BET, 3:30 p.m. ET
After showing Roots in its entirety on Monday, and Roots: The Next Generations yesterday, BET wraps up the sprawling Alex Haley story of his ancestors by presenting this 1993 miniseries. It explores the paternal branches of Haley’s family tree – and gives Halle Berry an early, significant starring role (the titular one) as Haley’s grandmother. Co-stars include Ossie Davis, Ann-Margret, Tim Daly and, in an early role, Frances Conroy, currently serving as the angel of deat on FX’s American Horror Story: Asylum.
HBO2, 8:00 p.m. ET
What the frak? This 2010 Josh Fox documentary takes a clear and harsh look at “fracking,” the still-controversial method of extracting natural gas from deep beneath the ground, via a hydraulic drilling process involving water, pressure and chemicals. It’s a cocktail that’s proven lucrative for such companies as Halliburton – and questionable for those worried about the environment. One homeowner, whose local ground water has been compromised by the fracking process, turns on the tap at his kitchen sink – and lights the resulting stream of water on fire.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Barbra Stanwyck Month continues on TCM, and the prime-time offerings tonight are from the Fifties. Forty Guns, a frontier saga from 1957 where she plays a tough ranch owner, starts the evening at 8 pm. ET – and also serves as a hint at what would come on TV a decade later, when she starred in The Big Valley. Next, at 9:30 pm. ET, comes 1956’s The Maverick Queen, in which Stanwyck stars as a tough saloonkeeper. (Notice the pattern?) But set your DVRs for 4 a.m. ET, because that’s when a younger Stanwyck stars in 1935’s Annie Oakley, playing the title role in a rarely televised George Stevens film.
CBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
David Letterman and Dustin Hoffman are two of the honorees at this year’s annual Kennedy Center Honors, which always arrives in the last weeks of the year – and just as invariably ends up as one of the year’s best entertainment specials. The artists honored in 2012 also include blues great Buddy Guy, ballerina Natalia Makarova, and rock group Led Zeppelin. The eclecticism is part of the charm here, as is the enthusiasm and talent of the people who honor the honorees. That roll call, this year, includes Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Jimmy Kimmel saluting Letterman, Robert De Niro remarking about Hoffman, and the Foo Fighters, Kid Rock, Lenny Kravitz and Ann and Nancy Wilson tackling the music of Led Zeppelin. As always, one of December’s few true TV treats.
BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET
Bel and Freddie (Romola Garai, Ben Whishaw) get so deep into their latest journalistic story that a source is found dead, leaving Bel determined to stop the investigation – and Freddie equally determined to keep going.