TV Talk: ‘Supermarket Sweep’ returns on ABC

Game show “Supermarket Sweep” has been a TV staple with versions popping up in the 1960s, 1990s, early 2000s and now again in 2020 as ABC resurrects the franchise at 8 p.m. Sunday with new host Leslie Jones (“Saturday Night Live”).

The ‘90s version of the show gained cachet with a new generation of viewers who discovered reruns that became available on Netflix over the summer.

Filmed in late July and early August in a Santa Monica airport hangar using covid-19 protocols, each one-hour episode of the latest “Supermarket Sweep” follows three teams of two as they attempt to use their grocery shopping skills –seeking out the most expensive grocery store items so their shopping cart has the highest total value — to win cash prizes up to $100,000.

Jones said her goal was to update the show but not alter its essence.

“There’s nothing wrong with the game-play or the show itself and the format,” Jones said in a Zoom teleconference with reporters last month. “But I wanted to update it, bring some new music to it, bring some color to it. … I also had the feeling of wanting to make people feel what I felt when I used to watch the old show.”

Executive producer Alycia Rossiter said Jones went to the owner of the “Supermarket Sweep” franchise and pitched herself as the revival’s host and executive producer.

“This show has a host that was not hired as a host,” she said. “This show has a human being who grew up loving this show and wanting to remake it.”

“Supermarket Sweep” was announced pre-pandemic but the grocery store setting has taken on new meaning.

“We truly believe that grocery store workers kept us alive and that the grocery store is a place to be celebrated right now,” Rossiter said. “In every episode, Leslie thanks a real employee of a grocery store across the nation. She sends them $2,000 and a fun sweatshirt, and we have videos of them receiving the good news and being happy, and we really hope that the show says we honor them.”

After production on the 10-episode first season wrapped in August, the groceries used on set were donated to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

CBS scripted shows return

With TV production back up and running, CBS announced a slew of premiere dates for returning series, including its Thursday shows “Young Sheldon” and “Mom” on Nov. 5, Sunday series “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “NCIS: New Orleans” on Nov. 8, Wednesday show “S.W.A.T.” on Nov. 11, Monday programs “The Neighborhood,” “Bob [Hearts] Abishola” and “All Rise” on Nov. 16 and Tuesday’s “NCIS” on Nov. 17.

New sitcom “B Positive” from executive producer Chuck Lorre (“The Big Bang Theory,” “Mom”) premieres at 8:30 p.m. Nov. 5.

‘Star Trek: Discovery’

The third season of “Star Trek: Discovery” is now streaming on CBS All Access and … it’s fine? I guess?

At the end of season two the series jumped 900 years into the future, beyond anything previously depicted in “Star Trek,” which should open new horizons but somehow feels like more of the same. The technology is marginally spiffier.

The big revelation, in keeping with contemporary “Trek’s” predilection for dark themes (a conspiracy within Starfleet in “Picard,” the tone of “Discovery’s” first season), is that in the future an event called “the burn” blew up most of the dilithium-powered starships and the Federation no longer exists.

Thankfully, “Discovery” doesn’t seem to be pulling-a-“Voyager” and jettisoning its “far from home” premise. In its third and fourth episodes, “Discovery” allows its crew to mourn the loss of friends and family that results from jumping 900 years into the future.

Producers have promised the upcoming Capt. Pike (Anson Mount)-led Enterprise-set series “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” will be more upbeat and episodic. I hope that’s true. The Enterprise show is the “Trek” I’m most eager to see more of.

‘The Simpsons’

The latest “Simpsons” Halloween episode, “Treehouse of Horror XXXI” (8 p.m. Sunday on WPGH-TV unless sports overruns bump it to Oct. 25), begins with a take on the upcoming presidential election as the stuff of nightmares. A poll worker tells a prospective voter he’ll need “three forms of ID, 12 if you’re a Democrat.”

From there the episode includes a 3-D animated take on “Toy Story” where toys revolt against Bart’s abuses. Multiple Homers show up in “Into the Homerverse” and the episode wraps with the “Russian Doll”-esque “Be Nine, Rewind” as Lisa dies over and over on her 9th birthday.

Hot political docs

With less than three weeks until the election, a raft of political-themed documentaries are on the way.

MSNBC premieres “The Way I See It” (10 p.m. Oct. 16), an account of official White House photographer Pete Souza, who photographed Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.

Amazon Prime Video debuts “What the Constitution Means to Me” (streaming Oct. 16), a filmed version of the play created by star Heidi Schreck.

PBS’s “Independent Lens” (10 p.m. Oct. 19, WQED-TV) offers “Feels Good Man,” a look at how artist Matt Furie’s Pepe the Frog character was co-opted by the alt-right movement.

“Totally Under Control” (on Hulu Oct. 20) explores the Trump administration’s response to the current pandemic. PBS’s “American Masters” delivers a biography of politically-charged journalist Walter Winchell in “The Power of Gossip” (9 p.m. Oct. 20, WQED-TV).

HBO’s “The Soul of America” (9 p.m. Oct. 27) follows historian and presidential biographer Jon Meacham offers insights on the current political moment as seen through the lens of American history.

Kept/canceled/revived

After renewing it for a second season, Showtime reversed course and canceled “On Becoming a God in Central Florida.”

Fox announced the upcoming ninth season of Tim Allen’s “Last Man Standing,” premiering in January, will be its last. The sitcom co-stars Wilkinsburg native Jonathan Adams.

Showtime will revive “Dexter” for a 10-episode limited series to air in late 2021 with original star Michael C. Hall on board to reprise his role as the serial killer title character.

Amazon ordered a series based on the 1997 feature film “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

Channel surfing

Kate Mulgrew will reprise her “Star Trek: Voyager” role as Kathryn Janeway in the upcoming Nickelodeon animated series “Star Trek: Prodigy.” … The final season of Showtime’s “Shameless” premieres at 9 p.m. Dec. 6. … Effective Monday WPNT-TV changes its late afternoon line up. At 4 p.m., “Cops” is out, “Dish Nation” is in. At 4:30 p.m. “Cops” is out, “TMZ” is in.