Worth Watching: Major League Baseball’s (Delayed) Opening Night, ‘Blindspot’ Finale, HBO Max in the ‘Dog House’
A selective critical checklist of notable Thursday TV:
Major League Baseball: Play ball! Words baseball fans have been longing to hear, although this year there won’t be much in the way of taking anyone out to the ball game — except through TV, since fans won’t be in the stands. (In some stadiums, cut-out replicas of fans will be scattered throughout, and crowd sounds will be piped in for old times’ sake.) This is all good news for ESPN as well, which presents a bicoastal Opening Night doubleheader, carrying the first game with the New York Yankees taking on reigning World Series champs Washington Nationals at 7/6c, when pandemic warrior Dr. Anthony Fauci throws out the opening pitch; followed at approximately 10/9c with a West Coast match-up of the San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers. Just pretend your homemade frank is a Dodger Dog as you sit at home to enjoy America’s greatest pastime.
Blindspot (9/8c, NBC): Sometimes you’ve gotta love the networks when they purposefully issue opaque episode descriptions like this for the 100th and final episode of the action thriller: “Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream… it is not dying… it is not dying.” But it most certainly is ending, and Jane (Jaimie Alexander) will reportedly come full circle in the series finale. So does that mean evil Ivy’s (Julee Cerda) arsenal of mind-erasing gas bombs will reduce Jane to the amnesiac state where we first met her five seasons ago?
The Dog House: UK (streaming on HBO Max): The “awww” factor is off the charts in this heart-tugging import, set at a rural British animal-rescue center where the staff matches abandoned dogs with emotionally needy owners. Each of the eight episodes invites the viewer to get to know the homeless pooch and the potential new owners, all hoping their lives can be changed for the better if they click during their critical “first date” encounter.
Lost Resort (10/9c, TBS): Some brand confusion here, as a network that tends to specialize in humor goes the Bravo route in a reality series sending a group of strangers to a Costa Rican wellness retreat for an extended exercise in extreme spiritual healing. With a team of alternative healers guiding them through the steps, these lost souls work out trust issues, sexual hang-ups and parental resentments through methods including rage rituals, vulnerability circles and orgasmic healing. Obviously this is not a typical journey of self-discovery, but more typically, it’s one playing out before TV cameras.
Inside Thursday TV: TruTV’s firehouse comedy Tacoma FD (10/9c) resumes its second season on a musical note, when Broken Lizard’s Paul Soter guests as Wolf Boykins, leader of the fire station’s choir, known as the Ex-SING-guishers. A talk-back episode of Tacoma FD: Talkoma FD (10:30/9:30C) follows, with co-creators Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme welcoming guests remotely from quarantine… National Geographic’s Sharkfest continues with Most Wanted Sharks (10/9c), in which marine biologist and shark-suit inventor Jeremiah Sullivan takes a literal deep dive into the stories of the world’s most legendary sharks, including one known to be able to jump 100 feet out of the water… You’re not reading this wrong. The latest installment of TLC’s Extraordinary People franchise is My Pregnant Husband (10/9c), following two couples — Ari and Caitlin, and Myles and Precious — who are experiencing the joys of expectant pregnancy, but with a twist: Transgender husbands Ari and Myles are the ones carrying the babies.
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