Show Tracker

From the nation that brought you "Are You Being Served?" comes "Mr. Selfridge," a loose dramatization of the founding of a British retail institution, the Selfridge & Co. department store, familiarly called Selfridges. Its eight-part run begins Sunday, under the colors of PBS' "Masterpiece. " Starring Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge, the American who brought recreational shopping to Britain, it is neither a miniseries nor a biopic, but a full-on, open-ended TV series - a second season is already slated for 2014 - which, like "The Tudors/The Borgias," takes real people from a real place and time and embroiders their lives with the sort of things you watch television for. There are resemblances to "Mad Men," as well, in that it is a period piece about the business of selling and the dreaminess of buying; and of "Downton Abbey" because it is concerned with social mobility at the end of the Edwardian era and ... big hats.

There are monsters and vampires, science fiction, trips back and forward through time, supernatural themes and other out-of-this-world scenarios in the television pilots vying for space on the networks' fall schedules. The five major networks, ordering more than 100 potential new shows for their 2013-14 season, have scoured this planet and distant ones for buzzworthy big-tent series. They've snagged prominent talents like Michael J. Fox, Robin Williams, Toni Collette and Matthew Broderick and adapted film franchises such as "The Avengers" and "Beverly Hills Cop" to try to lure audiences to NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and the CW. FOR THE RECORD: TV pilots: In the April 24 Calendar section, an article about the larger number of network TV pilots being developed for next season said that CBS' ratings were down 3% compared with last season among viewers ages 18 to 49. Based on new ratings released Tuesday, CBS is now even with last year in that ratings category.

When it came to mass recognition in the United States, the late Latin music star Jenni Rivera used to say she wasn't Coca-Cola, and maybe she wasn't Pepsi either. But she wasn't going to let anyone tell her she wasn't at least akin to Fanta. The sentiment - more colorfully expressed in Rivera's words according to friend and manager Pete Salgado during a recent interview in Studio City - may partly explain why the Mexican regional superstar floated under the radar of most non-Spanish-language outlets before her death last year.

Sundance Channel's "Rectify" is the first and possibly only television show one can imagine Flannery O'Connor blogging about. It isn't just good TV, it's revelatory TV. The genre's biggest potential game changer since AMC debuted the one-two punch of "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad. " "Television can do that?" we asked in wonder as Don Draper squinted in cultural allegory over his Scotch on the rocks. Yes it can, and now, thanks to creator Ray McKinnon and the cast of "Rectify," television can also immerse the viewer in a gloriously rich and careful study of how endurance and faith, strength and surrender, fear and serenity balance to form the essential nature of humanity.

The crowd at New York's legendary Comedy Cellar is always primed for high-profile drop-ins like Louis C.K. and Jerry Seinfeld. But this was different. Dave Chappelle was in New York - and on stage. Chappelle, one of the country's most sought-after yet reclusive comedians after walking away in 2005 from his still-influential Comedy Central show, spent three recent nights onstage at the Cellar, sometimes joined by friends, including Chris Rock, Kevin Hart, Marlon Wayans and Paul Mooney.

NEW YORK - On a soundstage in an industrial Brooklyn neighborhood, Tom Selleck sits at the head of a prop-heavy dinner table filled with three generations of actors. As a crew goes about its preparations, there's little wisdom that Selleck won't dispense: his March Madness pick (Duke, because "Coach K is a great guy, and his players graduate"), his aversion to gourmet vegetables, his favorite lines from "Airplane. " Then the cameras roll, and he's doling out nuggets all over again.

Since being rescued from the scrap heap two years ago after it was canceled by the CW, "The Game" has proved to be a winner for BET. The football-themed series scored record ratings in its 2011 cable debut, remains the channel's top-rated series, and with "Real Husbands of Hollywood" anchors BET's scripted comedy slate. But as it kicks off its sixth season Tuesday, "The Game" is reeling from the loss of its two MVPs: Tia Mowry-Hardrict and Pooch Hall. Though she is punching up the series with new cast members, creator and executive producer Mara Brock Akil admitted that dealing with the absence of what she called "the heart" of "The Game" has been a formidable challenge, forcing the show into its third reboot in six years.

The recent explosion of scripted dramas from outlets as disparate as History and Netflix has created such a surfeit of fine television that it's become increasingly difficult for even the most dedicated viewer to keep up. For those who already feel overwhelmed, a bit of good news: DirecTV first foray, the mob-cop thriller "Rogue," is pretty terrible, a moody, broody jumble of clichéd characters, pregnant pauses and sex scenes that border on the pornographic....

Penn Jillette isn't one to shy from controversy. In his new book, "Every Day Is an Atheist Holiday," the highly opinionated, talkative half of the long-running magic duo Penn & Teller takes on atheism, racism and the plight of the underclass. But perhaps his most shocking personal view is about Donald Trump. Jillette likes him, mostly for the real estate mogul's determination to be himself. "It's an important part of our culture," Jillette said over a cup of hot tea in West Hollywood one recent afternoon.

