Weekend TV: 'Broadway,' 'Wallander'

By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Posted September 6, 2012

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'Wallander' is back Sunday for third season of detective work. (Credit: By Laurence Cendrowicz, Left Bank/BBC for Masterpiece)

•ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC unite Friday for the hour-long special Stand Up to Cancer (8 ET/PT), designed to support cancer research. Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Alicia Keys and Tim McGraw are among those slated to perform.

•Sunday, PBS debuts Broadway or Bust (8 ET/PT, times may vary). The three-part series follows 60 high school students, all winners of regional competitions, to the finals of The National High School Musical Awards in New York.

They will be mentored by Broadway talent in a theater boot camp and prepared for a performance on the Broadway stage that usually houses The Lion King. Most of those folks at Idol, The Voice, X Factor and America's Got Talent should be so lucky.

•PBS' Masterpiece Mystery launches a third season of Wallander (Sunday, 9 ET/PT, times may vary), with Kenneth Branagh returning as a British-accented Swedish detective.

Nor are his the only out-of-place tones you'll notice: Even though the series is set and shot in Sweden, the British actors all use their own accents, varying them to reflect a Brit-speak interpretation of Swedish class distinctions.

It's a very England-rules-the-waves convention that some will find weirdly xenophobic and off-putting. If you're among those who are fine with it, however, enjoy.