A Reality Check docuseries relives the highs and lows of Tyra Banks‘ America’s Next Top Model reality competition. Winter Olympics highlights include the free skate in pairs skating. A documentary profiles Regina Jones, the groundbreaking publisher of the SOUL music newspaper from the 1960s to ’80s. The Rookie, aka John Nolan, learns the ropes of a long-distance relationship.
Courtesy Everett Collection
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model
“I was gonna change the beauty world,” recalls Tyra Banks as she reflects on her groundbreaking but controversial reality competition America’s Next Top Model, which was turned down by the major networks until it found a home, and cult notoriety, on UPN, The CW, and eventually VH1. A juicy three-part docuseries relives the gaudy highs and the garish lows as the show faces charges of exploitation and cruelty in its treatment of contestants. Banks understood that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what happened behind the scenes was often anything but pretty.
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Winter Olympics
The final week of competition in Milan and Cortina kicks off with the medal round of free skate in pairs skating, with other medal events including men’s slalom, men’s super team in ski jumping, women’s big air in freestyle skiing, and women’s monobob in bobsled. All events can be livestreamed and replayed on Peacock, with the Primetime in Milan recap airing on NBC at 8/7c. (For details, go to nbcolympics.com/schedule.)
Story Television
Who In The Hell Is Regina Jones
A Black History Month special, airing across three Weigel Broadcasting networks, profiles visionary publisher Regina Jones, a founder of the influential SOUL newspaper in 1966. The publication was the first of its kind to focus on Black musicians, providing a platform for artists including Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and Diana Ross. Jones was a witness to history, who worked as an LAPD dispatcher during the Watts riots before taking up the SOUL mantel, earning the NAAPC Award for Outstanding Woman in Business in 1980.
Disney/Mike Taing
The Rookie
Long-distance relationships are never easy, as John Nolan (Nathan Fillion) is about to learn when Bailey (Jenna Dewan) begins her Pentagon gig on the opposite coast in Washington, D.C. Elsewhere, Harper (Mekia Cox) and Lucy (Melissa O’Neil) go undercover in Baja to investigate the murder of two young women.
Leah Gallo/The CW
Wild Cards
It’s the pits — as in The Pitt — when Detective Ellis (Giacomo Gianniotti) and his feisty consultant sidekick Max (Vanessa Morgan) head to a local hospital after the ER’s top doctor is stabbed. Gianniotti, who navigated his fair share of hospital mayhem during his years on Grey’s Anatomy, is back where he belongs as the sleuths wade through a chart full of in-house rivalries and peeved patients to discover the killer who’s operating among them.
INSIDE MONDAY TV:
· American Idol (8/7c, ABC): It’s the final week of auditions, which means the last chance for singing hopefuls to qualify for Hollywood Week.
· Unexpected (9/8c, TLC): The reality series following teen couples facing parenthood earlier than they anticipated returns for a seventh season.
· The Curious Case of… (10/9c, Investigation Discovery): Dr. George Kenney is “The Principal Who Hypnotized His School,” but his methods of improving academic and athletic performance aren’t backed up by formal training, which becomes an issue when students begin to die.
· My Life Is Murder (streaming on Acorn TV): In the first of a two-parter, Alexa (Lucy Lawless) teams up with her former partner when a killer who escaped justice is involved in a fatal getaway in Fiji.
