SATURDAY
NOVEMBER 30
2013

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Comedy Central, 8:00 p.m. ET

Next year, the Farrelly Brothers will be releasing a 20-years-after sequel to this bizarre buddy comedy. Like this 1994 original, it will star Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels as Harry and Lloyd. And just after Daniels won an Emmy as the smart and smarter news anchor on HBO’s Newsroom, the contrast ought to be especially entertaining. One element of the new Dumb and Dumber To movie that isn’t in the one shown tonight: co-star Jennifer Lawrence.  When the first Dumb and Dumber hit theaters, she was four.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET

This 2013 movie, a stab at appealing to the Twilight crowd with another adaptation of a Young Adult series of novels, is noted because a) it’s a slow Thanksgiving weekend, and b) it has some participants worth watching, if only to contrast with other current roles. Emmy Rossum (pictured), who plays Ridley, for example, is playing a completely different role here than her rebellious yet responsible Fiona Gallagher in Showtime’s Shameless. Then there’s Emma Thompson, currently starring opposite Tom Hanks in the movie Saving Mr. Banks, playing Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers. In Beautiful Creatures, Thompson gets to show off and have fun by playing two roles – one prim, the other possessed.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

I consider this 1956 John Ford Western one of the very best John Wayne movies ever made. His Ethan Edwards is a complicated character, and not an especially flattering one. He embarks on a long, obsessive quest in search of his young niece, who was abducted by Comanches during a raid in which they slaughtered her family. Co-stars include Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles and Natalie Wood – and the plot, like the scenery, is singular and unforgettable.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET

If you watch this on a holiday weekend, it’s only because you’ve got pre-teens around. BBC America used all its Doctor Who golden-anniversary promotional muscle to promote this new series import, which premiered last week. It turned out, however, to be a decidedly juvenile affair, with a tone, and a script, that made it seem like a TV sibling of Young Hercules. Oh, and Hercules is in this new series, but not as a teenager – though there is a young Jason. And a young Pythagoras. But if there’s a triangle in play, it’s not a romantic one.

 
  
 
 

Spike, 10:00 p.m. ET

If you watched the mini-Star Wars marathon begun yesterday on Spike, today you can see the movie that launched the entire franchise: George Lucas’s 1977 space epic, originally called, simply, Star Wars. But that was before Lucas produced a trio of prequels – which can be seen today as well, beginning at noon ET.


 
  
 
 
 
 
Read and add comments HERE for today's Best Bets!
 
 
 
 
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Dave Bianculli
Howdy pardner,

Did you pass out on your keyboard after getting drunk, and then just kept bouncing your head over and over and over???

ROTFFLMBFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously dude, watch more TV, drink less alcohol!!!!

Warmly,

Dave
Jun 20, 2026
 
 
 
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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.