Jimmy Fallon and the Golden Globes deserve each other
Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Sunday, January 8. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
The 74th Annual Golden Globe Awards (NBC, 8 p.m.): The role of award show host is a largely thankless one, but it seems like this year perfect synergy is achieved with the Golden Globes and Jimmy Fallon. On one hand you have an award show often mocked for the disjointed and arbitrary selection process exercised by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and on the other you have a talk show host who tousled Donald Trump’s hair instead of calling him on his bigoted campaign messages and came across as a spineless twit. (His defense didn’t do much to change that impression either.) As such, don’t expect hard-hitting and controversial picks out of tonight’s award show, just the usual flippant banter and random-skewing list of nominees that will either give awards to the truly deserving who often have no chance of winning Emmys or Oscars, or the truly infuriating who have no business winning an award beyond the HFPA thinking what they do is interesting. The A.V. Club live chat will be there to pass judgment on where those awards fall and to give Mr. Fallon a far sterner judging than he gave Trump.
Son Of Zorn (Fox, 8:30 p.m.): Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wilde join the ranks of real-life couples acting alongside each other, as Zorn’s old flame Radiana reenters his life. Sparks fly when these two reunite—or at least Geiger counters go off the charts, given that Radiana is literally radioactive. Don’t worry, Kevin Johnson, this is why our review budget has a line item for lead aprons.
Bob’s Burgers (Fox, 9:30 p.m.): Bob’s Burgers is well into its seventh season right now, which is usually when shows start to skew weird in the absence of new ideas—except weird is where Bob’s Burgers has lived since the beginning. So an episode like tonight, where Tina telecommutes to school using a robot double, feels par for the course. Alasdair Wilkins asked if he could review this episode using a robot double, and we told him no. Robot doubles, unfortunately, were not included in this year’s review budget.