TCM, 1:00 p.m. ET
Today’s TCM all-day film salute is devoted to Greta Garbo – and pays almost as much attention to her silent movies as to her later ones from the sound era. This very fictionalized biographical drama, from 1931, is one of Garbo’s first talkies, and certainly one of her most notorious, if only for the costumes she wore in this absurd but entertaining account of the infamous WWI femme fatale spy. Lionel Barrymore co-stars.
BET, 8:00 p.m. ET
Noting the decade that has passed since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast (10 years ago this weekend), BET’s Jeff Johnson surveys the damage, the recovery, the delays in rebuilding – and the resilience of the survivors, in Louisiana and elsewhere.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
A brave component of today’s all-day, all-night Greta Garbo tribute on TCM is that the network has decided to schedule, in prime time, two of her silent movies. Both of them were made and released after the 1927 game-changing unveiling of The Jazz Singer, widely credited as the first full-length talking picture (even though many of its scenes were silent, with written screen cards for dialogue). At 9:45 p.m. ET, TCM shows the 1929 film Wild Orchids, in which Garbo plays a married woman drawn to another man. And before that, at 8 p.m. ET, the network presents 1928’s A Woman of Affairs (pictured), in which Garbo, opposite frequent screen co-star John Gilbert, suffers a series of troubled romances.
Comedy Central, 10:00 p.m. ET
In tonight’s episode, one of the sketches involves a “tickle game” that gets out of control. Nothing I can write to describe the skit in any more detail would do it justice, or keep me from offending somebody. So just watch, please.
USA, 10:01 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: Last week’s episode, like the one before that and the one before that, served up an emotional game-changer of the highest level. But last week’s was a doozy: One week after we learned who the title character really was, we learned who he wasn’t. Or, at least, when and where he wasn’t. So what’s left tonight? More bending of reality – and, given this show’s penchant for puzzling cliffhangers, probably a season-ending finale to keep us buzzing until next year.