The TV Column

President's first joint Congressional talk tonight

With Vice President Mike Pence stuck in the middle, President Donald Trump (left) shakes hands with House Speaker Paul Ryan on Jan. 26. Trump will speak to Congress at 8 p.m. today.
With Vice President Mike Pence stuck in the middle, President Donald Trump (left) shakes hands with House Speaker Paul Ryan on Jan. 26. Trump will speak to Congress at 8 p.m. today.

President Donald Trump is addressing a joint session of Congress at 8 p.m. today and the usual outlets will be on hand live until 9:30.

Pick your favorite seat: PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Fox News, CNBC, CNN or CSPAN.

Don't confuse this address with the formal State of the Union speech, which usually comes about a year into a new president's term. Tonight's opportunity comes about at the invitation of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who sent a letter to Trump on Jan. 24.

In part, Ryan's letter said, "With this new unified Republican government, we have a unique opportunity to deliver results for the country. This address will give the people and their representatives the chance to hear directly from you about your agenda to tackle the critical challenges we face at home and abroad."

It will be interesting to watch to see who applauds and who doesn't, who remains seated and who leaps to their feet every 30 seconds.

Colbert live. In order to have timely and pithy political commentary (and don't expect it to be flattering) The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will air live at 10:35 p.m. today on CBS. The show normally tapes at 5:30 p.m. in New York. This will be Colbert's 15th live show.

Josh Earnest, former Obama press secretary, and Lisa Kudrow (Friends) will be guests.

Colbert has been scoring increasing ratings points among night owls since the presidential election thanks to his political jokes and satire aimed at Trump, his Cabinet and advisers.

According to Nielsen, The Late Show has been the most watched late-night talk show for the past three weeks, topping longtime leader The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Political humor is what the 52-year-old comedian does best. He began his career as a "correspondent" and writer on Comedy Central's faux news series The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 1997 to 2005, then hosted the channel's conservative parody The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014.

Colbert has been the host of The Late Show since Sept. 8, 2015, taking over from the retired David Letterman.

Regular programming. The broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox) will be airing mostly new regular programming before Trump's speech and reruns or local news (for Fox) at 9:30 p.m.

NBC will present Night 2 of the blind auditions of The Voice at 7 p.m. In case you missed the memo, the judges for Season 12 are Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani (replacing Miley Cyrus) and Alicia Keys. A rerun of The Wall follows at 9:30.

ABC will air new episodes of Fresh Off the Boat and The Real O'Neals beginning at 7, with an American Housewife rerun at 9:30.

CBS will have an NCIS rerun at 7 and a Kevin Can Wait encore at 9:30.

Fox has fresh episodes of New Girl and The Mick to begin the evening and local news at 9:30 following the speech.

Finally, it's a new episode of The Flash at 7 p.m. on The CW, but a rerun of Riverdale at 8 p.m.

Hunted finale. If you've been following the addictive cat-and-mouse reality series on CBS, it's time to wrap things up.

The last episode, "The Final Escape," airs at 7 p.m. Wednesday with the remaining fugitive duos planning their last shot at the $250,000 grand prize.

Hunted has followed along as nine teams of ordinary citizens go on the run as fugitives and try to stay one step ahead of 32 former intelligence agents, detectives, cyber analysts and other specialists trying to track them down.

The teams that make it 28 days will win the big payoff.

Each duo was permitted to ask anyone for help -- friends, family, strangers -- within the playing field of 100,000 square miles in the southeast United States. They also had access to a small amount of money at ATMs.

The hunters had access to the huntees' laptops, closed circuit TV and behavioral specialists, who were often able to magically predict when and where the fugitives would pop up next. Arrogance, over confidence and carelessness often proved a team's downfall.

Example: To celebrate making it to the two-week halfway point, one foolish team decided to treat themselves to Taco Bell. They used an ATM, which revealed their location to the hunters. Then they decided to eat their celebratory lunch in the lot near the ATM. The hunters tagged them in mid-burrito. Stupid.

I never missed an episode, although creative editing was always suspected for dramatic effect.

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

mstorey@arkansasonline.com

Style on 02/28/2017

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