The plaintiff - a young man - is angry, feeling violated and no longer willing to be the lover of the woman standing a few feet away. Their affair is a sordid one: He's her literary professor; she posted a humiliating sex video of him on YouTube. The rub: Their entanglement was sanctioned by the man's wife, a way to keep him sexually satisfied once motherhood left her unkempt - an idea that developed after she read the erotic bestselling novel "Fifty Shades of Grey. " And they're looking to Ana Maria Polo for resolution.

NBC's "Chicago Fire" did not exactly generate a lot of heat when it launched last fall. The drama about the truck and rescue squads of a fictional Chicago firehouse lacked the moody darkness, charismatic antiheroes and explosive violence of critical darlings such as "Breaking Bad," "Homeland," "Boardwalk Empire," "Dexter" and "Sons of Anarchy. " The show's retro vibe and focus on heroism were decidedly more "old school" than "new cool. " The template also appeared a bit too close to those of "Rescue Me," "Third Watch" and other recent series centered on emergency workers.

Swoosie Kurtz, who plays Melissa McCarthy's outrageous mother, Joyce, on the hit CBS sitcom "Mike & Molly," got her first lesson in the fickleness of show business more than 50 years ago in a production of Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth" at Hollywood High School. "We were backstage after the performance getting ready to meet our families when I was told there was a man who wants to see you, Eddie Foy III," said Kurtz, relaxing on a red sofa that matches her hair in her dressing room at Warner Bros.

A ruthlessly self-aware political wife reconsidering her choices. A sensual socialite facing down an oppressive age with informed good humor. A group of young women so busy defying social expectations they've forgotten to have any of their own. A working mother with a gift for passionate stillness. A recently recovered drama addict determined to save the world. A bipolar CIA operative, an optimistic bureaucrat, a frightened sex slave turned canny warrior. The female leads of "House of Cards," "Parade's End," "Girls," "The Good Wife," "Enlightened," "Homeland," "Parks and Recreation" and "Game of Thrones" are very different sorts of women who share one important trait: We have never seen their like before.

Richard Curtis is indisputably one of the good ones. A British screenwriter who helped give the world the comic genius of "Black Adder" and delivered a string of smart rom-com hits including "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Bridget Jones's Diary" and "Love Actually" while writing for television shows as varied as "Mr. Bean," "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" and "Dr. Who," Curtis is also a founding member of Comic Relief, which, since 1985, has...

Marc Maron slips into a chair and plunks a tattered, spiral-bound notebook onto the table. The cover, folded back, reveals dense, tight scribbling on ruled paper. Pen in hand, Maron hunches over the notes, looks up for a second to lock eyes by way of greeting, then drops his head back down. "This bit," he says, "I'm struggling with the ending. " He runs a finger over a line from his latest stand-up routine, then pops a guacamole-tipped chip in his mouth. "Anyway, hi," he says at last.

They call him Mr. Wonderful. But Kevin O'Leary was recently engaged in one of his less-than-wonderful rants, the kind familiar to anyone who loves to hate him on ABC's "Shark Tank. " "If I were the president of the United States, I would make unions illegal," O'Leary declared, between sips of Cabernet during a Sunday brunch at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. "They no longer serve a functional purpose in democracy, in my view. "My problem with unions is they breed mediocrity," the 58-year-old former educational software mogul turned investor added, warming to his topic.

Sundance Channel's "Rectify" is the first and possibly only television show one can imagine Flannery O'Connor blogging about. It isn't just good TV, it's revelatory TV. The genre's biggest potential game changer since AMC debuted the one-two punch of "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad. " "Television can do that?" we asked in wonder as Don Draper squinted in cultural allegory over his Scotch on the rocks. Yes it can, and now, thanks to creator Ray McKinnon and the cast of "Rectify," television can also immerse the viewer in a gloriously rich and careful study of how endurance and faith, strength and surrender, fear and serenity balance to form the essential nature of humanity.

The producers at "American Idol" wanted to shore up a dramatic slide in ratings for the show's newest season, so they added three star judges and even allowed viewers to vote online for favorites up to 50 times simultaneously. The changes for the 12th season didn't help. Ratings have plummeted by double digits for the second year in a row, down this season by 18%, to 15.8 million total viewers, according to Nielsen. In its fifth season in 2006, "Idol's" average audience was more than twice as large.

Robert Redford never planned to play Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in "All the President's Men," the Oscar-winning 1976 adaptation of Woodward and Carl Bernstein's account of their investigation of the 1972 Watergate break-in and the cloak-and-dagger cover-up by the Richard Nixon White House. Redford didn't even want the movie to be in color. "I originally wanted to make a black-and-white, small film with two unknowns," said Redford, who also served as producer on the film, which was directed by Alan J. Pakula and costarred Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam and Hal Holbrook.

"All the President's Men Revisited," which premieres Sunday on Discovery Channel, returns us to those thrilling days of yesteryear when everyone read newspapers and the legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government were capable of acting out of something other than political self-interest and scorched-earth partisan intransigence. No, young people, I am not making that up. Narrated by executive producer Robert Redford, who produced and starred in "All the President's Men," the 1976 film of the 1974 book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, it is not merely the story of the historical events but of the transformation of those events into a work - a pretty great work - of popular art. News footage alternates with scenes from the movie.