Showtime, 8:00 p.m. ET
If Eric Gould’s recent
Cold Light Reader appreciation of this new Showtime series (read it
HERE) made you wish you had caught the show from the beginning, tonight you can. As counter-programming to the Oscars, Showtime is repeating all six episodes to date of this bold new Don Cheadle series. I recommend watching the Academy Awards anyway – but recording this, for convenient viewing whenever you can get to it. That’s my management-consultant advice regarding tonight’s TV options. And it’s free.
ABC, 8:30 a.m. ET
Billy Crystal is back as host, which really is all I need to know to tune in, sit back, relax, and expect a good time. There are lots of good films and nominees for which to root this year – and, I’m strongly hoping, there’ll even be a Muppet or two.
AMC, 9:00 p.m. ET
This series, so far in the second half of season two, has served up two jump-out-of-your-seat moments already, and I feel the show is just getting started. And again, while this isn’t worth skipping the Oscars to watch, it’s worth recording – and AMC also repeats it a few times tonight, to make viewing it later even easier. Tonight, Rick and Shane finally confront each other with all hostilities laid bare. With that sort of tension, who needs zombies?
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
In this new episode, Escalante decides to push Pint of Plain by entering the horse in a race – which could lead from Plain to pain. Again, count on HBO to repeat this episode many, many times this week, so catch or record it accordingly.
TCM, 9:45 p.m. ET
This movie competes directly with the second half of the Oscars – but if you can record it, you really, really should. I saw this 1962 movie, for the first time, at a drive-in when it first came out, snuggled in the back seat of my dad’s car. Bette Davis, playing a faded and vengeful former child star, creeps out her helpless sibling, played by Joan Crawford, in this intentionally over-the-top horror movie. But back then, Bette Davis' Baby Jane creeped me out even more. Trust me: a pitch-black drive-in, in the middle of nowhere, was no place to watch this film as an impressionable nine-year-old.