SERIES PREMIERE: Forget about the Jim Carrey movie from a dozen years ago. This new Netflix version, overseen by Lemony Snicket author Daniel Handler and Barry Sonnenfeld (one of the show’s gifted directors), is delightful from start to finish. Well, start to the end of episode eight, which is all Netflix is providing during this first go-round. Each book in the original Series of Unfortunate Events series, telling of the continuing misadventures of a trio of orphaned siblings whose family fortune is targeted by the evil Count Olaf, is dramatized in two TV episodes. So the first four books are covered in this eight-episode first season, and they’re covered beautifully. Guest stars such as Alfre Woodard and Joan Cusack have a fabulous time here, and Patrick Warburton, playing Lemony Snicket the reluctant “author,” is perfect. But so is Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf, who slinks through A Series of Unfortunate Events with a series of hilarious characterizations. The most TV fun I’ve had in quite a while. For my full review on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, listen to the show today, or, later on, visit the Fresh Air website. But gobble these up, regardless of your age. For an interview with executive producer Barry Sonnenfeld, see Bianculli’s Blog.

SERIES PREMIERE: Originally made for CBS, then picked up by Amazon, this series has a mouth-watering pedigree. It’s a drama series created by Bryan Cranston, star of Breaking Bad, and David Shore, co-creator of House – who worked with the creator of Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan, on Battle Creek for CBS. This one also has, as another executive producer, Graham Yost of Justified and The Americans. Giovanni Ribisi stars as a ex-con con man who adopts the identity of a former cellmate, and gets involved in a dysfunctional family and their bail-bonds business. Co-stars include Margo Martindale from Justified and The Americans, Marin Ireland of Masters of Sex, Peter Gerety of Homicide: Life on the Street, and guest stars include Alison Wright (from both The Americans and FX’s upcoming Feud: Bette and Joan) and, as a very ruthless gangster, Cranston himself, who makes his first appearance at the end of the pilot. Sneaky Pete starts well, then stalls a little – but it’s worth sticking with, to see how it develops, and, with luck, deepens. For an interview with Margo Martindale, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower. 

Tonight’s episode has Rebecca (Rachel Bloom) attending a family bar mitzvah. And expect some music, because Patti LuPone guest stars as the rabbi.

How’d you like to spend a night with Cleopatra? (Sorry to frame the question that way, but I had to asp.) Tonight, TCM shows a small bouquet of movies featuring the queen of the Nile, starting at 8 p.m. ET with Cecil B. DeMille’s 1934 Cleopatra, starring Claudette Colbert (pictured). Then, at 10 p.m. ET, is the most famous Cleopatra film of all: the 1963 epic, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Those are followed by 1964’s British comedy Carry On Cleo at 2:30 a.m. ET, starring Amanda Barrie, and finishing at 4:15 a.m. ET with 1945’s Caesar and Cleopatra, starring Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh.

In this episode, keep your eye on the character of Tip (Jordan Loughran), whose gender-bending persona, harking all the way back to author L. Frank Baum’s original Ozma of Oz, is almost shockingly topical. I’d say more, but I don’t want to Tip my hand…