SATURDAY
DECEMBER 2
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

IFC, 8:00 p.m. ET

Other people wrote the story and screenplay for this 1988 fantasy comedy, but director Tim Burton and actor Michael Keaton basically made it all theirs – Burton with his wild visuals, Keaton with his equally wild energy. There are plenty of reasons to revisit this film, starting with the set piece in which the new family moving into a haunted house has a dinner party disrupted by an involuntary rendition of Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song).” But there’s so much more to appreciate: Winona Ryder as the lonely teen who not only sees the ghosts, but likes them – and, as the ghosts who summon Keaton’s malevolent spirit to help with more frightening ideas for house-haunting, Geena Davis and, in one of his first screen roles, Alec Baldwin.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s entry in TCM’s The Essentials is a whale of a film. James Whale, that is. He directed this 1935 instant sequel to Frankenstein, and it’s this version, not the original, that includes some of the most iconic scenes associated with Boris Karloff’s creature features. (And, therefore, some of the very best scenes lampooned in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein.) Give special mention and attention, too, to Elsa Lanchester, who does double duty as Frankenstein author Mary Shelley and as the titular monster, presented in all her bird-like, lightning-coiffed glory.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET

I’ve given up trying to make sense out of this season’s story line. But I don’t feel bad, because so have most of the characters, and they’re experiencing it.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 10:00 p.m. ET

I’m not sure at all how Graham Norton is going to greet, much less treat, guest Mel Gibson, but it’ll be worth watching – especially with his Daddy’s Home 2 co-stars, Will Farrell and Mark Wahlberg, there for moral and comic support.

 
  
 
 

NBC, 11:29 p.m. ET

Lady Bird star Saoirse Ronan is the guest host tonight, and the musical guests are U2.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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David Bianculli

Founder / Editor

David Bianculli has been a TV critic since 1975, including a 14-year stint at the New York Daily News, and sees no reason to stop now. Currently, he's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and is an occasional substitute host for that show. He's also an author and teaches TV and film history at New Jersey's Rowan University. His 2009 Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', has been purchased for film rights. His latest, The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to the Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific, is an effusive guidebook that plots the path from the 1950s’ Golden Age to today’s era of quality TV.