TV Talk: Thanksgiving parade telecasts altered by pandemic

With covid-19 upending holiday plans worldwide, even traditions like the “Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade” have to change, but the show will go on, at least on TV.

“You have to have it on in the background while you’re making your gravy,” teased Hoda Kotb, who will again host the telecast with Savannah Guthrie. “We’re just good company.”

Parade executive producer for Macy’s Susan Tercero explained the parade will not travel its normal route but will instead be staged for TV (9 a.m.-noon Nov. 26, WPXI-TV) in front of Macy’s at 34th Street with the area closed off to the public (don’t expect to see cheering throngs).

Only a few local bands and cultural performances from the tri-state area will be featured with their performances taped in advance. There will be no participants under 18. Rather than balloons having hundreds of handlers each, the balloons will be attached to small utility vehicles, reducing the number of people underneath each balloon in an effort to maintain social distancing.

“We can’t do it the way we always did it because everything’s different,” Kotb said in a teleconference with reporters last week. “But I feel like when you’re watching from home, you’re gonna have it on and enjoy it as much as you have in years past.”

This 94th edition of the parade will include Broadway performances (from “Hamilton,” “Jagged Little Pill,” “Mean Girls” and “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations”) as well as the typical array of celebrity performers (Patti LaBelle, Pentatonix and Carnegie Mellon University grad Leslie Odom Jr.).

Kotb says “Today” show mainstay Al Roker, who has been on medical leave for prostate cancer treatment, is expected to return to the air for the parade.

CBS’s annual coverage of New York’s Thanksgiving Day parade will instead become “The CBS Thanksgiving Day Celebration” (9 a.m.-noon Nov. 26, KDKA-TV) featuring clips and musical performances from past years mixed with new celebrity interviews.

Just two days after Thanksgiving, WPXI would normally air Pittsburgh’s holiday parade, but ,since that has been canceled because of the coronavirus, Channel 11 will offer “WPXI Holiday Parade Celebrating 40 Years” (9-11 a.m. Nov. 28), a retrospective of moments from the parade since it began in 1980.

‘Christmas on the Square’

For viewers who like Christmas movies with a generous dollop of hokeyness, you could do worse than “Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square,” a new musical featuring Parton as an angel and Christine Baranski (“The Good Fight”) as a Scrooge-like foil.

Streaming Sunday on Netflix, “Christmas on the Square” is directed by Debbie Allen (“Grey’s Anatomy”) and delivers an energetic, “let’s put on a show” vibe that pairs equitably with the flimsy-looking set (the town square clearly was built on a soundstage) and ridiculously bad special effects (Parton appears to have been added to the opening number via special effects; later she floats on a levitating cloud while haunting Baranski’s character).

And yet a few of the musical numbers, particularly the opening and “Wicked Witch of the Middle,” are rousing enough to recommend. Fans of Southern camp, in particular, should be thrilled, particularly by the accurate use of “bless her heart” as a polite substitute for a profane command.

‘Big Sky’

Warning: Spoilers from the Nov. 17 series premiere of “Big Sky” follow: ABC premiered the new David E. Kelly-written, Montana-set drama “Big Sky” at 10 p.m. Tuesday. The series follows a former cop (Ryan Phillippe), his estranged private detective wife (Katheryn Winnick) and her business partner (Kylie Bunbury) as they attempt to track down kidnapped sisters.

The show features relatively unpleasant characters in unpleasant situations but kudos to ABC’s marketing team for making everyone think Phillippe is the show’s star before killing him off at the end of the first hour.

Unfortunately, this shocking turn was the most interesting aspect of the show, and next week’s episode contains nothing as compelling, just more misery and torture for the kidnapping victims.

“Big Sky” also makes one of the stranger TV choices regarding the pandemic: The show acknowledges it’s happening but no one ever wears a mask. So why bother mentioning it?

Kept/canceled

Steelers legend Terry Bradshaw has a hit with “The Bradshaw Bunch” on E!, which averaged 1.2 million total viewers in its first season, making it the most-watched new series on E! in four years. Unsurprisingly, Pittsburgh was the show’s highest-rated market in household ratings. Year-to-date, “Bradshaw Bunch” ranks as the No. 4 most popular cable series in prime time in Pittsburgh behind “Dr. Pimple Popper,” “My Feet Are Killing Me” and “Project Runway.” E! renewed “Bradshaw Bunch” for a second season to air in 2021.

Hulu renewed “Woke” for season two.

Fox renewed reality competition “Lego Masters” for a second season to air in 2021. The first seasons of the British version and the Australian iteration of “Lego Masters” are streaming at TubiTV.com.

National Geographic Channel will revisit “The Hot Zone” for a second season focused on the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Netflix renewed “Umbrella Academy” for a third season and “Emily in Paris” and “Space Force” each for a second season while canceling “The Order” after two seasons.

HBO canceled “The Outsider” after one season.

TBS’s nightly talk show “Conan” will end in June with star Conan O’Brien then hosting a weekly variety show for HBO Max and continuing “Conan Without Borders” as a series of travel specials on TBS.

Channel surfing

Streamer HBO Max finally launched an app this week on Amazon Fire TV devices (still no deal with Roku). … Netflix’s “Virgin River” returns for its second season Nov. 27. … On Wednesday Disney+ debuts “The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse,” a new series of animated shorts. … The 1947 British psychological thriller “Black Narcissus” gets remade as an FX series that debuts at 8 p.m. Monday on FX. … WQED-TV’s “Filmmakers Corner,” hosted by producer Minette Seate, returns for its 12th season at 10 p.m. Saturday with “We Left as Brothers,” a documentary about six local Vietnam vets who return to Vietnam. … Fresh off their “CMA Awards” appearances last week, Munhall native Gabby Barrett and country duo Dan + Shay (which includes Dan Smyers of Wexford) will perform on “CMA Country Christmas” (9 p.m. Nov. 30, ABC). Dan + Shay will also perform this weekend on the “American Music Awards” (8 p.m. Sunday, ABC). … Filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” based on the August Wilson play, will have an exclusive theatrical run at The Manor in Squirrel Hill beginning either Nov. 25 or 27 (to be determined early next week) prior to its Dec. 18 premiere on Netflix. … Apple TV+ may have grabbed the rights to Peanuts specials but the streamer is sharing two holiday episodes more broadly by allowing PBS to air “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (7:30 p.m. Nov. 22, WQED-TV) and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (7:30 p.m. Dec. 13, WQED) ad-free.