Glee returns to Tuesdays, totally not trying to rehash its glory days

By Erik Adams  |  February 25, 2014 | 6:00am
TV Features TV
Glee returns to Tuesdays, totally not trying to rehash its glory days

Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Tuesday, February 25. All times are Eastern.

TOP PICK

Glee (Fox, 8 p.m.): Like that super cool, not-at-all sad guy hanging around the high school even though he graduated months ago, Glee’s coming back to Tuesday nights. To, you know, check up on its little Tuesday comedy siblings (remember when New Girl was just a freshman?) and maybe see if the popular new kids at Brooklyn Nine-Nine know where the party’s at on Friday. ’Cuz it’s not nostalgic for its buzzy glory days or anything—and it’s definitely not trying to relive those good old times when the Kurt-Blaine romance was so fresh and new and packed with butterflies. No, Glee has this really great place in New York—New York City—that Brandon Nowalk should see sometime, and it’s doing really well for itself otherwise. Besides, it doesn’t turn 100 episodes old for another few weeks, so it’s still hip and young and with it.

ALSO NOTED

The Originals (The CW, 8 p.m.): Readers of Rowan Kaiser’s Originals reviews: This is your reminder that the most-startling-yet-not-at-all-startling Newswire of all time has put you on notice. Amass in greater quantities or suffer the same fate as those lovable scamps who were reading about Rake.

Cougar Town (TBS, 10 p.m.): Same goes for you, wine-swilling honorary members of the Cul-de-Sac crew. The move to TBS has severely diminished the profile of your show, but Les Chappell will be there until the bitter, witheringly sarcastic end.

Mind Games (ABC, 10 p.m.): Kyle Killen tried to work his latest batch of brain magic on Todd VanDerWerff, who could only reply “This is fun and all, but a company that helps its clients manipulate other people’s minds makes for a creepy batch of protagonists—even if they are using their powers for good.” At least that’s the gist of it.

REGULAR COVERAGE

Supernatural (The CW, 9 p.m.)
New Girl (Fox, 9 p.m.)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox, 9:30 p.m.)
Person Of Interest (CBS, 10 p.m.)
Kroll Show (Comedy Central, 10 p.m.)
Justified (FX, 10 p.m.)

THE VIDEO TO BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S “GLORY DAYS,” WHICH SEEMS PARTICULARLY RELEVANT TO GLEE AT THIS JUNCTURE

ELSEWHERE ON TV CLUB

Could About A Boy be the show that finally makes David Walton a star? Who knows, but we’ve got a Random Roles interview that catalogs all the other shows that could’ve done it. In TV Reviews, we’re keeping tabs on a couple of shows with big, zany ensembles and big, zany ideas: 1980s milestone L.A. Law, the first-season DVD of which stops short of getting Todd VanDerWerff to stop a wedding in a gorilla suit (if you know what we mean), and Mixology, the new ABC sitcom that David Sims could only describe as “nightmarish.”

WHAT ELSE IS ON

Minute To Win It (GSN, 8 p.m.): The revived game show starts its third season on GSN. This show, like Glee, feels like it’s been around longer than that, but maybe that’s just the lingering memory of Beat The Clock.

The Voice (NBC, 8 p.m.): This singing competition, still in a reeling from Cee Lo Green’s declaration that he’s never coming back to his big swinging chair, is also having a season premiere. Time for NBC to find out if Usher has any exotic-pet sidekicks he’s been hiding all of this time.

About A Boy/Growing Up Fisher (NBC, 9 p.m./9:30 p.m.): The Peacock’s newest sitcoms bask in the glow of The Voice’s generous lead-in—until they’re inevitably removed from that nurturing warmth and wither like Revolution.

Game Of Arms (AMC, 10 p.m.): Not to be confused with “arm of games,” your local tabletop retailer’s popular “All you can grab” deal.

The Informant! (IFC, 8 p.m.): Ordinarily, when someone calls the government “a bunch of jokers,” they’re speaking figuratively. But this Steven Soderbergh oddity when literal with that jest, casting the likes of Joel McHale and Paul F. Tompkins as G-Men. Fellow agent Scott Bakula is serious business, however, because the guy who did this doesn’t mess around with funny business.

The Producers (TMC, 8 p.m.): Elsewhere in making light of serious matters: Don’t be stupid, be a smarty, enjoy this remake’s Nazi party.

THINGS THAT YOU THINK HAPPENED AFTER THE PREMIERE OF GLEE, BUT DIDN’T, BECAUSE GLEE ONLY PREMIERED FOUR YEARS AGO

The fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), the launch of Sputnik (1957), the Iran-Contra affair (1986), the 1936 Summer Olympics (1936), the introduction of McDonald’s McGriddle (2003), John Lennon’s “lost weekend” (1973-75), the Hindenburg disaster (1937), Philo T. Farnsworth’s first demonstration of the electronic television (1927), the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893), the release of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors (1977).

NEW ON DVD & STREAMING

Two of our favorites from 2013 have come to Netflix instant: The moody French horror series The Returned and the back half of Breaking Bad’s fifth season. (Now no one has any good excuse for not being caught up on either show.) As streamable episodes of these shows hasten the death of physical media, Cartoon Network reminds you that “Felina” doesn’t stream from packaging that looks like an adorable, sentient handheld electronic device. That’s the kind of whimsical object that can only hold season three of Adventure Time, out today.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The Blacklist: Phil Dyess-Nugent says a fond farewell to Bald Baldington, and some unknown, sinister force crosses off another TV Club show from its list. Who are you, sinister force? And what do you want of us?

 
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