WEDNESDAY
OCTOBER 3
2018

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Lon Chaney Sr., the Man of a Thousand Faces, is tonight’s featured artist, and you can see a few of his faces in full view (or dimly lit) in this evening’s lineup. Most famously: At 9 p.m. ET, TCM presents the silent 1925 classic version of Phantom of the Opera (pictured). But there are other films, rarely shown even on TCM, that are very much worth watching, beginning at 8 p.m. ET with Tod Browning’s creepy 1927 film The Unknown, in which Chaney plays a killer hiding in a circus sideshow, pretending to be an armless man (Browning, five years later, would revisit the carney setting for his macabre 1933 masterpiece, Freaks). Also on the schedule: At 10:45 p.m. ET, 1925’s silent film The Monster, and, at 12:30 a.m. ET, a real rarity: 1920’s The Penalty, in which Chaney plays a double amputee seeking revenge on the doctor who removed his legs.

 
  
 
 

Comedy Central, 10:00 p.m. ET

Has this long-running series finally lost its edge, and its appetite to approach third-rail subjects? Uh, no. Not even close. Last week, in its Season 22 premiere, South Park did a show about multiple school shootings, including at South Park. And tonight, in an episode called “A Boy and a Priest,” South Park has Butters developing a relationship with his parish priest that leads to Catholic Church leaders being notified, and called in. And this is only week two of the new season…

 
  
 
 
 
 
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David Bianculli

Founder / Editor

David Bianculli has been a TV critic since 1975, including a 14-year stint at the New York Daily News, and sees no reason to stop now. Currently, he's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and is an occasional substitute host for that show. He's also an author and teaches TV and film history at New Jersey's Rowan University. His 2009 Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', has been purchased for film rights. His latest, The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to the Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific, is an effusive guidebook that plots the path from the 1950s’ Golden Age to today’s era of quality TV.