BroadwayHD, 3:00 a.m. ET
Today is the day Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim turns 90 years old. Part of the planned celebration, before the current pandemic, was to be today’s official opening night of the inventive Broadway revival of his 1970 musical Company. The central role of Bobby, up to this point always played by a man, was now named Bobbie, and to be played by a woman: the marvelous Katrina Lenk. But last week, Broadway was shut down. So tonight, the streaming site BroadwayHD honors Sondheim’s birthday by making available two of the best TV productions of his work in musicals: The CBS version of Gypsy, for which he wrote the lyrics to Jule Styne’s music, starring Bette Midler, and the long-defunct Entertainment Channel’s wonderful version of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, starring Angela Lansbury and George Hearn. Personal postscript: I first saw Company on Broadway shortly after it opened, 50 years ago, the first time I went to New York as a teenager. I last saw it on Broadway two weeks ago, when it was in previews, two days before the world slammed shut. The production was amazing, Katrina Lenk in particular. Who knows how, when, or whether, it will be remounted for a delayed opening night – but what a triumph. And thank you, Mr. Sondheim, for half a century of my favorite, most unforgettable theatrical experiences.
Freeform, 8:00 p.m. ET
If you subscribe to Disney+, you can now see Frozen 2 long ahead of its scheduled streaming premiere – a gift to families in this coronavirus lockdown period. And you should subscribe, by the way. If you’re in that self-isolating mode, and have young children in the house, Disney+ ought to be on the list of essentials, right up there with toilet paper and hand soap. Anyway, the original Frozen animated movie, now seven years old, is shown tonight on Freeform. Which means, in Disney’s perspective of how quickly its target audience turns over, that Frozen is ready to enchant an entire new generation of preschoolers. Let it show…
NBC, 9:00 p.m. ET
In this week’s new episode, Zoey reveals her hidden power to someone new. The episode is called “Zoey’s Extraordinary Confession,” and you know the synonym for confessing, right? When someone confesses in an old gangster movie, it’s known as singing. And here we go…
AMC, 9:00 p.m. ET
A prominent character died last week – and it’s likely that, in tonight’s new episode, there are more deaths to come. And more undeaths, too.
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
Last week’s Season 3 premiere ended with Caleb, the hapless human played by Aaron Paul, coming to the aid of a badly wounded Dolores, the ruthless android warrior played by Evan Rachel Wood. Tonight, they team up – but for what? And against whom? Meanwhile, the show’s attention shifts from the outside “real world” back to the park. But it’s no vacation.
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
On Homeland in this final season, things have gotten more and more dire, people are dying quickly and unexpectedly, and everywhere you turn, the news is bad, and the government is in chaos. Isn’t it nice to find a TV show where you can escape and forget about your real-world troubles for an hour?
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: Last week, when Larry David was preparing to open his “spite store,” Latte Larry’s, Ted Danson popped in for a sneak preview – and was impressed not only by the coffee shop’s tables that didn’t wobble, but also by the fact that every table was equipped with a bottle of hand sanitizer. Both these features made it into Larry’s show-within-the-show “commercials” for Latte Larry’s. And these shows were filmed before the coronavirus spread. Give Larry David credit for prescience – and please, give him another season as soon as possible, so he can tackle social distancing, binge viewing, enforced isolation, and other topics for laughs. We need laughs. Today, we need comedies the way the Depression needed musicals. I’m talking, of course, about the last Depression, not the one we’re just spiraling into now.