’60 Minutes’ and a Tale of Two Presidents, ‘U

TV’s premier newsmagazine 60 Minutes opens its 55th season with Scott Pelley interviewing President Biden in the White House, and Lesley Stahl in Iran with its president Ebrahim Raisi. Documentary giants Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein reveal a historic failure of humanitarian policy in the three-part The U.S. and the Holocaust. AMC’s Tales of The Walking Dead anthology ends its run with a haunted-house story. Lifetime presents one of Anne Heche’s final roles as a mother trying to save her daughter from addiction and human trafficking.

SUNDAY: The newsmagazine that often makes news returns for its 55th season with its correspondents in conversation with two world leaders. In a double-length segment, Scott Pelley sits down with President Joe Biden in the White House and follows him earlier in the week at the Detroit Auto Show. Topics include inflation, the averted railroad strike, the Ukraine war and the midterm elections. The third segment features Lesley Stahl with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at the presidential complex in Tehran for his first TV interview with a Western reporter. They discuss the Iran nuclear deal and how U.S. sanctions have impacted Iran’s economy.

SUNDAY: Ken Burns and his frequent colleagues Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein deliver yet another essential, though sobering, portrait of American and world history in a three-part documentary (continuing Tuesday and Wednesday) that delves into the U.S. response, or lack thereof, to the genocidal persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. The series explores deep-seated anti-Semitism among some of America’s most influential citizens and the nation’s complicated feelings about immigration and isolationism that continue today. Personalizing the tragedy is writer Daniel Mendelsohn (The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million), sharing the story of his family members who never made it out of Europe, ordinary people swept up in the horrors of the Holocaust. One of the first images in the film is a 1933 photo of Anne Frank at 3 with her family in Frankfurt, Germany. We know their story, but maybe not the fact that they were denied visas to the U.S. before they were forced into hiding.

Curtis Bonds Baker/AMC

SUNDAY: The spooky anthology ends its six-week run with a change of pace: a haunted-house fable inside a zombie apocalypse. Daniella Pineda and Danny Ramirez are a young couple seeking shelter from the “sleepwalkers,” and they think they’ve got it made when they take over the spacious and remote home of a “bruja” witch. As they settle in, the tone becomes more Tales from the Crypt than The Walking Dead as the house, festooned with religious symbolism and artifacts, begins to work its malicious and hallucinatory malice on the interlopers.

SATURDAY: Anne Heche, who died last month after a horrific car crash, can be seen in one of her final roles in this fact-based movie as Janie, a mom who’ll do whatever it takes to rescue her young daughter from addiction and human trafficking. Larissa Dias plays Grace, addicted to opioids after a sports injury and getting her life together after rehab with Janie’s help. The story takes a violent turn when Grace’s former dealer and boyfriend kidnaps and abuses her, planning to traffic her, but he hasn’t counted on a mom who won’t give up the hunt.

Inside Weekend TV:

• Secret Origin of the Batwheels (Saturday, streaming on Cartoonito on HBO Max): Ethan Hawke is the voice of Batman in a preview of an animated preschool series, launching later this fall on HBO Max and Cartoon Network, that brings Batman, Robin and Batgirl’s sentient super-powered vehicles to life.
• 48 Hours (Saturday, 9/8c and 10/9c): The true-crime series returns for Season 35 with two episodes. First, in “Gabby Petito: The Untold Story,” correspondent Jericka Duncan revisits last summer’s murder of Petito during a cross-country trip with her fiancé Brian Laundrie. In the official season opener at 10/9c, former Olympian equestrian/trainer Michael Barisone gives his first TV interview after his trial on charges of attempted murder of a student and her boyfriend, during which he pleaded temporary insanity.
• The $100,000 Pyramid (Sunday, 9/8c, ABC): In the game show’s summer finale, Superstore co-stars Nico Santos and Lauren Ash compete, followed by a round featuring Nailed It! host Nicole Byer and Jermaine Fowler. Followed by the season finale of the stupefying The Final Straw (10/9c), which really lived down to its title.
• Halloween Wars (Sunday, 9/8c and 10/9c, Food Network): Ghost Adventures’ Zak Bagans uses New Orleans and its voodoo traditions as inspiration for the teams in the 12th-season opener, followed by a second episode of qualifying rounds where the Hellfire Caves of London are the catalyst for tasty Halloween-themed treats.
• Model America (Sunday, 10/9c, MSNBC): A four-part docuseries explores the impact on the seemingly utopian community of Teaneck, New Jersey, after the fatal shooting of Black teenager Phillip Pannell by a white officer in 1990. This incident and its aftermath find modern echoes in the Black Lives Matter movement.
• SEAL Team (streaming on Paramount+): The military drama, formerly on CBS, begins its 10-episode sixth season with Bravo Team under fire from the ambush in Mali that ended Season 5 with a cliffhanger.

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