Grammys Salute Hip Hop, ‘Doctor Who’ and the Toymaker, ‘Gilded’ Tragedy, Yuletide Movies
Hip hop royalty convenes to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip hop in a CBS concert special. Neil Patrick Harris appears as the sinister Toymaker as David Tennant wraps his Doctor Who comeback. HBO’s The Gilded Age mourns one of its own. Meet Me Under the Mistletoe? Christmas on Cherry Lane? Yes, the holiday-movie deluge is upon us.
A Grammy Salute to 50 Years of Hip Hop
All year long, the masters of hip hop have been marking a half-century of the revolutionary music genre. In a concert special filmed before a live audience at L.A.’s YouTube Theater, rap royalty including the Queen (Latifah) gathers to perform, with a reunion of “Fresh Prince” Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff among the highlights. The roster includes Arrested Development, Big Daddy Kane, Common, Cypress Hill, De La Soul, Doug. E. Fresh, GloRilla, LL Cool J, MC Lyte, Public Enemy, Questlove, Rick Ross, Roddy Ricch, 2 Chainz and many, many more.
Doctor Who
After last week’s mind-blowing episode in the “Wild Blue Yonder,” Doctor Who alum David Tennant bids what for us will be a too-soon farewell as the Fourteenth Doctor—and taking Catherine Tate as beloved companion Donna Noble with him—as the stage is set for the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) to take over in the Christmas episode. In “The Giggle,” the Doctor’s adversary is the dastardly puppet master known as “The Toymaker,” a role nicely suited for guest star Neil Patrick Harris. Beyond that, the contents of the episode are mostly a mystery. The only certainty is that it will be wrenching to see Tennant hang up the Doctor’s wardrobe for a second time.
The Gilded Age
Well, that was quick. Barely had he said his “I do’s” to lifelong spinster Ada (Cynthia Nixon) than genial clergyman Luke Forte (Robert Sean Leonard) was diagnosed with one of those Love Story-style fatal illnesses, softening even the heart of Ada’s starchy sister Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski). This tragedy occupies much of the penultimate episode of Season 2, though there’s also bad news for Agnes’ son Oscar (Blake Ritson) regarding his recent investments. And guess who’s having second thoughts about her unhappily public engagement? Agnes’ niece Marian (Louisa Jacobson), because there’s not enough turmoil already in this beleaguered household.
Yuletide Movies
The holiday-movie factory is operating on full cylinders this weekend. Lifetime gives us A Cowboy Christmas Romance (Saturday, 8/7), with Jana Kramer as a real-estate closer who returns to her Arizona hometown to try to get a rancher (Adam Senn) to sell his family’s land. (We somehow think another sort of deal will be closed.) “Cake Boss” Buddy Valastro appears in Lifetime’s Yes, Chef! Christmas, as the former boss of culinary school instructor Alicia (Tia Mowry), who gets her cooking mojo back at the annual Kringle Cook Off with the help of a hunky chef (Luke Humphrey).
