You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: I used to watch the morning news with Robin Meade on the Headline News channel. Now it’s gone! What happened?
A: The CNN organization canceled “Morning Express with Robin Meade” on HLN in December as ongoing cost-cutting by its corporate parent, Warner Bros. Discovery. As the Los Angeles Times reported, “Ratings for ‘Morning Express’ have been in decline as the number of people waking up with traditional TV continues to shrink because of cord-cutting and increased competition from online news sources. ‘Morning Express’ also had the challenge of airing on a network with little other live programming and had become a destination for true crime shows such as ‘Forensic Files.’ “
Q: Do you know if “A Million Little Things” is coming back? I believe they left the show last season with a couple of cliffhangers. I enjoyed the show and the actors.
A: The ABC drama will return for its fifth season on Feb. 8. That is what the network has called “the farewell season,” meaning it’s the last one. “We’ll explore the depths of friendship, love and sorrow as we bid this special family of friends goodbye, once again proving that friendship really is a million little things,” says the network.
Q: We loved “Luther.” What is its status for future watching?
A: The crime drama starring Idris Elba ended its regular series run in 2019, but that wasn’t the end for Elba’s character, John Luther. A new movie, “Luther: The Fallen Sun,” is coming to Netflix in March. In what Netflix calls “an epic continuation of the award-winning television saga reimagined for film … a gruesome serial killer is terrorizing London while brilliant but disgraced detective John Luther … sits behind bars. Haunted by his failure to capture the cyber psychopath who now taunts him, Luther decides to break out of prison to finish the job by any means necessary.”
Q: The movie “Holiday Inn” was once the ideal Christmas movie with the classic song “White Christmas.” But it seems to have disappeared. Why isn’t it played anymore.
A: The movie, once a perennial, has faded, with the Countdown Until Christmas movie database (countdownuntilchristmas.com) indicating there were no telecasts of the movie in 2022. Although at least one critic has called the musical — with songs built around various holidays — “dowdy and thin,” it has much to recommend it in Irving Berlin’s songs, Crosby’s singing and especially Astaire’s dancing. However, it is also racially insensitive, both with some supporting characters and in a blackface number tied to Lincoln’s birthday. A poor solution in some telecasts was cutting the blackface routine. But that did not really solve the problem, and the movie has been rarely if ever shown in recent years.
Q: Back around 1980, PBS here in the States broadcast a British series called "Flickers," originally on ITV in its home country, that depicted the early days of film in the U.K. It starred the late Bob Hoskins, one of my favorite actors. Since I first saw it over 40 years ago, I've seen and heard nothing about it since, and I enjoyed it immensely, though critics consider it one of Hoskins' more minor works in light of his later success. I'm wondering if you have any idea if "Flickers" is available in any medium anywhere?
A: The six-episode series, which did indeed premiere in 1980, is available on the streaming service Freevee (which is accessible on its own or through Prime Video). Those telecasts have commercials. There is also a DVD set, which Amazon for one has for sale.
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