You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: What is the status of “City on a Hill” with Kevin Bacon? He is so terrific in it.
A: The drama, which also stars Aldis Hodge, will have a new season on Showtime beginning July 10. Among the plot lines Showtime has announced for the new season: “Having left the FBI and thrown his badge into Boston Harbor, Jackie Rohr (Bacon) lands a lavish new gig running security for a wealthy family. Life is good until secrets begin to unravel. When an investigation opens, ADA Decourcy Ward (Hodge) sees an opportunity to finally rip out the machinery perpetuating a broken criminal justice system.”
Q: Please investigate why I’m not getting the Trevor Noah show on Comedy Central. I was getting it up until a few weeks ago and really miss it.
A: “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” will be back on April 11. Noah took a break around his hosting of the Grammy Awards telecast on April 3. The return will also find the show back in its old studio and with a live audience.
Q: Many years ago, there was a sitcom with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She was the prissy neighbor of a couple who worked in child care. Do you know the name of the show?
A: That was “Day by Day,” which aired on NBC in 1988-89. Douglas Sheehan and Linda Kelsey played the couple who had quit their jobs to run a day care center in their home. While the series did not last, Louis-Dreyfus rebounded; less than a year after the last episode of “Day by Day" aired, she began a longer TV series run when "Seinfeld" premiered.
Q: We are wondering if we can expect Gibbs back on “NCIS” any time soon.
A: This question has come up more than once from folks who apparently did not believe Gibbs’s farewell in the October 2021 episode “Great Wide Open.” I can understand that some confusion stems from Gibbs (played by Mark Harmon) still being in the show’s opening credits. But while a surprise guest appearance is always a possibility, Gibbs and Harmon have basically moved on. When the series was renewed for its 20th season recently, CBS announced that “Sean Murray, Wilmer Valderrama, Brian Dietzen, Diona Reasonover and Katrina Law, with David McCallum, Rocky Carroll and Gary Cole, star.” No Harmon listed. (By the way, CBS has also renewed "NCIS: Los Angeles" and "NCIS: Hawai'i.")
Q: I once saw a movie that Elvis Presley starred in where his family was living in a dilapidated house that every time the toilet was flushed, it made an awful noise. When it happened, the person playing his dad would yell "too much pressure!!" I remember it was what I considered his funniest movie but have no clue what the movie was called.
A: While the details are a bit different from what you remember, that scene is in “Follow That Dream,” from 1962. Elvis plays Toby Kwimper, part of a family that homesteads on a Florida beach. When his father (Arthur O’Connell) tests an outhouse he has built, he ends up with a face full of water and the declaration of “too much pressure.”
Q: Did Mahershala Ali perform the piano pieces in “Green Book”? It certainly looked as if he did, but I’ve not been able to find out if he is a pianist.
A: While Oscar winner Ali played renowned pianist Don Shirley in the movie, the performances in the film involved some screen magic. As Vulture reported at the time, movie-music composer Kris Bowers made recordings recreating Shirley’s performances after painstaking practice: “Because he was such an incredible pianist, I wanted to make sure I played everything incredibly accurately.” (Shirley had died in 2013.) Ali then pretended to play – learning some chords but focusing on the correct posture for a pianist. As a result, Bowers said, Ali “looks like he’s been doing it forever.”
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