Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET
SPECIAL PREMIERE: Patton Oswalt has gone through a lot since his previous standup special – he’s married again, for one thing. But in this solo standup act, recorded at Charlotte before the coronavirus began to spread, he doesn’t devote much time to that topic, or even to politics. “I don’t have any Trump material, that’s what I’m saying,” he says. Instead, he spends a few minutes on why he doesn’t joke about President Trump: “Right now,” he says, “being a comedian is like being the emcee in Cabaret. Not a lot of bright spots.” Instead, Oswalt muses about such topics as father-daughter days, Jesus, and Denny’s. On that last topic, he spends much time and thought analyzing the anthropomorphic figures on the Denny’s menu (“The fried egg is a prostitute”; “There’s something wrong with the pancake”).
ABC, 8:00 p.m. ET
Right now, television has every reason to look back fondly upon its past – because the present is not so bright, and the future is bleak. At this moment, though, ABC is doubling down on nostalgia, with a Garry Marshall salute last week and this salute to the soap opera tonight. The soaps began on radio, so this special actually is mourning a pair of formerly popular media enterprises. When the soaps migrated to television, the first generation of daily dramas was staid and somber – but then came ABC, which shook up the soap genre with General Hospital and the like, including Susan Lucci in All My Children. With ABC telling this Story of Soaps, expect that part of the narrative to rise as dominant. And don’t forget prime time, where ABC countered CBS’s Dallas with its own Dynasty.
AMC, 8:00 p.m. ET
Last year, to mark the silver anniversary of this inspirational film based on the Stephen King novella, Mark Dawidziak wrote a well-researched book titled The Shawshank Redemption Revealed: How One Story Keeps Hope Alive. It explains how director and screenwriter Frank Darabont, and actors Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, absolutely nailed their respective attempts to bring King’s story and characters to the screen. Have you seen The Shawshank Redemption before? If you’re reading this website and concerned about quality entertainment, almost certainly. Should you watch it again now, at this exact moment in time? Absolutely.
PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
Does the name Tetsuya Theodore Fujita ring a bell? It didn’t to me. But he’s the scientist who, more than anyone else, established the science behind severe storms. The measure of tornado damage intensity, the F-scale, is named after him. But his interest in the extent of the damage of cataclysmic events is not at all limited to weather patterns: He began by analyzing the reach and devastation of the nuclear explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Check local listings.
PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET
Filmmaker Sasha Achilli got rare access to the spreading pandemic crisis by getting permission to embed at an Italian hospital and follow an emergency room doctor, Francesca Mangiatordi, who is shown both at work and at home, where her family is understandably very worried about her.
Check local listings. For a full review, see Alex Strachan's TV That Matters.