The TV Column

Clinton, Trump to rumble in 3rd, final TV debate

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton trade barbs during the second presidential debate Oct. 9. The third, and final, candidate face-off takes place at 8 p.m. Wednesday on all the usual outlets.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton trade barbs during the second presidential debate Oct. 9. The third, and final, candidate face-off takes place at 8 p.m. Wednesday on all the usual outlets.

No, it wasn't a duet of "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing at the Oct. 9 presidential debate in St. Louis (see photo), but Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton did get down and dirty in what many pundits consider the nastiest confrontation in the 60-year history of presidential debates.

And it all began with the chilly lack of an opening handshake.

There was never a dull moment in between Trump's apology for his lewd "locker room talk" and promise to appoint a special prosecutor to dig into Hillary's missing emails, and Clinton's contention that Trump's campaign was "exploding" and he is "living in his own reality."

Now it's time for Round 3 -- the final showdown before the Nov. 8 election.

The face-off will be from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Chris Wallace of Fox News will attempt to moderate.

The St. Louis event was a town hall format with some questions coming from an audience of self-professed undecided voters. Wednesday's debate will return to the same format as the first. There will be six time segments of about 15 minutes each discussing topics picked by Wallace.

Each candidate will have two minutes to answer, then have a chance to respond to the other candidate's statements.

If the experience of the first two debates holds true for the third, both candidates will make a cursory swipe at answering Wallace's questions, then quickly careen off to the familiar talking points each wants to hammer home.

If he can get a word in edgewise, Wallace will attempt to hold the candidates to their time limits, then use the rest of the segment to dig deeper into the topics theoretically being discussed.

The debate will air on PBS, C-SPAN and C-SPAN2, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and the Spanish language channel Univision.

All the cable news outfits will also carry it, including Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and MSNBC. In addition, all the major news networks will offer live streaming, as will YouTube and Twitter.

According to Nielsen, the first debate Sept. 26 averaged an impressive 84 million viewers, setting a record for presidential debates. In 1980, 80.6 million watched Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan square off in their one debate.

Not counting internet viewing, the second Clinton/Trump debate was seen by 20 percent fewer people -- 66.5 million -- but it was up against a hurricane, baseball playoffs on TBS and NFL football on NBC.

According to Nielsen, the Oct. 4 vice-presidential debate between Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Republican Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana was seen by only 37 million viewers, making it the least-watched veep face-off since 2000.

Hulu news. Hulu will make Chance, its latest drama, available Wednesday for subscribers to the online streaming service.

Based on the novel by Kem Nunn, the series stars fan favorite Hugh Laurie (House, Veep, The Night Manager) as Eldon Chance, a San Francisco-based forensic neuropsychiatrist "who reluctantly gets sucked into a violent and dangerous world of mistaken identity, police corruption and mental illness."

Chance has "an alluring patient" named Jaclyn Blackstone (Gretchen Mol, The Notorious Bettie Page) who has a multiple personality disorder. Jaclyn has an abusive spouse (Paul Adelstein, Private Practice), who is also a police detective.

While Chance "sinks lower into the city's shadowy underbelly," he is also dealing with his own bitter divorce and the always trying circumstances of having a teenage daughter.

There will be 10 episodes in the first season of the dark psychological thriller. Two seasons have been ordered.

One caveat: Do not expect to see any hint of Dr. Gregory House in Laurie's depiction of Chance. Laurie told the TV critics' summer press tour that the characters are "massively different" and "[Chance's] story is infinitely removed from that other world. The best [Chance] can do is manage incredibly damaged people and find the least bad option."

More Hulu. In addition to Chance, also streaming Wednesday is the complete Season 7 of Cartoon Network's Adventure Time, and the Season 3 premieres of National Geographic's StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Years of Living Dangerously, a documentary series dealing with global warming.

Coming Thursday is TNT's complete Season 2 of The Librarians, starring Rebecca Romijn, Christian Kane, Lindy Booth, John Kim and John Larroquette.

The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:

mstorey@arkansasonline.com

Style on 10/18/2016

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