Kevin McDonough’s ‘Tune in Tonight”: Anything but ‘All Rise’; a lost ‘Rainbow Coalition’ – The Union Leader

Our corporate overlords just want whats best for us! The CEO of a waste management firm joins a tank-scrubbing team on Undercover Boss (9 p.m., CBS, TV-PG). Nothing like a supervisor unafraid to get his hands dirty.

This Boss installment was quickly inserted into the schedule to replace a survey of Super Bowls Greatest Commercials 2020 that has since been moved to Wednesday.

Both shows are replacements for the court procedural All Rise, a slow performer for CBS this season. Despite a full-season order for the show starring Simone Missick as a prosecutor-turned-judge, the series has yet to attract a healthy audience.

Id blame this on the rather uneven tone of the series. It blends the solemn with silly in ways that dont always make sense. Viewers are smart enough to know the difference between Law & Order and Night Court.

The show does offer fans a chance to catch CSI favorite Marg Helgenberger in a supporting role. But thats probably not enough to save Rise, the networks worst-performing freshman series, from cancellation.

A lost Rainbow

The Independent Lens (10 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) documentary The First Rainbow Coalition recalls a very brief moment that ended badly.

The notion that poor people might unite has always been considered dangerous. Racial divisions have often been used to thwart such subversive coalitions. Rainbow recalls the organization of Chicago groups, including the Black Panthers, the Puerto Rican Young Lords and the Young Patriots, representing poor white migrants who had left Appalachia for Chicago.

Unified in their complaints about a lack of jobs and decent housing, crime, an influx of drugs and a machine-run city that clustered them into ghettos, these disparate groups earned the wrath of Chicagos mayor, the local police and the FBI.

While it sounds trivial, Rainbow also offers an amazing glance at radical fashion, symbolism and style. Interviews show the Panthers coming to grips with the Patriots use of the Confederate flag as a sign of identity, pride and resistance.

Panther leader Fred Hampton emerges here as a leader wise enough to look past labels and vestiges of the Confederacy to create a powerful voice for the poor. His organizations would be infiltrated by police spies and FBI agents, and Hampton would be riddled by bullets on Dec. 4, 1969. All before reaching his 22nd birthday.

Rich in powerful characters, conspiracies and historical what-ifs, this film could inspire a series not unlike Epics Godfather of Harlem.

The Rainbow Coalition moment may have been brief, but the politics of this moment lived on in many Hollywood movies, albeit from a very different angle. Rather than cheer a poor peoples movement, audiences lapped up the vigilante violence of unrestrained police in such Dirty Harry movies as Magnum Force (7:15 p.m., Sundance, TV-14) and The Enforcer (9:45 p.m., Sundance, TV-MA) from 1973 and 76, respectively.

Other highlights

Golden buzzers await on Americas Got Talent (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).

A steak-eating contest does not go down well on 9-1-1: Lone Star (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14).

Cleveland-bound on The Bachelor (8 p.m., ABC, TV-14).

Bright faces Internal Affairs on Prodigal Son (9 p.m., Fox, TV-14).

John Malkovich stars on The New Pope (9 p.m., HBO, TV-MA).

An accused con artist may be a business visionary on Bull (10 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).

Michaela becomes embroiled in a mysterious bank robbery on Manifest (10 p.m., NBC, TV-14).

A terminal patient wants to let the good times roll on The Good Doctor (10 p.m., ABC, TV-14).

Cult choice

Created by Rankin/Bass Productions (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) and the Japanese animation company Topcraft(whose veterans include Hayao Miyazaki), the 1982 childrens-book adaptation The Last Unicorn (7 p.m., HBO Family) features the voices of Alan Arkin, Jeff Bridges, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury and Christopher Lee, and a musical score by Jimmy Webb (Wichita Lineman).

Series notes

Daves past emerges on The Neighborhood (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-PG) ... Tyrone returns on All American (8 p.m., CW, TV-PG) ... Last bequests on Bob Hearts Abishola (8:30 p.m., r, CBS, TV-PG) ... The entire Pierce family finds itself in the crosshairs on Black Lightning (9 p.m., CW, TV-14).

Late night

Larry David and Pedro Gonzalez are booked on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (11:35 p.m., CBS, r) ... Jimmy Fallon welcomes Michael Strahan, Matt Bomer and Nick Thune on The Tonight Show (11:35 p.m., NBC).

Colin Quinn, Julia Garner, the Broadway cast of Jagged Little Pill and Chris Coleman visit Late Night With Seth Meyers (12:35 a.m., NBC) ... Sting appears on The Late Late Show With James Corden (12:35 a.m., CBS).

See the rest here:
Kevin McDonough's 'Tune in Tonight'': Anything but 'All Rise'; a lost 'Rainbow Coalition' - The Union Leader

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero