PBS KIDS, 7:30 p.m. ET
This 1965 Peanuts holiday special, the first and still champion, used to be shown every year on network television, as befitting its status as a true TV Christmas cartoon classic. But times have changed. Through today, A Charlie Brown Christmas can be seen free on Apple TV+, if you have an Apple ID for another device. But also, today only, PBS and PBS Kids are showing this charming, perfect special, so you and your family can enjoy it the old-fashioned way. And while I may have a bone to pick with the idea of a free broadcast TV classic being acquired by a pay streaming service, which may be indicative of the commercialism and corporate greed that A Charlie Brown Christmas warned about, it can’t be denied that while the Internet taketh away, it also gives. There’s a meme and tweet floating around this year, for example, which points out what I never noticed in watching this Peanuts special at least every year for 55 years now – the type of bones on which Snoopy piles up and snacks. Man’s best friend? Hardly.
Reelz Channel, 8:00 p.m. ET
DOCUMENTARY PREMIERES: Three new Tom Petty-related documentaries are unveiled tonight on Reelz, starting at 8 p.m. ET with the one I’m most eagerly anticipating and recommending: Tom Petty: I Won’t Back Down. That’s followed by two series premieres with installments devoted to Petty, Autopsy: The Last Hours of Tom Petty and Life, Death & Money, which looks at the estate he left behind. But for me, who had a chance to see Tom Petty with his newly former Heartbreakers when they were a local band in Gainesville, FL and I was a graduate student there, I’m most interested in Petty’s musical history and evolution, from his Florida roots to his solo career and his time as a member of the all-star Traveling Wilburys. I have to admit that I enjoy noting that, though Petty died in 2017, his family continues to pursue his purist rebel spirit. In June of this year, when Donald Trump played Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” at his super-spreader political rally in Tulsa, Petty’s family filed a cease-and-desist order. And held their ground – hence the song’s title and inspiration. Oh, and by the way, though Petty and I co-existed in Gainesville, I never went to see him play back then. Why waste money and time on a local bar band? (Whoops.)
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
I thought I was going crazy, watching the opening credits last week for the Season 11 premiere of Shameless – because the show had gone to great lengths to recreate the sequence shot for shot, but updating it to reflect the passage of time and the aging of the actors and characters. You can watch that sequence again tonight – then stay tuned as the Gallagher family gets behind patriarch William H. Macy’s plan to de-gentrify their Chicago neighborhood.
Showtime, 10:00 p.m. ET
Episode 1, from last week, set up this show’s blood-curdling “What if?” – establishing Bryan Cranston as an empathic New Orleans judge whose son commits a hit-and-run, the victim of which is the teen son of the city’s most powerful and feared crime boss. If he did the right thing and turned in his son, which the judge was doing until he learned the identity of the young man his son had accidentally killed, the vengeful mobster surely would have the judge’s son murdered in retribution. And if he concealed the crime to save his son’s life, what happens then, whether it works or not? That’s where we are tonight, as Episode 2 establishes even more deeply the characters and the dangers. Hope Davis, who since co-starring in the 2003 Harvey Pekar biopic American Splendor has been great in a lot of excellent TV series (such as In Treatment, Mildred Pierce and The Newsroom, all for HBO), comes on strong, and fierce, as Gina Baxter, the mob boss’ grieving wife.
Showtime, 11:05 p.m. ET
Podcast stars Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, in their very few seasons as co-hosts of their freewheeling Showtime talk show, has amassed an impressive array of guests to talk about popular culture, politics, and lots of other topics. Fellow Bronx resident and native Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was featured in the pilot, and since then, Desus & Mero has featured actors (Don Cheadle, Anna Kendrick, Seth Rogen, Charlize Theron, Amy Poehler), musicians (John Legend, 2 Chainz, Common, Killer Mike, Alicia Keys), talk-show stars (David Letterman, Seth Meyers, Jon Stewart, John Mulaney), comedians turned actors (Chris Rock), comedians turned filmmakers (Ben Stiller, Jordan Peele, Judd Apatow), Broadway stars (Lin-Manuel Miranda), and an awful lot of politicians (Stacey Abrams, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and, just this past June, Joe Biden, with Kamala Harris following in September). In tonight’s special edition, Desus & Mero makes room for yet another politician: Former President Barack Obama. When Desus and Mero appeared at the Television Critics Association a year ago and were asked to name their dream interview guest, both said immediately it would be Barack Obama. Tonight, that dream comes true…
