Your weekly guide to TV’s best and worst one-hour shows
If you need to balance TV viewing with the rest of your holiday weekend plans, Mama’s here with the top pick for each night:
“Boss” (Friday, 9 p.m., Starz)
After two really fantastic episodes that made Mama think this show had forgotten it was on Starz, tomorrow night’s episode dips momentarily into the boobs-and-blood gutter that made Mama discount this series in its freshman year. However, the political drama is still markedly better in its second season, and Kelsey Grammer’s Tom Kane has (mostly) evolved from the scene-chewing villain into a multilayered man losing his grip on his wife, his daughter, his power and his own mortality.
“Doctor Who” (Saturday, 9 p.m., BBC America)
Matt Smith returns as the time-travelling adventurer as the show celebrates its 50th anniversary throughout the seventh season (Smith is the 11th actor to play the doc). If you’re a longtime fan of the series, you’ll appreciate this spoiler for the premiere: the return of Daleks (for the rest of you, those are the scary alien robots that resemble giant salt shakers bent on exterminating the rest of the universe) plus a new companion (Jenna-Louise Coleman) for the Doctor. And if you’re not up to speed on where, what or when this series has been lately, you can catch up with a marathon of the fifth and sixth seasons, which launches Friday.
“Breaking Bad” (Sunday, 10 p.m., AMC)
RIP Mike (Jonathan Banks), whom Walt (Bryan Cranston) shot and killed last week, but not before the henchman could deliver the best last words of a dying TV character (even if AMC had to bleep one of them). With Mike and the protection he provided eliminated, the DEA is closing in on everyone who could implicate Walter as the meth king. But if there is one thing we’ve learned from this unpredictable series, it’s that Walt’s fortunes turn quickly and often. If you want just one show this weekend, make it this one.
Vampire-Movie Marathon (Monday, 8:30 a.m. – 3 a.m., Syfy)
You have the extra day off, why not waste it with a bunch of soul-sucking blood-suckers? No, not the Republican and Democratic conventions — instead it’s a fang-based string of movies, including the very funny “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant” and the 2009 Ethan Hawke horror tale “Daybreakers” — both movies share the creepy Willem Dafoe, whom Mama has always suspected may actually be a vampire. If you prefer the heroic type, flip over to Encore with its superhero-movie marathon, including the 1980 camp-tastic “Flash Gordon.”