CBS, 8:00 p.m. ET
Could this year’s storyline proceed any more slowly? Apparently, yes, because tonight it goes backwards – to another flashback. (And since this whole series is a flashback, that seems a bit like piling on.) But this one’s worth the trip back down memory lane, because it makes room, once again, for a very special guest star: Bryan Cranston, in one of his first post-Breaking Bad TV series appearances.
IFC, 8:00 p.m. ET
IFC presents another Stanley Kubrick film, this one, from 1999, the last film he completed before he died. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, then married, star, in a story whose cryptic, dreamlike nature is a faithful reproduction of the original, obtuse source material: Arthur Schnitzler’s weird 1926 novella, Dream Story.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
This 1975 Steven Spielberg blockbuster usually is shown, and best enjoyed, at the start of summer. But here, it kicks off the latest TCM night devoted to movies from its imported Odyssey of Film documentary series. The latest episode, Number 11, isn’t televised until 2:30 a.m. ET, so it’s another one to set your recorders to catch. It’s called The 1970s and Onwards – Innovation in Popular Culture and Around the World, and includes not only segments on Jaws, but on The Exorcist, Star Wars, and even Enter the Dragon, the Bruce Lee international hit that is shown at 12:45 a.m. ET.
PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
Part 1 of 2. There are so many John F. Kennedy specials presented on TV this month, all tied to the 50
th anniversary of his assassination, they seem duplicative as well as overly familiar. The best thing this particular four-hour documentary brings to the table is a stronger understanding of the source, intensity and treatment of JFK’s back injuries and other physical maladies. But it leaves out a lot that’s crucial to the understanding of the Kennedy clan’s power base and motivations, though it’s certainly a serious enough study to watch. For a full review, see David Sicilia’s
TV Moneyland. Concludes tomorrow night.
Check local listings.
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
Premiering on Veterans Day, this new documentary pulls you in from the opening seconds, and never lets go. Set at the country’s one solely dedicated Veterans Crisis Line, in upstate New York, it films responders as they pick up calls and speak to veterans, often trying to persuade them not to commit suicide. The callers are not identified, and we never hear their voices on the other end of the line – only the words of the Crisis Line workers, as they try to simultaneously gather information, dispatch assistance and calm and help the callers who have reached out for help. There’s never a sense that anyone is acting differently because the cameras are present, because the stakes are too high for that. And director Ellen Goosenberg Kent, who also directed HBO’s superb Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq, honors her subject by crafting a documentary that is intense and emotional without being at all exploitive. And for the record: the Veterans Crisis Line phone number is 1-800-273-8255, and it receives calls 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
