"One Million Miles" - THE AMAZING RACE celebrates traveling an amazing 1 million miles around the world when the 32nd Race kicks off from the legendary Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on the season premiere, Wednesday, Oct. 14 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Phil Keoghan is the host. Pictured: Host Phil Keoghan Photo: Timothy Kuratek/CBS 2018 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved
A selective critical checklist of notable Wednesday TV:
The Amazing Race (9/8c, CBS): This show gets around. Crossing the million-mile threshold in its 32nd running, which was filmed before the pandemic swept the globe, the Emmy-winning Race returns with 11 new teams hopping from country to country in hopes of winning the $1 million prize. Contestants include former NFL stars, Olympic hurdlers, pro volleyballers and everyday adventurers. On host Phil Keoghan‘s command, they’ll take off from the iconic Hollywood Bowl to Trinidad and Tobago for the first leg of an exhilarating and scenic journey. Watching Race this season will be a poignant reminder of when it was easier, more fun or even possible to move around Mother Earth.
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2020 Billboard Music Awards (8/7c, NBC): It’s all about the music when Kelly Clarkson returns for a third time to host the Billboard ceremony, kicking off the show with a performance of Whitney Houston’s “Higher Love,” joined by Pentatonix and percussion queen Sheila E. Other headliners include the year’s most-nominated act, Post Malone, and En Vogue with a 30th-anniversary version of their anthem “Free Your Mind,” plus Alicia Keys, Luke Combs, Demi Lovato, Sia, Bad Bunny, Brandy featuring Ty Dolla $ign, and Garth Brooks, who’ll also be only the eighth entertainer to receive the ICON Award. New this year: the Billboard Change Maker Award, presented to rapper and social activist Killer Mike by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from the city’s APEX (African American Panoramic Experience) Museum.
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Blackpink: Light Up the Sky (streaming on Netflix): Music of the K-pop variety is celebrated in a documentary from director Caroline Suh (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat) that follows the meteoric rise of the South Korean girl group Blackpink. Each of the members — Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa — opens up about the highs and lows of fame as Light Up the Sky reaches its climax with their 2019 performance at Coachella, where they were the first K-pop girl group to take that fabled stage.
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The Baroness von Sketch Show (midnight/11c, IFC): You know how some — OK, many — Saturday Night Live sketches go on and on, never knowing when or how to end? That’s not a problem with this hilarious quickfire sketch series, now in its fifth and (sadly) final season. A versatile and fearless Canadian foursome (Carolyn Taylor, Meredith MacNeill, Aurora Browne and Jennifer Whalen) pokes fun at social manners (usually bad) in a variety of settings, including a dog show, workplaces and a Mafia-like condo board. The funniest bit in the season opener involves a frantic raid on an ex-boyfriend’s apartment, where “high levels of emotional radioactivity” lead to this urgent instruction (also the episode’s title): “Do not smell his T-shirts.”
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Inside Wednesday TV: CNBC’s new anchor hosts Shepard Smith Reports: Air Travel in Turmoil (8/7c), which looks at the impact of COVID-19 on the airline industry and the economic ecosystem affected by the travel slowdown, with New York’s LaGuardia Airport the focus as a microcosm of the dire situation… A double dose of nature documentaries on PBS: First, on Nova (9/8c, check local listings at pbs.org), “Nature’s Fear Factor,” studying the effect of fear on the endangered inhabitants of Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park. Scientists hope to scare certain species back into their natural balance by introducing ferocious African wild dogs into the park. Sounds drastic… Followed by the three-part series Age of Nature (10/9c, check local listings at pbs.org), filmed across all seven continents, depicting efforts of scientists, citizens and governments to repair damaged ecosystems from Norway to the Panama Canal to China’s Loess Plateau… Tyler Perry’s Sistas (9/8c, BET and BET Her) returns for a second season with back-to-back episodes, the first of his shows filmed in a quarantine bubble at Perry’s Atlanta studios.
Regulators authorized AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for use in adults throughout the European Union on Friday, amid criticism the bloc is not moving fast enough to vaccinate its population.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former FBI lawyer was sentenced to probation for altering an email that the Justice Department relied on during its surveillance of an aide to President Donald Trump during the Russia investigation.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Tony Evers lashed out Friday at rival Republicans who tried to repeal his statewide mask mandate, saying killing the order would be a ridiculous move comparable to abolishing speed limits.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — As some conservatives in South Carolina celebrated getting a bill that would ban almost all abortions in the state past a legislative barrier and likely becoming law, they said they are not finished trying to end all abortions.
A Moscow court on Friday put the brother and several allies of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny under house arrest for two months as authorities sought to stymie more protests over the jailing of the top Kremlin foe.