Televisualist: Farewell, Sweet Dome

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.

Sometimes you see a photo still – such as this one from “Suddenly Royal” – and just think “yeah, this isn’t going to end well.”

Tuesday

Cake Boss returns for another season of being not as good as many other baking shows but it’s got BRAND POWER so get used to it, plebeians, this is the baking show now, now and forever it is the baking show. (TLC, 8 p.m.)

Real Houses Of… is a show about real houses. No fake houses on this show! Not even so much as a bouncy castle or a drawing of a hut. Just 100 per cent genuine houses, constructed of real wood, brick, stone and plush felt. Okay, probably not so much felt. (W, 10 p.m.)

Every so often a TV series comes along and you know it’s going to be a viral trainwreck of a thing, and Suddenly Royal hits all of those buttons so hard. It’s a reality show whose premise is too good to be true: a Maryland hick digs into his family tree, discovers he is descended from the old line of Kings of Mann who ruled the Isle of Man, and travels to the UK with his family and a reality show production company in tow to claim his birthright. Of course, the title of King of the Isle of Man was, in fact, sold to the English royal family in 1765, so his claim is completely worthless, but that doesn’t matter because he’s basically a real-life King Ralph and really, didn’t that movie leave so many questions unanswered? (TLC, 10 p.m.)

Tonight is the very last episode ever of Under the Dome, and how do we move on? So many dome-related issues that will never be resolved to our satisfaction. This is what tragedy looks like. (Global, 10 p.m.)

More seriously: tonight is also the final episode of Key and Peele, because Key and Peele have lucrative movie offers and careers that can move forward, and good for them because we got five seasons of some of the best sketch comedy that’s ever been on TV. (Comedy Network, 10:30 p.m.)

The Adventures of Tintin is a worthy addition to the Tintin franchise; Steven Spielberg can direct the hell out of more or less any movie, whether it is animated or not, and the motion capture CGI is the closest that technique has come to avoiding the uncanny valley. It doesn’t quite pull it off, but it’s incredibly close, and the superb action sequences and performances of the excellent cast make up for it. A sequel is forthcoming in the next couple of years, too. (YTV, 7:30 p.m.)

Z Nation, the horrible off-brand version of The Walking Dead, returns for another season. You know how in The Walking Dead the real monsters are human beings? In this show, the real monsters are the zombies. That’s all we’re saying. (Space, 10 p.m.)

Some people will tune into the 2016 Miss America Competition because they want to see if there will be secret advertising for Donald Trump. However, Donald Trump does not own the Miss America Competition. He owns the Miss USA Pageant, which is the one that provides America’s entrant into Miss Universe. This is more about pageants than we ever wanted to know. You’re welcome. (NBC, 9 p.m. Sunday)

Sister Wives returns for a sixth season and we still want to know how come the dude these wives are all married to hasn’t been prosecuted for bigamy yet. (TLC, 9 p.m. Sunday)

Shomi has recently picked up Empire and if you haven’t watched it yet, why aren’t you watching Empire? Do you not like melodramatic hip-hop soap operas? Did Taraji P. Henson once blackmail you into robbing the Wright Brothers’ airplane from the Smithsonian? No, because Taraji P. Henson is a famous and wealthy actress and owns the real Wright Brothers airplane, not some lame copy for the plebes, so really you have no good reason not to watch this show. (shomi)