Worth Watching: No Fooling With ‘Penn & Teller,’ Court TV Gets ‘Black and Blue,’ Organists Have ‘Pipe Dreams’
A selective critical checklist of notable Monday TV:
Penn & Teller: Fool Us (9/8c, The CW): Like magic, the comic tricksters return for a seventh summer run of the show where up-and-coming illusionists try to impress the team with their best bit. If Penn & Teller can’t figure out how to recreate the magic act, the winners get to perform in their show at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. No fooling, although there’s plenty of kidding.
Black and Blue — A Court TV Special (8/7c, Court TV, simulcast on Bounce, Court TV Mystery, Laff and Grit): Crime and justice reporter Julia Janae hosts a timely special that takes a wide and hard look at the criminal justice system and its dealings with African-Americans, from deadly police shootings to such controversial present-day laws as “Stand Your Ground.” Guests include David Paul Butler, former federal prosecutor and author of Chokehold: Policing of Black Men, who testified at the House Judiciary Committee alongside George Floyd’s brothers and others on racial profiling and police misconduct.
Pipe Dreams (10/9c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): Independent Lens pulls all the stops out, quite literally, in a documentary that goes behind-the-scenes of the “Olympics of organ playing,” as some regard the Canadian International Organ Competition. The film follows four contestants, ages 19 (the youngest-ever participant) to 31, including the daughter of China’s most famous organist, as they prepare for the 2017 competition in Montreal.
Inside Monday TV: TLC’s 90 Day franchise expands again with B90 Strikes Back! (8/7c), which takes self-obsession to a new level as couples reach to online commentary and flaming tweets from recent seasons of Before the 90 Days and Pillow Talk… If that weren’t enough, Ben Higgins looks back at his journey of amour fou on ABC’s The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons—Ever! (8/7c), with updates on Jojo, Caila, Amanda, Olivia and a “Bachelor in Quarantine” interview with Caelynn Miller-Keyes and Dean Unglert… Like summer kudzu, NBC’s Dateline NBC (10/9c) now encroaches on Monday night for several weeks. The tabloid newsmag lands a hot interview with a former best friend of Lori Vallow, the Idaho mom charged with felony desertion of her two children, who had been missing since last September when their remains were found earlier this month in the backyard of her husband, Chad Daybell.
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