Matthew Perry’s Tragic End, Civil Rights Documentaries, ‘September 5’ Streaming Debut, Apocalypse Now on ‘Paradise’

A new documentary goes beyond a profile of Friends star Matthew Perry, his struggles with addiction and his death in October 2023 to explore the tragedy’s sordid legal fallout. Hollywood insiders including Morgan Fairchild (who played Chandler’s mother on Friends) and law enforcement experts shed light on the actor and on an entourage that enabled his darker side, with five people ultimately charged with conspiracy to provide Perry with ketamine illegally—including his personal assistant, two doctors and a drug dealer known as “the Ketamine queen.”

Over three nights and six chapters, each with a different director, the acclaimed civil-rights docuseries that began in 1987 returns with an update that follows the fight for racial justice and equality well into the 21st century. The first hour covers the years from 1977 to 1988, with activists in the South Bronx and Philadelphia demanding fair housing and healthcare, then combating President Reagan’s economic policies and suffering through the AIDS epidemic. The second hour, focusing on the years from 1989-1995, focuses on inequities in the criminal justice system, which reached a flashpoint in South Central L.A. with the riots sparked by the acquittal of police officers who beat Rodney King.

American Experience profiles Walter White, an early but now largely forgotten figure of the civil-rights movement who led the NAACP from 1929 to 1955. A light-skinned Black man, he traveled to the South undercover as a white traveling salesman to expose the scourge of lynching. When White became the head of the NAACP, his hires included future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in a crusade against Jim Crow laws, taking the battle for freedom and equality into the courts.

Nominated for an Oscar for original screenplay, this riveting docudrama makes its streaming debut, reliving the harrowing day during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, when Palestinian militants took Israeli Olympic team members hostage, resulting in a tragic massacre. The film unfolds largely from the control room of ABC Sports, whose cameras had a front-row seat to the unfolding crisis happening live, with producer Geoff Mason (John Magaro) and ABC Sports president Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) making critical decisions on how and what to show to a global audience.

Having just been renewed for a second season, the post-apocalyptic political thriller releases Season 1’s penultimate and biggest episode to date. Following last week’s big reveal to rebel hero Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) that there are still people alive on Earth’s surface, including his wife, Sinatra concedes, “Could I sound any more like a Bond villain?” We don’t have time to belabor the obvious before the episode shifts into flashback mode to relive the day when the world as everyone knew it ended. It’s a perfect disaster-movie scenario as the excavation from the White House escalates to a riot, with rumors (well-founded) of a billiona

“It’s all just jibber-jabber nonsense,” says Ben, the only contestant in the fake-reality show The GOAT USA who doesn’t know it’s all a big lie. After meeting the enigmatic (fake) founder of the game for an awkward interview, Ben’s newfound confidence begins to falter. Which is exactly how the masterminds behind the scenes of the comedic reality-TV spoof want it, because how better to convince Ben that the show’s not all about him than contriving an early exit from the game. (Don’t worry, there will be a way back in, but Ben doesn’t know it yet.)

INSIDE TUESDAY TV:

• St. Denis Medical (8/7c, NBC): “You can’t buy PR like this,” gloats Joyce (Wendi McLendon-Covey) when an Internet sensation visits the hospital to give a free concert for the kids in pediatrics. What could go wrong? Maybe a diagnosis from Ron (David Alan Grier) that sends the singer into the hands of “the best doctors in Eastern North Central Oregon.”
• Will Trent (8/7c, ABC): Real-life reality-TV star Ariana Madix makes a guest appearance as a client under Ormewood’s (Jake McLaughlin) personal-security wing, while Will (Ramón Rodríguez) works with his new love interest Marion (Gina Rodriguez) to investigate a child-trafficking operation. Followed by The Rookie (9/8c), where a wildfire creates chaos in the city.
• FBI (8/7c, CBS): The agents join an organized-crime investigation after jurors in a mob trial are gunned down. Followed by FBI: International (9/8c), where the Fly Team protects the sole witness (from Wisconsin) to the murder of an American businessman in Bratislava; and FBI: Most Wanted (10/9c), with the Fugitive Task Force on the case of two sorority sisters stabbed in their off-campus Virginia home.
• Finding Your Roots (8/7c, PBS): Will & Grace star Debra Messing and Yellowjackets’ Melanie Lynskey are the latest to learn fascinating secrets from their family trees.
• Big City, Big Family (9/8c, TLC): A one-hour special follows Mark and Amber de la Motte as they uproot their family of 11 from San Diego’s suburbs to the hustle and bustle of Harlem.
• Full Swing (streaming on Netflix): A third season of the immersive sports docuseries adds the Presidents Cup to the itinerary of the pro golfers in a chronicle of the PGA Tour, with key players including Scottie Scheffler embarking on his historic run and Min Woo Lee and sister Minjee aiming for the first brother/sister golf tandem at the Olympics.