Comedy

Louis C.K.'s comedy and the new mockumentary The Comedians start Thursday on the FX cable network. Both are unusual and ambitious, says critic David Bianculli, but only one hits the ground running.

The new drama, which launches Friday on Amazon Prime, stars Jeffrey Tambor as a transgender woman coming out to her three grown kids. Tabor acts the role without any hint of cheap humor.

After a lengthy hiatus, Conan O'Brien made his return to TV last night as the host of Conan, his new talk show on TBS. David Bianculli says that a guy who had months to prepare should have had a better and funnier opening night.

Lehrer, whose topical songs include "Pollution" and "The Vatican Rag," is the subject of a new multimedia release called The Tom Lehrer Collection. David Bianculli reviews the two-disc set, which includes Lehrer's greatest hits and never-before-seen concert footage.

A new six-hour documentary about Monty Python's Flying Circus commemorates the show's 40th anniversary. Reviewer David Bianculli calls it entertaining and "completely different."

Critic John Powers reviews the Starz comedy series Party Down, which follows a group of oddball dreamsers who work for a Hollywood catering company.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews “The Simpsons Movie.”

Misunderstood giants? None have ever been as popular as Shrek, star of two huge summer hits since 2001. Paramount's grumpy-green-ogre franchise is the epitome of the hand-hold movie: family flicks that serve up action, tomfoolery and life-lessons for the kids, nonstop pop-culture in-jokes for the adults, and fart jokes for the whole family.

Writer/producer Judd Apatow. His new series for FOX is called Undeclared. He's billed as the creator/executive producer. It's about a group of geeky college freshmen. Apatow also worked on the Emmy award winners Freaks and Geeks and The Ben Stiller Show. He was a writer for The Larry Sanders Show. He began as a stand-up comic and he wrote jokes for Roseanne, Jim Carrey and Garry Shandling.

Saturday Night Live celebrates its silver anniversary this Sunday, with a prime time special. Fresh Air's TV critic David Bianculli has a review.