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It’s Oscar Time! Here’s the Screener Watch List for the week of Feb. 26
The Academy Awards (ABC Sun, Feb. 26, beginning at 7 p.m.) are a must-watch every year, whether we like it or not. This year’s pool of greatness is pretty deep: Even just the Best Picture nominees are encouraging, with options from the futurist sci-fi thinker “Arrival” to the historically and politically game-changing “Hidden Figures” and “Hell Or High Water” to cherished films like “Manchester by the Sea,” “La La Land” and of course “Moonlight.”
Monday’s Season 12 premiere of “The Voice” (NBC, 8 p.m. ET/PT) casts a long shadow over the week, as does the star-studded socially conscious docudrama “When We Rise,” which airs from 9-11 p.m. ET/PT on ABC Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday — and of course, there’s a new “Supergirl” on The CW at 8 p.m.
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Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT, we’ll be watching with bewildered fascination as Tom Hardy’s weirdest move yet comes to a close: FX’s eight-episode steampunk folly “Taboo” reaches its no-doubt wild conclusion — and in the wee hours, Hulu releases the full season of “National Treasure,” a critically acclaimed four-parter about the fallout from sexual misconduct by a high-ranking political official. Clearly fictional, of course. Earlier in the evening, primetime will be given over to the President for his Congressional Address.
Wednesday closes up shop on Season 6 of USA’s “Suits” (10 p.m. ET/PT), after a string of episodes that sees the group redefining themselves after a tumultuous year that saw some of them jailed and others leaving the show altogether. And if it’s Wednesday, that also means a full night of great sci-fi, with episodes of “The 100” (The CW at 9 p.m.), “Legion” (10 p.m. on FX) and “The Magicians” and “The Expanse” on Syfy, starting at 9 p.m.
RELATED: Dangerous minds: ‘Legion’ is the story of how crappy you can get when therapy’s actually working
And sadly, the year’s best fantasy series, NBC’s “Emerald City,” ends its first season at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Cancel Bear gives it a toss-up for renewal, but we live in hope. What creator/director Tarsem (“The Fall,” “The Cell”) has done here isn’t just phenomenal all on its own, but also accomplished the impossible: Making us care so deeply about a version of Oz that isn’t the original Fairuza Balk’s “Return to Oz,” or Gregory Maguire’s beloved 1995 novel “Wicked” … And if that seems like a lot of examples, rest assured that’s three drops in a vast ocean of unspeakably uninspired riffs and rip-offs, over the 117 years since the original volume started it all!