PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: This is the Season 35 premiere of P.O.V., a remarkable achievement in itself. And the documentary series, as valuable a part of PBS nonfiction programming as Frontline, begins its new season with We Are the Radical Monarchs, a documentary about a group of Girl Scouts-like members in Oakland, CA, and their two somewhat radical troop leaders. The organization, aimed at spreading to chapters nationwide and specifically offered to young girls of color, offers a program that takes three years to complete, and gives out a series of merit badges for completing tasks – except the tasks, in this case, involve advocating for social justice, and pursuing aggressive support of racial and economic equality. Director Linda Goldstein Knowlton, in this film, follows the Radical Monarchs for three years – and they’re amazing years, in retrospect, for a group engaged in activism, because the period covered include the protests in Ferguson, the birth of the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, and the election of Donald Trump. Check local listings.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
Here’s another valuable, long-running nonfiction TV series with a new installment tonight. Bryant Gumbel’s HBO sports news show began in 1995 – and 25 years later, he and it are still going strong. Very strong, as he and his staff of correspondents have been way ahead of the curve in examining the ways in which professional and even amateur sports intersect in the areas of race, finance, safety, and other issues. Real Sports reports monthly during its season, and its most recent installment, in June, included a no-holds-barred discussion about how and whether pro sports should resume during a pandemic. Now it’s a month later, and this new edition is arriving – in TV’s increasingly familiar stay-at-home pandemic form – just as major league baseball was scheduled to hold opening-day games for its new, virus-shortened season later this week.
Sundance, 11:30 p.m. ET
This 2012 movie tells of the amazing true story in which, during the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran in 1979, six Americans slipped away as the U.S. embassy in Tehran was overrun. Where did they go? How did they keep their presence hidden from an increasingly hostile populace? And how, with the help of the a particularly audacious plan by the CIA, did they stage a dangerous effort to evade capture and return home? The climax of this movie is disappointingly over-hyped with the addition of a dramatic scene that never happened – but until then, the events depicted in Argo are fascinating in part because they are a close approximation of what really occurred. And it’s a wild story. Ben Affleck directs, and also stars as the CIA agent charged with bringing the Americans home. Also making Argo especially entertaining: the movie’s cast, which boasts one wonderful actor, and performance, after another. Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Kyle Chandler, Victor Garber, Tate Donovan and more… each and every one a standout.
