TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Tonight TCM presents a prime-time double feature devoted to recalling the impact of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima. This first film, 1952’s Children of Hiroshima, is a combination drama and documentary. Actors are cast in roles of various survivors of the 1945 bombing of that Japanese city, but actual footage and settings are used extensively. The result is a film that is overtly emotional – just as director Kaneto Shindo intended.
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
This is episode four, putting us at the halfway mark of this new miniseries adaptation – and the more we get into the story, the closer Matthew Rhys’ Perry Mason gets to the one we know from the classic TV series. He’s now getting closer, at least, to becoming a lawyer, which has to happen, and will, before this eight-part prequel is over.
Starz!, 9:00 p.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: Written by Katori Hall, and based on her stage play (which spelled out in its title the rude word referred to here only by its initial), this Starz drama is a female-empowerment, and perspective, take on the strip club and its employees. Elarica Johnson plays Autumn, a new dancer at the Mississippi Delta strip club known as the Pynk. And no, that’s not what the P stands for…
For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.
TCM, 9:45 p.m. ET
Hideo Sekigawa directed this 1953 film, which was a reaction from a section of Japanese artists and audiences that felt Children of Hiroshima was insufficiently political. Showing the two films back to back, as TCM is doing tonight, is a rare and truly eye-opening opportunity to compare and contrast two early cinematic Japanese responses to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
Director Liz Garbus’ approach to Michelle McNamara’s book and research has been part detective story, part character study – and completely fascinating. And the deeper this nonfiction miniseries gets into the story, and the murders and rapes McNamara is probing, the more unsettling, yet compelling, this TV series gets.