Britbox, 3:00 a.m. ET
From 1978 to 1985, the BBC spent seven years producing new TV productions of every play William Shakespeare ever wrote. I reviewed them, as a TV critic, as all 37 were released stateside by PBS – and expected to see them repeated on TV from then on. Instead, they all but vanished. Until now, when Britbox is making all of them available for streaming beginning today. Helen Mirren is in two of my very favorites from this BBC run: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It. But also, make sure to catch Titus Andronicus (pictured), the rarely performed, very bloody drama that basically is Shakespeare’s version of a splatter film.
History, 9:00 p.m. ET
Episode 2. Granted, the reenactments in this new History documentary about Ulysses S. Grant often are problematic. But the history being retold here is captivating, and inarguably valid and valuable.
MGM HD, 9:40 p.m. ET
This 1989 movie is a super-stylized horror film – as much a character study of delusional aberrant behavior as of being in thrall of an alleged vampire. And it’s the acting that makes it work so well, led by Jennifer Beals as the potentially undead femme fatale, and Nicolas Cage as the man whose cinematic and gothic influences go all the way back to Nosferatu.
MeTV, 11:30 p.m. ET
HBO will be coming out with a brand-new version of Perry Mason next month, starring Matthew Rhys from The Americans as a younger, pre-courtroom Perry Mason. But tonight, MeTV presents the 1962 episode of the original CBS Perry Mason, starring Raymond Burr, in the only episode in which Mason lost a case.