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Checkout girl: Hotelier Goldberg.   (Photo: Courtesy of NBC)

Big Whoop
Whoopi takes on race and terrorism—from a Bowery hotel.

You play a hotelier in the Bowery. A hotel in the Bowery?

All these flophouses down there, now they’re becoming chichi. My character bought one twenty years ago, and it was a good investment, of course, so she decided to fix up the joint.

You’re shooting in New York and you live here, too. What’s the attraction?

The food, the people, and you don’t have to be a great driver. I’m a terrible driver.

The hotel’s comedian-handyman, Nasim (Omid Djalili), is Iranian. Terrorist humor abounds. Are people ready to laugh at that?

It’s important to come to terms with the kind of fears nobody will speak of because they’re politically incorrect. You have to name your fears, so that people can begin to talk about them and say, “Okay, I’m afraid of you because you look different.”

You also have fun with interracial dating: Your character’s brother dates a white woman who acts more black than he does.

I’ve always thought it was funny that people were concerned about interracial dating. Now most white parents have black children! When you look at Eminem and how kids in the suburbs are acting and dressing—for all intents and purposes, these are black children.

Having won an Oscar and a Grammy and two Golden Globes, and sat in the illustrious center square, why do a sitcom?

’Cause I need a job! I needed to do something that I liked. People may not always like what I do, but they know it will be interesting. It’s not just random crappiness.

You’re the only big-name star on the show. Ego?

Please, these kids, once they’re exposed, I’m gonna be trying to get a job from them.

So who’s the funniest person . . . ?

Me.
—Boris Kachka

• Details: Whoopi, Tuesdays, 8 p.m., NBC. (Official website)

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Delta force: Blues legend Skip James in Wim Wender's The Soul of a Man.   (Photo: Dick Waterman)

True Blues
Martin Scorsese’s documentary series is as soulful and authentic as the bluesmen it celebrates.

The blues ain’t jazz—it’s the devil’s music. So when Martin Scorsese set out to produce a documentary on the form, he flipped past Ken Burns in his Rolodex and turned to filmmakers with some soul.

The Blues is a collection of seven feature-length docs by directors including Clint Eastwood, Mike Figgis, and Wim Wenders, in addition to Scorsese himself, whose 1978 film The Last Waltz is considered one of the greatest rock-and-roll pictures. The series (Scorsese came up with the idea after producing the Eric Clapton documentary Nothing but the Blues) brims with live recordings, rare archives, and stylistic flourishes that belie the project’s appropriately humble budget.

Often, the directors’ connection to the material is personal. Eastwood followed his passion for playing the piano by tracing its importance to New Orleans blues. Leaving Las Vegas director (and blues trumpeter) Figgis examined the British blues explosion, cramming such unlikely bandmates as Van Morrison, Tom Jones, and Jeff Beck into Abbey Road Studios to riff for three days.

Figgis was struck most by a theme that unites the musicians throughout the series: “the desire to always acknowledge the roots of what they were playing, to point the spotlight on the originals—not just themselves.” The mix of archival footage and new performances gives the series its own vital flow between past and present. It’s a technique any good bluesman would applaud. —Boris Kachka

• Details: The Blues, September 28, 9 p.m., PBS. (Official website)

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Birthday Boy
Conan O’Brien celebrates ten years on the air with a prime-time blowout.

Your tenth-anniversary special airs in prime time. Nervous?

Prime time used to be a sacred place that only slick professionals could occupy, but Fear Factor changed all that. Normal prime-time fare on NBC now is a woman in a bikini eating a horse’s rectum. I think me showing up with great comedy moments from the past ten years and some celebrity guests will look like The Mike Douglas Show.

Your favorite highlight?

Martha Stewart chugging a 40-ounce was a great moment. We had her eat a Taco Bell burrito and chug a 40-ounce. To me, that’s the essence of what a late-night show is all about. I bet she drinks forties all the time at home with a cozy made of chartreuse wool.

Johnny Carson was on the air for 30 years. Are you shooting for the same?

I’m gunning for 60. I want to be the Strom Thurmond of late-night TV. I’m going to be a catatonic, drooling fool for the last nine years I’m on the air.

Some people say you’re more comfortable with comedy than with guests.

I used to be more comfortable with the comedy because I was a writer and producer for The Simpsons and SNL, but over time, speaking with the guests became one of my favorite parts of the show. Last night, Marilyn Manson started putting lipstick on me—it’s hard to top that with prepared comedy. But when I have a comedy piece that I like, I love it. It’s hard to beat the masturbating bear. That’s just good, wholesome fun. —Lauren DeCarlo

• Details: Late Night Tenth-Anniversary Special, Sunday, September 14, 9:30 p.m., NBC. (Official website)

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Moneyed man: First-time filmmaker (and billionaire) Johnson.   (Photo: Adam Friedberg)

That’s Rich
Pharmaceuticals heir Jamie Johnson explores the life and times of the tragically wealthy.

When 23-year-old Jamie Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals empire, decided to make Born Rich, a documentary about fellow twentysomethings and other young people with mega-inheritances, there was just one problem: No one would talk to him. It was so hard to find subjects comfortable with the issue that his search became a central theme of the film. In the end, he found ten willing to dish, including Ivanka Trump, Georgina Bloomberg, and Carlo von Zeitschel, the great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm the second.

Yes, there’s plenty of shopping talk and some outrageous statements about pre-nups, but Johnson’s main interest was exploring the dark side of vast unearned wealth. Juliet Hartford, an heir to the A&P supermarket fortune, talks about how her father’s drug habit, wanton spending, and bad investments wrecked her family. Josiah Hornblower, a Whitney and Vanderbilt scion, recounts how, when his dad made him sign his inheritance papers—and his will—on his 18th birthday, he had a breakdown and fled boarding school in favor of manual labor on a Texas oil rig. “But this is not kids from wealthy backgrounds looking for sympathy and a shoulder to cry on,” says Johnson. “It’s an inside look at a closed world.”

Not everyone in that world is happy. Luke Weil, whose father ran the gaming-industry tech company Autotote, famously sued Johnson to block the film’s distribution (he lost, giving the project a publicity boost in the process). In one scene, Johnson’s own father demands to know why he has to pry into people’s lives with a camera. “My thought was, This is who we are—we’re willing to spend money and possess it, but we want to deny it publicly and distance ourselves from it,” he says. “That seems to be a very unhealthy paradox.” —Sarah Bernard

• Details: Born Rich, October 27, 10 p.m., HBO.

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Caan Artist
James Caan plays a casino security chief (a good guy!) in Las Vegas.

Are you a gambler?

I was in my younger days. Everything’s relative when you’re betting 20 bucks and you only have 50. My dad told me the only time to gamble is when you have nothing.

Is this series risky for you?

It would have to be, don’t you think? I’ve never done a TV show before. Years ago, I turned down Brian’s Song, the TV movie, four times. It wasn’t that the script was any better by the time I said yes. You were a movie actor, you didn’t do television.

How will Vegas be different from CSI or the other cop shows?

It’s unpredictable. Sometimes it’s about a king, a scam artist, a long-lost relative. On the cop shows, it’s like, okay, so three Puerto Ricans rob a car. There are no boundaries here. That’s what makes it fun.

Will you rip from the headlines?

We will have a Bill Bennett story. —Ned Martel

• Details: Las Vegas, Mondays, 9 p.m., NBC. (Offiical website)