermanos, Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito)
Not making the cut today: Blackhawks Down, Martin Starr, Beyon-CIA….Sorry, we’ll try to be better tomorrow….
Starting Five
Tirico, 49, would be in line to replace both Michaels, 73, and Costas, 64
1. Open Mike
The “high priest of Tiricoism,” as the Men In Blazers playfully yet reverently referred to Mike Tirico during the 2014 World Cup, is taking his religion elsewhere. After 25 years at ESPN, Tirico is headed to the Peacock, NBC. It’s a better fit as a marriage than the Michelle Beadle ESPN-to-NBC coupling, as Tirico is a much more reserved cat. He’s also ESPN’s most versatile broadcaster.
Watch as Sean McDonough replaces him on Monday Night Football….
2. Casting A Paul
Pretty sure Paul broke a bone in his right hand on this play. Don’t ask me how.
We were all set to rejigger the odds for the Western Conference champion and title this item “Slip Slidin’ Away” as an ode to Stephen Curry. Our newly jiggered order of favorites would have gone San Antonio, Los Angeles, Golden State and OKC.
But then Chis Paul broke his hand last night and now there’s a chance that the Blazers could upset the Clippers in the first round (unrest in the Hooper home). So now I’ll got San Antonio, GSW (barely), OKC and then LA. But I really feel GSW and OKC is a toss-up and that Curry is as good as done for this postseason (and maybe even if he isn’t, he should be).
Meanwhile, there are the Cavs lurking in the East, with no true challenger, easing past their next two opponents while whoever makes it out of the west will have been through two wars before meeting them. Advantage, Cavs.
And somewhere David Blatt is seething.
3. No Longer the Queen of Castle
This is probably the look Katic shot the show’s execs when they informed her she wasn’t returning for season 9
Whenever TV critics invoke the term “Peak TV,” they never invoke the ABC show “Castle.” And yet the Nathan Fillion-Stana Katic NYC detective show, kind of a 21st century “Moonlighting” with less bite, is in its 8th season.
And I’ve always found it enjoyable. Kate Beckett always served as Richard Castle’s muse, and he as her wise and wise-cracking big brother (until he became her love interest). Now comes word that Katic has been let go by the show if there is a 9th season. Don’t know the details, but I just wonder if there are that many lovely detectives in the fictitious NYPD detectives bureau. I mean, what if Beckett gets replaced by Andrew Sipowicz?
4. Rain Dear
You could probably write a Broadway musical based on the life of Kyla Grogan, and she’d star in it. Grogan recently joined the CBS-New York news team as a meteorologist, but before that she played the role of fake news anchor Andrea Bennett at the Onion News Network, where her bio listed her as “the most stalked news personality of all time.” Before that she was on Broadway, performing in shows such as The Starlight Express, an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical in which the actors actually wore roller skates as they moved about the stage. I’m not sure if her entire presence here in NYC is simply a goof.
5. Breaking Bad In Ohio (Cont.)
The victims. Unless you’re running a mom-and-pop pot biz in southern Ohio, you are probably not in any danger
I was only mildly joking yesterday when I offered the theory that Tuco Salamanca was behind the slayings of eight people, all family members, in rural south central Ohio over the weekend. Well, local authorities believe that it was a Mexican cartel.
More information: There were some 200 marijuana plants growing indoors on property the Rhoden family owned, with an estimated street value of $500,000. Leonard Manley, the father of 37 year-old victim Dana Rhoden, told a reporter, “Whoever done it, know the family because there were two dogs there that would eat you up. But I ain’t going to say no more.”
(I think the by-laws of white rural America obliged him to say, “Whoever done it,” but we’ll check up on that.)
Murders on four different properties on the same night with no escapes, no witnesses suggests that this was a coordinated job with multiple suspects. Police won’t say much, but it sure sounds like a drug hit by someone who didn’t appreciate these amateurs honing on their market. Walter White (and his many narrow escapes) is fiction; this is reality.
Music 101
Think For a Minute
Holy Falsetto, Batman, who is that man? That’s Paul Heaton, lead singer of The Housemartins, a mid-Eighties indie pop band from Hull, England. This tune hit No. 18 on the UK singles chart in 1986.
Remote Patrol
The Night Manager
9 & 10 p.m. AMC
The entire miniseries revolves around a hotel manager refusing to give a middle-aged man a room next door to Erin Andrews’. It would seem a thin plot, but it actually works.
I caught the premiere of this six-episode miniseries last Tuesday and loved it. Tom Hiddleston is like a vegan, (more?) metrosexual Daniel Craig-as-James Bond, while Hugh Laurie prances around doing that charming but cynical Hugh Laurie thing. The locale has already jumped from Cairo during the Arab Spring to the Swiss Alps, and it’s only going to get better. I’m sure AMC will re-run last week’s premiere at 9 (this is one of the best ideas anyone has ever had in TV, re-running last week’s show before this week’s) and then air the new episode at 10.
Note: AMC does not pay me for these plugs. But maybe they should.