YouTube, 8:00 p.m. ET
SPECIAL PREMIERE: Stephen Sondheim turned 90 on March 22, but today’s a proper reason to celebrate. That’s true not only because his officially scheduled celebration was kneecapped by social distancing, but also because today – April 26 – marks the golden anniversary of the premiere of his stunning musical Company on Broadway. And to celebrate, however they can, using whatever technology and ingenuity they can, Sondheim’s many artistic collaborators keep adding to the guest list for tonight’s special. It’s available to watch on the www.Broadway.com website, and also at its YouTube channel. And check out the list of performers and celebrants: Bernadette Peters, Mandy Patinkin, Audra McDonald, Meryl Street, Steven Spielberg, Laura Benanti, Melissa Errico, Neil Patrick Harris, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Platt, Randy Rainbow, Victor Garber, Nathan Lane, Joanna Gleason, Patti LuPone, Jake Gyllenhaal, Donna Murphy, Kelli O’Hara, Michael Cerveris, Sutton Foster, Kristin Chenoweth – and Katrina Lenk, the star of the Company revival whose opening was postponed by New York’s stay-at-home guidelines. Raul Esparza hosts. (The special, not the quarantine.)
NBC, 9:00 p.m. ET
This show is getting more emotional as it goes on. And, like many of life’s events and twists and turns, more unexpected. Jane Levy, as Zoey, has accepted what may be one of TV’s most difficult roles at the moment – she has to do so much, as both an actor and a reactor – and she’s killing it.
BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET
At the very end of last week’s episode, Jodie Comer’s Villanelle discovered, to her astonishment, that Eve (Sandra Oh), whom she’d shot and left for dead at the end of last season, actually had survived, and was alive. Since Villanelle had moved on by marrying, and by taking a crack at moving up to the assassin equivalent of upper management, this news is destined to throw her into quite a state. But no matter what, her wardrobe is killer.
ESPN, 9:00 p.m. ET
The first two parts of ESPN’s new 10-part documentary about Michael Jordan’s 1997-98 final championship run with the Chicago Bulls were presented last week, and set the stage compellingly by providing biographical context on both the team and its reigning star. It’s an excellent documentary so far – enough so that The Last Dance has elbowed its way into contention on TV’s busiest night of quality TV programming. Tonight: Dennis Rodman gets his closeup…
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
Quite a few wrinkles were added last week to the already crumpled story lines of Season 3. All that’s really clear, at this point, is that Dolores is someone, or something, to be reckoned with – whomever she happens to look like, and embody, at any given moment. What the Hale?
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
SERIES FINALE: When this series started back in 2011, the main characters were Claire Danes’ Carrie and Damian Lewis’ Brody – and the genius of that first season was that we weren’t sure whom to root for, or even who was to be fully trusted. Now we’re at the final episode, at the end of a great last season, and we’re revisiting a similar dynamic. Only this time, the two primary players are Claire and Mandy Patinkin’s Saul – with the world hanging in the balance, and with Carrie given the option of saving the planet by killing her beloved mentor. And since this is the end of the line, there’s really no telling who will do what. Or who, if anyone, will survive.
Showtime, 10:10 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: Technically, this is a series return, since Showtime’s
Penny Dreadful has been dormant for four years. It’s also a sort of reboot, since, like
Fargo, it’s restarting itself with an all-new story and setting, and with an almost entirely new cast. The original
Penny Dreadful took three seasons to tell its Victorian-era tale, a mashup cleverly combining the narratives of Victor Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll, Dorian Grey and Dracula. Now, for
City of Angels, this new
Penny Dreadful jumps to 1930s Los Angeles, with a narrative about a murder case and race war incited by a female demon (Natalie Dormer, who takes several forms here, and is fun to watch as each). For my full review on NPR’s
Fresh Air with Terry Gross, visit the
Fresh Air website.
For background info, see Mike Hughes' Open Mike.
HBO, 10:30 p.m. ET
Merritt Wever and Domhnall Gleeson have been great in this series – which, so far, has resembled nothing so much as last year’s State of the Union, the Sundance mini-miniseries in which Rosamund Pike and Chris O’Dowd played a married couple in personal crisis. In other words, it’s been a whipsmart two-hander, basically, showing how good two actors can be with the right material – but tonight, Run makes room for the first of a short run of guest stars to whom attention must be paid: in this case, former The Good Wife supporting player Archie Panjabi.
HBO, 11:05 p.m. ET
On tonight’s socially distanced wrap-up of the week’s events, John Oliver doesn’t have to address President Trump’s definition and defense of “sarcastic” to explain his remarks about possibly treating the coronavirus week’s by injecting bleach, or somehow shining ultraviolet light beneath the skin. But I so hope he does…