Amazon Prime Video, 3:00 a.m. ET
MINISERIES PREMIERE: It’s getting tougher and tougher, these days, to determine with any authority what is a movie, a TV show, a series, and a miniseries. The Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was designed as a six-part anthology Western miniseries, intended for television, and a premiere on Netflix. But before Netflix premiered it in 2018, all six episodes of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs were shown at the 2018 Venice International Film Festival, as a reassembled anthology film – where it won Best Screenplay. So all of a sudden, Buster Scruggs was released on Netflix that way, as a movie. And now we have another acclaimed artist, director Steve McQueen, pulling a similarly confusing trick. Small Axe was produced originally for the BBC and aired this past Monday, with five individual films presented as a film anthology series. Three of them were shown at the New York Film Festival in September, and now all of them are being streamed by Amazon Prime Video. The title comes from a Bob Marley song of the same name, quoting a proverb: “If you are the big tree, we are the small axe.” But are we a movie, or a miniseries?
Hulu, 3:00 a.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: This reboot counts as an official revival of the 1993 animated TV series, with the same characters (Yakko, Wakko and Dot, as well as Pinky and the Brain), all voiced by the original voice actors. And yes, Steven Spielberg is involved, so bring decently high expectations.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: Last Sunday, John Oliver ended his Last Week Tonight with John Oliver HBO series by literally exploding 2020 (look it up on your Google machine). Five days later, another HBO current-events satirist, Bill Maher, ends his season tonight. Both series scheduled their finales presuming that the election would be decided. Well, that was optimistic. But for tonight, Maher has lined up a suitably strong guest list, including Alex Wagner from Showtime’s The Circus, historian Jon Meacham (pictured), and Prof. Michael Eric Dyson.
TCM, 2:00 a.m. ET
This 1988 comedy was co-written by Julie Brown, who co-stars – and captures the late 1980s better than most movies of that era. Better yet, it captures lots of young talent on the rise. Geena Davis stars as a California Valley Girl whose life is ripped asunder when a spaceship crash-lands in her swimming pool. Inside are three very colorful aliens – played by the equally colorful Jeff Goldblum, Damon Wayans, and Jim Carrey. This was one of my daughter Kristin’s favorite movies, and I’m guessing it still is.