HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
In this 2019 sequel to Stephen King’s It, Bill Skarsgard returns as Pennywise, but the surviving children he terrorized in the first movie are all grown up now. This follow-up film is set 27 years later, a shift which allows the members of The Losers Club to be played by an older generation of actors – including Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, and Bill Hader. It: Chapter Two is a welcome Saturday night TV diversion, especially if you’re eager to turn on your television and be frightened by a horrifying clown who isn’t in government.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
All this month, TCM is showing movies by Peter Bogdanovich on Saturday nights, working through his output in chronological order. Tonight, that means we get two of his broadest comedies, but both worth watching – and both star Ryan O’Neal. At 8 p.m. ET, it’s 1972’s What’s Up, Doc?, co-starring Barbra Streisand. And at 10 p.m. ET, there’s 1973’s Paper Moon, in which O’Neal co-stars with his real-life daughter, Tatum (pictured). Tatum won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar that year – becoming, at age 10, the youngest person to ever win a competitive Academy Award.
getTV, 11:00 p.m. ET
This week’s ultra-rare rerun of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour is particularly well-timed. It’s one of the final installments of the controversial Sixties variety show, and originally aired on Easter Sunday 51 years ago – on April 13, 1969. It was one of the final two shows already taped, but not yet broadcast, when CBS fired the Smothers Brothers in a telegram sent 10 days earlier – and it includes an incendiary and soulful musical set by Ike and Tina Turner. My favorite moment, though, is when former Comedy Hour head writer Mason Williams, who unveiled his guitar instrumental Classical Gas on the program the previous year, returned to the show to perform a poem. Not a song, even though he had his guitar with him and strummed a single chord to launch into his free verse. A poem. And it was a poem he had composed himself, and which he recited to the camera while holding a big pair of scissors aloft in a threatening fashion. “The Censor” is worth seeing – given its context and uniqueness, it’s one of my favorite moments of television – but it’s also worth reading. With thanks to Mason Williams, here's what he recites in this rare Comedy Hour rerun: “The censor sits / somewhere between the scenes to be seen and the television sets / with his scissor purpose poised / watching the human stuff that will sizzle through the magic wires / and light up like welding shops the ho-hum rooms of America / and with a kindergarten arts-and-crafts concept of moral responsibility / snips out the rough talk, the unpopular opinion, or anything with teeth / and renders a pattern of ideas full of holes… / a doily for your mind.”
NBC, 11:29 p.m. ET
After the New York-based national tragedy of 9/11, the return of Saturday Night Live, with a new show performed live almost in defiance of the country’s understandable bleakness, was a profound and necessary TV event. Tonight feels much the same, and again, SNL is rallying to address the moment, the mood, and the country, regarding a horrible event that has impacted all viewers, yet finds its epicenter in New York. This week, executive producer Lorne Michaels made the decision to mount a new “At Home” edition of Saturday Night Live, calling on its cast members, writers and frequent guests to participate in some sort of confined, socially distant installment. I think it’s a great idea. And even though I’m not sure that any of it will be live, and don’t expect all of it to emanate from the city environs, I’m expecting greatness from tonight’s Saturday Night Live. Not to be missed. My dream vote for the guest host on this week of all SNL weeks? Lorne Michaels himself. And if one of the guests phoning it in, so to speak, is Alec Baldwin, how can you even think of not watching?
