Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET
Last month, the long-running Treehouse of Horror franchise of The Simpsons completed three decades of annual installments, presenting Treehouse of Horror XXX, in which the individual segments poked fun at Stranger Things, The Shape of Water, and Heaven Can Wait. Today, Fox inaugurates what may be a new holiday tradition of anything-goes anthology Simpsons stories, this time built around Thanksgiving. Yes, it’s the first Thanksgiving of Terror, whose official poster promises “A spine-tingling, stomach-stuffing Turducken of Terror!” And don’t refer to it as the first annual Thanksgiving of Terror, because it can’t be. Nothing establishes itself as an annual event until it takes place for at least two years. My journalism teacher back at the University of Florida taught me that, in the same class he taught us not to use the phrase “very unique,” because unique means one of a kind, and requires and accepts no qualifier. But I digress…
BBC America, 8:00 p.m. ET
In my opinion, this 1987 William Goldman adaptation of his own book, directed by Rob Reiner and starring Mandy Patinkin, Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Wallace Shawn, Andre the Giant, Billy Crystal and Carol Kane, is The Wizard of Oz of its generation – the finest family movie made since that 1939 classic. And yes, I really mean it. Anybody want a peanut?
Decades, 8:00 p.m. ET
Here’s a real TV rarity: Tonight on DECADES, the ABC 1966-67 camp fantasy series The Green Hornet, presented as a spinoff of sorts from the contemporaneous, equally camp Batman, is shown in its entirety, in one long 26-episode marathon, beginning at 8 p.m. ET. Van Williams stars as the masked crimefighter – by day, a well-to-do newspaper publisher named Britt Reid – but the big draw here is Reid’s valet and chauffeur, Kato, a kung fu expert who also serves as the Green Hornet’s sidekicking sidekick. He’s played by the great Bruce Lee – as referenced in Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood. If you’re diving into The Green Hornet for the first time, watch the premiere episode at 8 p.m. ET, then try to make sure to catch 1966’s “The Frog Is a Deadly Weapon” episode (at 10 p.m. ET) and 1967’s “Corpse of the Year” (2:30 a.m. ET). Both of those episodes feature Barbara Babcock, whom you may recall as the sensual Grace Gardner on NBC’s Hill Street Blues. Or, perhaps, in a pivotal NBC Star Trek episode aired the season after The Green Hornet: the seminal 1968 “Plato’s Stepchildren” episode, featuring TV’s first interracial kiss (between William Shatner’s Captain Kirk and Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura).
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
In tonight’s episode, Angela (Regina King) takes some of the mind-altering drug Nostalgia – but it’s not hers, which makes her mental trip even more surreal. And dangerous…
Showtime, 10:00 p.m. ET
Episodes 5 and 6. Daisy Haggard is showcased in two more Back to Life episode, as this series burns through its Season 1 output in weekly double doses.
HBO, 10:30 p.m. ET
Kathryn Hahn’s performance as the title character here is one of this year’s more unexpected and happy surprises. Her confident and well-timed handling of the comic scenes is the predictable part – but she’s been so good with the winsome, sad, intimate, embarrassing and even fantasy scenes that she brings her character, and this series, fully to life.