Apple TV+, 3:00 a.m. ET
MINISERIES PREMIERE: I’m noting this new Apple TV+ mystery miniseries more for its cast than for its content or execution. It’s the story of a young teen, brutally murdered, and other young teens who are suspects – including Jacob, a sullen kid whose parents, played by Chris Evans and Michelle Dockery, are set with the task of… well, see the title.
For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.
Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: The arrival of Season 2 of Ricky Gervais’ Netflix comedy, in which he plays a newspaper reporter grieving from the recent death of his wife, would seem to be ill-timed. At a time when all of us are feeling isolated and raw, why watch something with such a sad, depressing premise? I mean, really: These days, who can bear to watch a show about a poor soul who still works for a newspaper? Yet almost instantly, Gervais and After Life deliver the solid, unexpected laughs that felt almost like steam escaping from a pressure valve. You wouldn’t think it from the story line description: As the new season begins, Gervais’ Tony still is mired in his own grief, but accepts an assignment from his paper to go interview the oldest person in the tiny Worchestershire town of Tenbury, a woman who just turned 100 and got a congratulatory telegram from the Queen. Tony, hoping to write a simple, cheery feature story, and cure his own depression in the process, asks her a series of standard puff questions – but each and every answer of hers is pithy and bitter, and utterly hilarious. I’ll share tastes of three, then let you decide if After Life is for you at the moment. Q: “How did you feel when you got the telegram from the Queen?” A: “Same as I feel every other day. Dreadful. In pain. Wishing I hadn’t lived through the night.” Q: What advice would you give to someone to have a long life like yours?” A: “Don’t.” Q: “You must have seen a lot, though – 100 years!” A: “I was born in Tenbury. I will die in Tenbury – very soon, I hope. I’ve seen f***-all. I may as well have been a tree!”
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
A new socially distanced edition features Nancy Pelosi and, reportedly somehow “in person,” Jay Leno.
BBC America, 11:00 p.m. ET
Just because Graham Norton’s guest couch is virtual these days, that doesn’t mean he can’t continue to fill it with interesting guests. Tonight, that roster includes one of my favorite current TV writer-producer-stars, Phoebe Waller-Bridge of Fleabag and Killing Eve (and now about to pop up on HBO’s new Run sitcom), and Richard E. Grant, co-star of one of my favorite current TV shows, AMC’s Dispatches from Elsewhere. Oh, and fans of Chris Hemsworth might get Thor if I didn’t mention him as well.