PBS KIDS, 12:00 p.m. ET
For a while, this has become a weekly thing – something on which parents can depend, in which former First Lady Michelle Obama invites special guests to join her in reading children’s books to young viewers. This week, in a program also shown online on the Facebook and YouTube Mondays with Michelle Obama pages or channels, the books featured are Giraffe Problems (choosing the right necklace, perhaps?) and The Bear Ate My Sandwich. (My advice, in response: No matter what, don’t stoop to eating a bear sandwich in response. Bear tastes terrible. Trust me.)
NBC, 8:00 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: This is not a recommendation. Tonight and tomorrow, The Voice presents its finale. But scaled down because of social distancing, and with virtually no live audience (or just a virtual one), how exciting can this year’s finale be? If you’re still involved enough to watch, you tell me…
BBC America, 8:00 p.m. ET
This 1963 Alfred Hitchcock movie is a classic, and he managed, without any CGI, to present many unforgettable images of birds congregating on phone wires and playground structures. Remember that a gathering of one particular type of blackbirds is referred to as “a murder of crows.” In The Birds, Hitch takes that literally…
Cinemax, 9:57 p.m. ET
This 2001 French film stars Audrey Tautou as a young woman confined as a young child, experiencing very little social interaction or outdoor travel, who grows up to become a waitress in Paris, driven to bring joy into the lives of anyone she encounters. Amélie was a delightful, beautifully photographed fable already – but now, in these times, its buoyancy is even more inspirational, and even more welcome.
Food Network, 10:00 p.m. ET
Last week’s premiere of this new cooking series actually presented a few recipes I was happy to mark for future testing: Amy Schumer’s cocktail recipe for an old fashioned (she used to bartend in New York), and her husband Chris Fischer’s recipe for baked chicken wings, which combined a teriyaki marinade with a yogurt and herb wash. Seemingly, there’s no take two on this show, but that’s part of its casual, super informal energy. And the primary camera is handheld by their nanny, who also deals with the couple’s young kid – making this a very different, more literal utilization of the nanny cam. Tonight’s topics: lunch break and pasta night. I’m all in…