TCM, 1:30 p.m. ET
Henry Fonda makes a wonderful President of the United States, and Larry Hagman an efficient yet very nervous interpreter, in this thrilling 1964 movie about a Cold War face-off gone to the most serious of extremes. Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove mined this same subject for laughs, but Fail-Safe, directed by Sidney Lumet, was dead serious. And was, and still is, seriously dramatic.
Lifetime Movie Network, 8:00 p.m. ET
This isn’t a recommendation, really, because this made-for-TV movie isn’t very good. Alyssa Milano stars as Amy Fisher, the titular underage “Long Island Lolita,” and Jack Scalia plays Joey Buttafuoco, the older lover whose wife Amy shot, but not fatally. This 1993 CBS telemovie told things from Joey’s point of view – but what’s noteworthy, from my point of view, is that all three major broadcast networks took a crack at this same story at about the same time. NBC’s Amy Fisher: My Story took her side, and the best of them, ABC’s The Amy Fisher Story, played it objectively – and starred Drew Barrymore.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Vincente Minnelli directed this lavish 1953 movie musical, which stars Fred Astaire in the story of a Broadway hoofer whose latest stage vehicle gets hijacked by an absurdly pretentious director. It’s all just an excuse to go crazy, visually and otherwise, and when Astaire is dancing with Cyd Charisse, they do just that.
BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: The Daleks, the oldest adversaries in the Doctor Who firmament, are back again, as is the good Doctor. Just in time, to get September started in style. Matt Smith stars.
Comedy Central, 10:38 p.m. ET
If you have come to fully accept Jeff Daniels as the very intelligent Will McAvoy in HBO’s The Newsroom, which just concluded its first season, revisit this 1994 Farrelly Brothers comedy, to watch him keep up with Jim Carrey in the acting stupid department. And, in this case at least, that’s acting stupid, not stupid acting.