Apple TV+, 3:00 a.m. ET
MOVIE PREMIERE: Werner Herzog always was an idiosyncratic filmmaker, whether making dramatic movies or documentaries. But the older he gets, the more persistent he is at following his own passions – and his films keep getting even more fascinating as a result. No one else could have done as poetic a documentary about ancient cave paintings. And today, his newly released Apple TV+ documentary examines an even more ancient art form of sorts: celestial skywriting. Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds is Herzog’s takes on meteors, and their relationship to our planet’s history, art and folklore. Hey – I’ll be happy if he reminds me of the differences between meteors, meteoroids, and meteorites.
Movies On Demand, 3:00 a.m. ET
MOVIE PREMIERE: Keira Chansa plays Alice, and Jordan A. Nash plays Peter, in this new movie in which those two children are siblings. What’s notable, in this fantasy drawing from two classic characters from beloved works of children’s literature, is that the Alice is the one we know from Wonderland, and the Peter is the one we know from Neverland. And their parents? In this new movie premiering today on Movies on Demand, they’re played by Angelina Jolie and David Oyelowo.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
“One of us! One of us!” The first time I saw Tod Browing’s 1932 horror film about a carnival sideshow troupe, Freaks freaked me out. If you still haven’t seen this wild early cinematic classic, watch it tonight. You’ll be Freak-ed, too.
PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
This new
Great Performances entry is the first documentary ever made about the classic musical
Fiddler on the Roof. It’s current enough to include the 2018 Broadway revival in Yiddish – a somewhat unexpectedly emotional and current retelling – and comprehensive enough to deal with the original stage and movie versions, as well as the most notable of the many, many revivals. And the participants in this documentary are wide-ranging, too, from such expected artists as
Fiddler composer Jerry Bock, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and librettist Joseph Stein to Stephen Sondheim, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Itzhak Perlman.
Check local listings. For more info, see Mike Hughes' Open Mike.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
For two years now, Bill Maher has been the first and most persistent media voice suggesting, then insisting, that if Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he wouldn’t leave. Welcome to tonight’s special edition of Real Time, titled “I told you so.” Or at least it should be titled that…