Art imitates life on “The Anonymous” (11 p.m., USA, TV-14), a new game show and “social experiment.” Participating players interact in two realms. In one, they speak to each other face-to-face and in the other, they share gossip, snark and “shade” behind a secretive handle. Players try to evade eviction without revealing their secret identities.
So, like every reality series since Richard Hatch appeared in the digitized buff in the first season of “Survivor” (2000), this new “Anonymous” encourages scheming, deceit and back-biting among people who appear to have placed a greater emphasis on grooming their eyebrows than cultivating their minds.
To add to the sense of duality, deceit and contrived intimacy, the USA Network invite viewers to get to “know” the contestants on their own social media feeds www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/the-anonymous-cast-social-media-where-to-follow).
It’s curious that “Anonymous” debuts on old-fashioned cable at a time when USA’s streaming cousin Peacock is home to “Traitors,” hosted by Alan Cumming, among the more talked-about reality series to come along. We’ve reached the point where launching a series on cable is like opening a fancy new boutique in a dying shopping mall.
“Anonymous” is hardly aimed at a thinking audience. Those who want to ponder the long-term societal effects of reality television’s house of mirrors might tune in to tonight’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC). In addition to guests Jessica Alba and Langston Kerman, Myers will interview Variety magazine correspondent Ramin Setoodeh, author of the new book “Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass,” a bestseller published by HarperCollins.
— If the past quarter-century has seen the predictable escapism of reality fare, it has also seen television up its game in dramatic fashion. As many have noted, it’s been 25 years since the debut of The Sopranos,” and the arrival of what has been called both “peak TV” and the era of “difficult men,” represented by series like “The Shield,” “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men.”
Some saw this era as the medium’s first stab at “literary” characters. In a 2013 essay, critic James Atlas declared that he preferred watching “Breaking Bad” to reading novels. Despite working as a TV critic, the English major in me found this rather sad.
Others might argue that “novelistic” characters with three-dimensional lives did not arrive with Tony and Carmela or Walt and Jesse. Back in the early 1990s, appearing on mere broadcast television, shows like “NYPD Blue” featured their own brand of “difficult men,” with imperfect characters and mixed motivations.
Arriving on NBC in 1993, “Homicide: Life on the Street” was another drama to offer viewers complex characters and moral dilemmas unfolding on the gritty streets of Baltimore more than a decade before “The Wire.” “Homicide” makes its streaming debut today on Peacock.
— Film history and movies about film history like “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952), “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) and the more recent “Babylon” (2022) have long focused on the painful transition from silent moves to “talkies,” a change that reduced some Hollywood idols to relics of a bygone era.
Few Hollywood legends better represent this phenomenon than John Gilbert, one of the most celebrated sex symbols of the silent screen whose star faded fast with the arrival of sound. Greta Garbo, his co-star in the 1926 melodrama “Flesh and the Devil” (9:30 p.m., TCM, TV-PG) survived Hollywood’s metamorphosis and went on to purr “I want to be Alone” in “Grand Hotel” (1932). But by the time she insisted Gilbert appear with her in the 1933 historical biopic “Queen Christina” (4:30 p.m., TCM, TV-G), it was seen as an act of charity.
— Acorn streams the third season of its scenic New Zealand series “Under the Vines.”
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— A change in perspectives on “NCIS” (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
— “American Ninja Warrior” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).
— Coverage of the 2024 Democratic National Convention (8 p.m., PBS; 10 p.m., CBS, NBC, ABC).
— Jenn visits the families of her remaining suitors on “The Bachelorette” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
— A Naval officer’s sudden death is blamed on reptile venom on “NCIS: Sydney” (9 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
CULT CHOICE
“Oliver!” (8 p.m., BYU-TV), a 1968 musical “twist” on Charles Dickens, was nominated for 11 Oscars and won six, including Best Picture.
SERIES NOTES
“Name That Tune” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … Patton Oswalt hosts “The 1% Club” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
LATE NIGHT
Jimmy Fallon welcomes Michael Keaton, Taylor Tomlinson and Rapsody featuring Erykah Badu on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … Taylor Tomlinson hosts “After Midnight” (12:35 a.m., CBS).
