Televisualist: Never More a Dome to Me

By Christopher Bird

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.

DOME.

Monday

Today in World Cup: Norway versus England, in the battle of Teams Not Winning This Tournament (TSN, 5 p.m.). Then the United States takes on Colombia, and since the latter advanced largely because they managed to beat the much stronger French squad, they’re the closest thing this tournament has to a giant-killer; unfortunately the U.S. team just so happens to be another giant. Collectively speaking, we mean. (TSN, 8 p.m.)

Today in World Cup: Defending champion Japan, undefeated in this tournament and a team that has not lost a World Cup game since July 5, 2011, take on the Netherlands, whose biggest success thus far was a 1-0 win over New Zealand. The odds are not with the Oranj, one suspects. (TSN, 10 p.m.)

Another Period: Take Downtown Abbey, sprinkle with The Office–style confessionals, filter through the sensibilities of The State. It’s uneven and the jokes in the pilot don’t all land, but it has a very strong cast (featuring Michael Ian Black as the head butler) and there’s room to improve. (Much, 10:30 p.m.)

Big Brother returns for a 17th season, and this season the surprise twist is that each week they will have a special surprise guest to announce a new surprise twist. This will all conclude with the season finale, where the twist will be that we were in the present day all along! No, wait, that’s the M. Night Shyamalan movie that sucked. No, the other one. No, the other one. (Global, 8 p.m.)

Also returning for another season after being well past its prime: Duck Dynasty, which was in its prime when we only suspected the Duck People of being disingenuous bigots. (A&E, 9:30 p.m.)

BOOM! is a show where they ask questions like on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? but if you get it wrong they spray you with gross goop like on You Can’t Do That On Television so who says there are no new ideas out there? As long as we have onomatopoeic words around which to build new game shows, culture can never die! (Fox, 8 p.m.)

Can you believe that this is the third season of Under the Dome already? Do you remember the wild and crazy days when we didn’t even know what domes were? Now that the pre-dome era is over we can never go back. Never. (Global, 9 p.m.)

Today in World Cup: We’re into the quarterfinals now. First up, France and Germany collide and, well, let’s be honest—given the history of what happens when France and Germany traditionally do battle, and given that the German squad is probably one of the best women’s sides on the planet and the French are just a strong second-tier squad, you probably know how this is going to go. That having been said, it would be totally baller if the French goalie screamed “On ne passe pas!” and started blocking German goals through sheer force of will. But they’re not going to do that because they didn’t hire me to be their coach, obviously. (TSN, 4 p.m.) And then China faces off against the winner of the United States/Colombia game, so yeah, China versus the United States, which will no doubt be metaphorical to somebody. (CTVm 7:30 p.m.)

This weekend in World Cup: The quarterfinals conclude. Firstly, Australia plays the winner of the Japan/Netherlands game, and unless the Netherlands manages a massive upset, Australia will be taking on Japan as the designated Plucky Young Upstarts of the tourney (CTV, 4 p.m. Saturday). Then TEAM BY GOD CANADA, having already advanced against THE NAZI-GOLD-HOARDING MENACE (otherwise known as Switzerland), will take on the winner of IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO WINS THE NORWAY/ENGLAND GAME BECAUSE THEY ARE GOING TO EAT THE SAVAGE MOOSE FURY OF OUR HOMELAND AND CHOKE UPON THAT AFOREMENTIONED FURY. (CTV, 7:30 p.m. Saturday)

The BBC’s newest adaptation of the Poldark novels is reliably entertaining. Aiden Turner (the sexy dwarf in those The Hobbit movies) glowers reliably as the lead character trying to rejuvenate his family’s fortune and there are lots of loving shots of the Cornwall coast, people dressed in period clothing, and ruins. You aren’t watching it for anything else and it knows this, and that is why it delivers. (PBS, 9 p.m. Sunday)

You can now catch Amazing Stories, the 1980s Steven Spielberg–helmed anthology series that was hit-and-miss to an amazing extent but also unlike practically anything else on television. Recommended episodes include “The Mission,” which Spielberg directed and which starred Kevin Costner and Kiefer Sutherland; “The Doll,” a sweet (and kinda creepy) little fairytale which won John Lithgow an Emmy for his performance; and “The Family Dog,” the animated cartoon episode which really kickstarted Brad Bird’s career in animation direction. But the fun of Amazing Stories is that you never know if you’ll get a good one or a bad one. It’s the Russian roulette of television. (shomi)