Various Networks, Check local listings
Today’s games – four of them – are spread between two networks. The day’s first game, with the Pittsburgh Pirates vs. the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 2 of their series, is on MLB Network at 1 p.m. ET. After that, the postseason baseball action shifts to TBS, where the Tampa Bay Rays play the Boston Red Sox at 3 p.m. ET, the Los Angeles Dodgers play their second playoff game against the Atlanta Braves (at 6 p.m. ET), and the Detroit Tigers and Oakland Athletics get the night game, with TBS coverage beginning at 9:30 ET. The Dodgers (pictured) and the Pirates won their games yesterday.
PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
Henry IV, Part II. It may look like an old-fashioned baseball score, but it’s actually the latest entry in this new PBS presentation of William Shakespeare’s history cycle. Jeremy Irons stars as King Henry IV, Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal, and Simon Russell Beale, making the most of a big supporting role (literally a big one) as Falstaff. Check local listings.
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
This 2012 Steven Spielberg movie, and its central performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, are worth watching any time. But I’m looking forward to this particular repeat telecast because, in the interim, I screened for one of my TV classes at Rowan University an episode of Gidget, the Sixties series in which Sally Field played a peppy surf chick teenager. Watching her play Mary Todd Lincoln to Day-Lewis’ Abraham, after all the intervening years, is an enthralling history lesson – twice.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
I don’t care who else is on Maher’s show tonight. I’ll be watching, and thrilled, because the mid-show interview guest is the great Carl Reiner. He’s 91 years old now, and has been turning out great entertainment for at least 63 of them. That’s how long ago he played a very funny straight man to Sid Caesar on NBC’s Your Show of Shows. To put it into perspective, that was 15 years before Sally Field played a perky teen in Gidget.
Sundance, 10:00 p.m. ET
Matthew Broderick and Marlon Brando star in a 1990 movie that somehow manages to be a dark comedy, a satire, a drama and a love story all at once – and succeeds at every turn. To say more, other than to urge you to watch, would be taking away from the fun… which definitely includes having fun with the star of The Godfather.