TCM, 6:00 a.m. ET
It’s Joan Crawford Day, all day, on TCM. And while many of her most famous films are missing from this retrospective, she made so many that it’s a great opportunity to catch up on some of her seldom-televised films, as well as a few classics. In prime time, the Crawford films shown are 1947’s psychological horror film Possessed (8 p.m. ET), followed by 1949’s Flamingo Road, which spawned the Eighties TV series starring Morgan Fairchild. The campiest and most entertaining movie comes later, so set your recorders: At 1:45 a.m. ET, Crawford squares off against Bette Davis as bitterly hostile siblings in 1962’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (pictured).
Cinemax, 9:00 p.m. ET
This 2001 movie is a sequel to 1991’s Silence of the Lambs, with Anthony Hopkins continuing his role as Hannibal Lecter, but with Julianne Moore inheriting Jodie Foster’s role as FBI agent Clarice Starling. And much of the action takes place in Italy, a recent stopping place for the current, about-to-end NBC spinoff series, Hannibal. Do these two projects have anything in common? Absolutely. They’re both attempts to wring more inspiration, and profit, from the original Hannibal film – which was not the Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs. (That would be, for the record, 1986’s Manhunter.)
Spike, 9:00 p.m. ET
This recent documentary gets a TV airing on Spike, profiling the former Saturday Night Live repertory cast member, who died of a drug overdose at age 33. But unlike Amy, the current documentary film about Amy Winehouse, it doesn’t focus on the drug addition as much as the talent – which is either a treat or a disappointment, depending upon what you came to see.
CW, 9:30 p.m. ET
This CW series is about a young man named Jimmy (Nathaniel Buzolic) whose girlfriend is an older woman named Lydia (Krista Allen) – who happens to be the mother of his best friend, Nate (Josh Zuckerman). In tonight’s second episode, Nate gets a sense of what his buddy Jimmy is experiencing – by meeting up with an aggressive cougar named Pepper Spinner, played by guest star Denise Richards (pictured).
Comedy Central, 11:31 p.m. ET
If you tune to The Daily Show tonight at 11 ET out of force of habit, you’ll see a recent rerun – featuring Jon Stewart’s interview, from one week ago, with Amy Schumer. But if you stay tuned to The Nightly Show, you’ll see a new edition – and, perhaps, hear Larry Wilmore comment on the passing of Stewart, Wilmore’s former (and current) boss, from Comedy Central.