NFL Network, 4:00 p.m. ET
It’s only a pre-season game, but this one will feature the two top players in the most recent NFL draft – both of them quarterbacks, and taking the field today as pro rookies trying to learn, and strut, their stuff. The Indianapolis Colts, who got the first pick in April’s 2012 draft, selected Andrew Luck from Stanford, and the Washington Redskins, picking next, chose Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III from Baylor. Today, for the first time, they take the field in the same game – not against each other, but against each other’s defensive squads.
HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
Not to get all Shakespearean on you, but 2-D or not 2-D, that is the question. When this latest film in the Harold & Kumar franchise was released last year, it was in 3-D, with several gags making intentional fun of the visual, exploitable gimmick. In any number of dimensions, however, these films are more entertaining than you might expect – kind of like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope road movies for a new generation. John Cho and former House regular Kal Penn star, and yes, there’s another scene-stealing cameo by Neil Patrick Harris.
BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET
BBC America couldn’t milk Doctor Who any more vigorously if it were a swollen-uddered cow. For the second week in a row, there’s a new Doctor Who special – last time on his female companions, this time on his various time-travel locales. But next week, finally, the new season of Doctor Who begins. I wish I had a Tardis to take me there now, so I wouldn’t have to wait a week, and sit through yet another promotional highlights-and-interviews compilation.
Starz!, 9:00 p.m. ET
I said this was one of my
“spider-web” movies, and I meant it. And made in 2011, it may be the most recent one. Every time I watch, I look to enjoy something different. This time, I think, it’ll be Kathy Bates and Cory Stoll, as Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. What fantastically perfect performances, in small but invaluable supporting roles.
Showtime, 11:00 p.m. ET
The “senior black correspondent” for Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart gets his own Showtime standup showcase – and does it in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the setting alone, deep in Mormon country, is funny fodder for a comedian of the non-white persuasion. “Funny,” Wilmore says, referring to the local residents, “they don’t like it when I ring their doorbells.”