Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET
DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: Netflix is describing this debut film by comedy writer and producer Donick Cary as a documentary, but it seems assembled and intended more for entertainment than elucidation. Hosted by Nick Offerman, it’s basically a parade of celebrities telling of their personal experiences with LSD, mushrooms, peyote and other hallucinogenics, starting with Sting, and continuing with everyone from Sarah Silverman (who describes the foamy and bubbling hot chocolate served to her while on an acid trip as “too alive to drink”) and Deepak Chopra to Andy Richter and Lewis Black. Some of the tales they tell are accompanied by animation, as with PBS’s StoryCorps TV shows. Others come with comic re-enactments, appropriate visuals, and other psychedelic approaches. Two of the interviewees telling their histories with acid trips, Anthony Bourdain and Carrie Fisher, have since died, and some others, including Black and Offerman, look much younger, so it’s likely Have a Good Trip has a lengthy production history. The result is like a druggie version of Drunk History: It’s entertaining, but it’s almost embarrassing, and a little troubling, to admit it. And while this may be construed as a recommendation to watch this program, it is in no way an endorsement of hallucinogenics. No way. I dropped half a tab of acid once, as a teenager, as my one and only illegal drug experience, and never did or would do anything like it again. But I’ll save the details of that story, which involve a blue shag rug I feared I would drown in, in case Cary invites me to participate in a sequel.
PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET
This extremely personal film was crafted by former child actor Sasha Neulinger, whose father, Henry Nevison, also was a filmmaker (the reason for the different last names is covered in this documentary). This biographical study came about when Neulinger, troubled by unsettling memories and feelings from his childhood, asked his dad if he had saved any film or videotape from those years. His dad provided him with 200 hours of home video footage, and agreed to be interviewed by his son for what became Rewind – but otherwise had no involvement in the movie’s contents. The story it tells is of young Sasha allegedly being abused by other family members, including two uncles and a cousin, and what Rewind shows is the clear delineation between how the young boy acted, on film and tape, before and after the start of the events discussed. Check local listings.
Food Network, 10:03 p.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: Like many of us, Amy Schumer is stuck at home, waiting out the initial wave of this deadly pandemic. And like many of you, she’s sequestered in her house with her spouse. But her husband, Chris Fischer, happens to be a James Beard Award-winning chef. And with so much time on their hands, and so much culinary talent in his, Schumer cooked up the idea for a TV show emanating straight from her Martha’s Vineyard home, and sold it to The Food Network. Its simple, explanatory title: Amy Schumer Learns to Cook. The production values are deliberately low-key, and they’re dressed as though the camera turned on as an unscheduled surprise (you and I are dressed more crisply right now; well, you are). The approach is as basic as Julia Child’s The French Chef, so don’t expect many edits or camera angles. And even with Fischer’s expertise, don’t necessarily expect shows to be devoted to such topics as Julia Child presented in the 1960s, devoted to “Coquilles St. Jacques” or “Rognons Sautés and Flambés.” Tonight’s premiere edition, for example, looks at breakfast foods and late-night snacks.
