SATURDAY
AUGUST 31
2013

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

AMC, 1:00 p.m. ET

There’s a whole posse of great characters in this superb 1989 CBS miniseries adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s equally superb Western novel. But for now, stay with the head of the herd: Robert Duvall gives a career-best performance as Augustus McRae, and Tommy Lee Jones does likewise as fellow retired Texas Ranger Woodrow Call. Given those two actors, claiming a career best is really, really up there. And Danny Glover, Diane Lane, Anjelica Huston – hell, everyone and everything in this miniseries is worth watching, from start to finish. And you can do just that, today, as AMC televises the entire miniseries from 1-9 p.m. ET.

 
  
 
 

G4, 7:00 p.m. ET

Want to know what state-of-the-art computers, both the home and military versions, looked like 30 years ago? This 1983 drama shows you precisely that, as Matthew Broderick – also 30 years younger – plays a high-school computer nerd who accidentally hacks into a super-restricted American military computer. A simple question, from the computer, leads to a very complex situation. The special effects, almost a third of a century later, are almost laughable. The message, however, is anything but.

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s Doctor of note will have the most comprehensive retrospective of any Doctor in this series of specials, but that’s only because the reign of “The Eighth Doctor” lasted only two hours. After the original BBC Doctor Who series, which ran in the U.K. from 1963 to 1989, had gone dormant, the character and storyline were revived for a pilot telemovie in 1996, with the expectations of a new American-produced series to follow. Yet when the Doctor Who made-for-TV movie was shown on Fox and the BBC in 1996, starring Paul McGann as the newest incarnation of the Doctor, it bombed stateside, and the character was shelved until the franchise was relaunched in 2005. So the entirety of McGann’s reign as the Doctor consists of a single telemovie, which BBC America is presenting, also in its entirety, as part of this Eighth Doctor tribute. Co-stars include Daphne Ashbrook as the Doctor’s companion, and Eric Roberts as the Master.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET

This 2012 film version of the ultra-popular stage musical stars Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert, and Anne Hathaway as Fantine. (She won an Oscar; the others did not.) The other supporting players worth noting, in addition to Hathaway’s unbroken-take vocal showstopper, include Amanda Seyfried as Cosette and, as comic relief, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thenardiers.

 
  
 
 

NBC, 9:00 p.m. ET

SERIES FINALE: You don’t have to be a top-notch physician to guess that the prognosis for this NBC series is as grim as can be: Its final two episodes are shown, as a Saturday night double feature, on Labor day weekend. Mark this one D.O.A. – as in, after tonight, Definitely Off the Air.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.