What’s on TV today, June 22

The 18th season of “Big Brother” has a big two-hour premiere at 8 p.m. on CBS.

Serena Williams is in the spotlight in the Epix documentary “Serena” at 8 p.m.

CBS’ less-than-stellar mystery soap opera “American Gothic” premieres at 10 p.m.

OWN’s “Greenleaf” airs a new episode at 9 p.m., then follows with a third episode in its regular time slot of 10 p.m.

CATCHUP

Here are a couple of mini reviews of two recent Amazon Prime premieres, available for streaming for the next month:

F. Scott Fitzgerald left “The Last Tycoon” unfinished when he died in 1940. His notes and partially completed sections were assembled, badly, by his friend Edmund Wilson, but there was enough in the resulting work to prove that the author had at least one more great novel left in him. It was first adapted for film, also badly, in 1976 with Robert De Niro as Monroe Stahr, a Gatsby-like figure of myth based on MGM “golden boy” Irving Thalberg.

Matthew J. Bruccoli assembled the definitive version of the novel and correctly retitled it as Fitzgerald intended, “The Love of the Last Tycoon,” in 1993.

Matt Bomer may not evoke the real Thalberg, but he is perfect for the idealized figure Fitzgerald created. This is the story of art versus commerce in Hollywood, not a new subject, but like his friend Nathanael West, Fitzgerald understood that the mythology of Hollywood was the mythology of America.

A grieving widower determined to make a film about his late wife, Minna Davis, Stahr clashes with studio boss Pat Brady (Kelsey Grammer), a character based on Louis B. Mayer, but Stahr is just too good for Brady to fire him.

The adaptation, written and directed by Billy Ray and available on Amazon as part of its pilot season, would probably make a better film than an episodic adaptation, but Ray has deconstructed the novel rather well, showing us how closely Stahr is related to Fitzgerald’s greatest creation, Jay Gatsby.

At the end of his life, having knocked around Hollywood for years and received only a single screen credit in the process (for “The Three Comrades”), Fitzgerald still believed what inspired him as a young writer: that the nation was mesmerized by the mythology of money and artifice to the extent that it was blinded to the possibility of true heroes among us.

“The Interestings” is also based on literature, in this case, Meg Wolitzer’s 2013 novel about a young woman who, in her

The Last Tycoon: Pilot. On Amazon Prime.

The Interestings: Pilot. On Amazon Prime.

youth, gains unlikely acceptance from a group of talented, self-satisfied popular kids at summer camp. Years later, Jules (Lauren Ambrose) is still striving to be part of the “interestings,” but her life is fairly pedestrian. The rest of the interestings have taken unexpected turns. The pretty girl and the cute son of a popular singer have not gotten married after all, because the boy has come out and is marrying his boyfriend. The lumpy, awkward boy whose attention Jules swatted away because he wasn’t cute enough has become a hugely successful cartoonist as an adult (David Krumholtz) and has married the pretty girl (Jessica Paré).

Mike Newell’s direction is competent, but the pilot flits back and forth in time too frequently for a while as it attempts to make the point that youthful dreams are often stymied by real life in later years. Jules is by turns enviously small-minded and sympathetic, but nonetheless, Ambrose’s performance is the thread that holds the pilot together.

— David Wiegand