CNN, 9:00 p.m. ET
Last week, this new CNN arts documentary series launched by looking at movies of the 1980s. Tonight’s episode focuses on, and is titled, “The Nineties,” and comes from the same executive production team – Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Mark Herzog – that delivered so beautifully with its decades-focused CNN series from The Sixties to The 2000s. (I’m in the leadoff installments, devoted to TV, in each decade series, but that’s not why I’m so impressed by this series and these producers.) The beauty of The Movies is that, thanks to Hanks’ involvement, virtually everyone you’d want to hear from regarding movies in each decade shows up and is ready to play, starting with Steven Spielberg. In the 1990s, as a director, Spielberg gave us Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan – and if those were the only three films covered at length in “The Nineties,” I’d walk away happy. But while Hanks delivers and properly showcases his famous filmmaking friends and colleagues, he’s almost disappointingly shy about tooting his own horn. Last week, in “The Eighties,” his big-screen hits Splash and Big barely registered. But this week, for “The Nineties,” I don’t see how Hanks can avoid himself: His hits in that decade included A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Toy Story and, with Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan. And if you count the decade as ranging from 1991-2000, you could include Cast Away. But even so – I mean, come on. What can you say but: Hanks for the memories...
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
“At the end of the day we are still family,” Meryl Streep’s Mary Louise tells her late son’s wife, Nicole Kidman’s Celeste. Coldly and with understandable wariness, Celeste responds, “We are not family, Mary Louise.” And so it goes, as the mother-in-law gets closer to the truth about what happened to her husband. And behind the scenes, stories of discord have surfaced regarding the creative family behind Big Little Lies, with Season 2 director Andrea Arnold reportedly displaced by Season 1 director Jean-Marc Vallee, who returned and was given editing and reshoot responsibilities over Arnold. Whatever has occurred offscreen, the on-screen drama, to date, has been engrossing, and Streep, Kidman and Laura Dern, in particular, have navigated some very emotional waters with intensity and bravado.
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
In this week’s episode, things get trickier for Kevin Bacon’s Jackie and Aldis Hodge’s DeCourcy, as reporter Michaela Freda, played by Samantha Soule, crosses their path to ask some very pointed and uncomfortable questions.
Starz!, 9:00 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: For Season 2 of this series, set in a trendy restaurant in New York, the protagonist (Ella Purnell as Tess) is less a newly arrived babe in the big city woods, and more an increasingly savvy fledgling restaurant opportunist, eager to learn things and make her move. With a very stern boss, the world she’s inhabiting is a bit like a Gordon Ramsey scripted drama, with Tess as the harassed contestant most likely to succeed.
Showtime, 10:00 p.m. ET
The year covered in this week’s installment in this dramatized Roger Ailes character study is 2008 – which means it’s the year his Fox News Channel covers, and reacts to, the evemntual election of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.