Kate Winslet can do little wrong, especially when she’s in a movie!

I was missing seeing her in a good, meaty project, but HBO’s “Mare of Easttown” gives Winslet room to do her thing, and she is terrific. Sunday night’s premiere at 10pm brought in 1 million viewers, too, so the murder mystery is a hit.

HBO is really becoming the go to place for well crafted limited series. Coming off Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant in “The Undoing,” following “Beautiful Little Lies” and “Sharp Objects,” you can see a trend. And let’s not forget “The Night Of.”

“Mare” is a little “Fargo”-esque as Winslet plays a local female detective in rural Pennsylvania. But unlike Marge Gundersen, Mare is not pregnant or married or clueless. She’s divorced, sexy, flawed (and knows it). When we meet her it’s a year since a “Twin Peaks” type crime, a young girl gone missing. By the end of the first episode, there’s a new murder, this time with a body, and Mare is going to have come up with the answers.

(I’ve only seen the first episode, I have four more to review.)

But you know you’re in good shape with a murder mystery when you’re already guessing what might happen. The great Australian actor Guy Pearce turns up in town, seemingly oblivious. He’s a creative writing teacher. I’ve already decided he’s a serial killer. But he sleeps with Mare upon meeting her in a bar, and he seems like a good guy. Right.

At home, Mare has a small crowded house filled with working class problems including a college age daughter who’s got a small kid. She also has her mother– Jean Smart!– and an ex-husband who’s bought the house behind hers and is getting married.

The opening episode had a lot of characters, and kids, and babies, it takes a minute to figure out who everyone is and how they’re related to each other. But there at the center is Winslet, who is a movie star through and through, and a great actress. Within a week or so “Mare of Easttown” will be watercooler talk, or water bottle, or virtual water cooler. It’s got all the earmarks of “The Undoing.” Meaning, it’s a hit.

What the heck is going on with “Jeopardy!”? (Besides a lot of punctuation.)

Ratings are dropping as the producers continue to book guest hosts who the fans don’t want. When the show announced that Dr. Mehmet Oz was coming, the fans signed petitions arguing that he was basically a quack who undermined the intellectual process.

The producers ignored the fans, and they left. Dr. Oz drove “Jeopardy!” to its worst ratings ever.

Now comes news that the show has asked sportscaster Joe Buck to guest host. Again, there is outrage. Another petition is being circulated.

Meantime, a petition on change.org to get actor LeVar Burton on as host has garnered 244,000 signatures as of this writing. Burton has a groundswell of support among “Jeopardy!” viewers. He himself wants to do it, and would gladly become the permanent host.

And the show? Crickets. Nothing. The producers are simply ignoring their fan base on purpose, kind of angering them instead of giving them what they want. Burton has hosted “Reading Rainbow” for two decades, has a big following from “Roots” and “Star Trek.” He would also be only the second Black person to host, as the show has scheduled Bill Whitaker from “60 Minutes” two weeks from now, after the very white Anderson Cooper has wrapped up his run.

Tomorrow we’ll get results of football player Aaron Rodgers’ hosting ratings. Producers were really doing a lot of press last week promoting his run. We’ll see what materialized from that.

Despite putting on a pretty good semi-finals show last night “American Idol” struggled in the ratings against the Academy of Music Awards.

“Idol” scored only a 4.5 million over two hours on ABC from 8 to 10 pm. The ACM’s on CBS did about 6.3 million.

Of course the ACMs had all established country stars except for Morgan Whallen, who is being punished appropriately for uttering a racist epithet on a TMZ video.

“Idol” offered up a little Lionel Richie in its opening but otherwise stuck to the contestants, paring down the top 12 to the remaining six singers.

The only one who I was sad to see leave was a 15 year old very gifted Ava August, who sang “City of Stars” from “La La Land.” This girl is going to be a star, she’s just too young right now. I hope she’s not too disappointed.

The show is taking the top 9 to Disney World today to try and infect them with COVID. That will further pare down the contestants. (Just kidding!) Still no word on why Wyatt Pike left the show. He’s been posting on Instagram and is healthy as ever, so that wasn’t the reason. My guess is he didn’t want to sign the contract with “Idol” binding him to management and a recording contract.

The show continues tonight with a special featuring last year’s contestants who never got to perform on the live stage because of the pandemic.