PBS, 12:00 p.m. ET
Back in the mid-1970s, I was introduced to Philip Glass – not the composer, but his music – by my very good friend Mark Clark, who used to run the classical music section at the local Peaches record store in Fort Lauderdale. He was helping me move from one Gainesville college location to another, and we had rented a cheap moving truck with no radio. So we set up two portable radios, one at my old place, one at the new one, and tuned them to the same radio station, so we could listen to music as we lugged furniture and boxes in and out. Because Mark was not only tuned, but attuned, to the local public radio station, he knew it was broadcasting the just-released recording of Philip Glass’ Einstein on the Beach – a lengthy modern opera that, then and now, remains one of the most enchantingly weird things I’ve ever heard. The joke was, Glass’ minimalistic music changed by such tiny and slow increments that it felt like, despite the 15 minutes of blackout radio silence between the two locations, we always seemed to enter one home with the exact same music playing we had last heard when leaving the other. I’ve been fascinated by Philip Glass ever since. And this opera, Akhnaten, is the 1983 part of Glass’ trilogy about famous thinkers, and is about the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, aka Amenhotep IV – and parts of it are sung, I’m pretty sure, in Sanskrit. I saw a revival of this recent production of Akhnaten at the Met last November, and also saw it, later the same week, simulcast to movie theaters, in the presentation offered today, on tape, by Great Performances at the Met. Other than the absence of male frontal nudity, it’s the same four-and-a-half-hour opera you’d have seen live – and some of the stage effects are as singularly odd and mesmerizing as the music. Come for the jugglers; stay for the song salutes to monotheism. Anthony Roth Costanzo stars in the title role, with J’Nail Bridges as Nefertiti. Check local listings.
BBC America, 3:00 p.m. ET
Here in the U.S., we’ve either watched, or avoided, every day, the live briefings by President Donald Trump as he addresses our country about the coronavirus. Today, thanks to a simulcast by BBC America, we get to see how another country, and world figure, handles things. In prime time in the U.K. on the BBC, Her Majesty the Queen, at age 92, is addressing her followers on the coronavirus crisis – and because our time zones here in the colonies are hours earlier, we get to watch her in what is our afternoon. Her remarks were taped at Windsor Castle, so this isn’t strictly live – but what an unprecedented opportunity. Usually, the only time we get live feeds from England is to watch royal weddings – or funerals. And for Queen Elizabeth II herself, this is only the fifth time she has addressed her country via television since she ascended to the throne. That was 68 years ago. But this time it’s personal: her own son, Prince Charles, tested positive for COVID-19, but the 71-year-old said Wednesday he was “on the other side” of the illness, and has recovered.
HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
DOCUMENTARY SERIES PREMIERE: This new five-part documentary takes a long, hard look at a cold case that has gotten very heated since it was reopened, 40 years after its nationally prominent exposure. At least 30 African-American children and young adults were murdered, or vanished, in Atlanta between 1979 and 1981 – and the vast majority of those cases were closed without being solved. This new HBO series follows the case as it’s reopened, and sheds light on some very dark places.
NBC, 9:00 p.m. ET
Last week, Zoey was at the doctor’s appointment where her father was given the news he probably had only weeks to live, as his degenerative condition was getting even worse. She reacted by developing a “glitch” in her recently discovered hidden power: instead of hearing and seeing the inner thoughts of others revealed in song, she was now revealing her own thoughts by breaking out into song and dance. But without control. And, unlike the fantasy-world behavior she’s witnessed in others, in real life. She was left, after it all, further confusing her relationships with two male co-workers, singing to her father how irreplaceable he was in her life – and making me cry a little bit. It was a fabulous showcase for Jane Levy, whose Zoey, to this point, has been more reactive than in the spotlight. And this week, as Zoey, she persists…
PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
MINISERIES PREMIERE: This British import, which aired there last fall, is a drama about the impending slow march into a second world war. The year is 1939 – and while England is at war already with Germany, the U.S. is practicing isolationism, until the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1941. But overseas,
World on Fire shows us the escalating conflicts through the eyes of British citizens and soldiers – and, significantly, also through the eyes of an American journalist in England witnessing the initial battles. She’s played by Helen Hunt, marvelously. And with the rest of
World on Fire offering other perspectives as well, from several countries outside of the U.K. (including the United States), this miniseries, already scheduled to continue its story in a second season, tells the story of World War II from a point of view that does, indeed, take the World part into account. For full reviews,
see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower, and
Mike Hughes' Open Mike.
Check local listings.
AMC, 9:00 p.m. ET
This week’s episode, called “The Tower,” technically is the penultimate installment of this Season 10 – but since the final episode is being withheld until production and post-production can be completed if and when Hollywood, and Atlanta, return to show business as usual, this is it. The Whisperers, angered by the fate of Alpha and the discovery of her head on a pike, are on the move, in a very specific direction. And it’s a warpath.
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
So far, Season 3 of Westworld has been almost all about the women – especially Dolores and Maeve, two powerful women, or androids, taking control of their own actions and destinies. But tonight, we return to one of the central male figures of the series to date, whose future is similarly in flux. And perhaps his identity, too…
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
Last week’s episode ended jarringly and ominously, with Carrie running away from Saul, and fleeing with her Russian friend, rather than return to America in handcuffs and under armed guard. Tonight, she’s considered “In Full Flight,” the title of tonight’s installment – but Saul knows better, and it seems only what she can do, and find, may stop the new President’s planned, and potentially disastrous, invasion of Pakistan.
PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET
PREMIERE: On the same night PBS dramatizes the beginnings of WWII in
World on Fire, it also presents a dramatization set at the end of that same war.
The Windermere Children tells of the time, in 1945, when England opened its doors to an estimated 1,000 young Holocaust survivors, and dispatched them to safe havens, places where they could learn English, be educated, fed, and generally reclaimed as human beings. Some 400 of those young people were sent to the affluent Calgarth Estate at Lake Windermere – and this carefully researched, meticulously recreated drama is their story.
For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.
Check local listings.
HBO, 11:00 p.m. ET
Last week on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the host, returning from virus-dictated hiatus to present his HBO show from his own home, ended the program by sharing his discovery of footage from a vintage local public TV fundraising auction. Very vintage, as in 1992, and very local, as in York, PA. A local artist, Brian Swords, had several works up for bid, and Oliver was fascinated by them, because one series of paintings depicted human-like rats in amorous embraces. One painting, titled “Stay Up Late,” was sold for $80 when auctioned on that nearly 30-year-old auction by WITF-TV. But last week on Last Week, Oliver made a genuine offer to the current owner of that painting: Oliver would buy it for $1,000, plus make an additional donation of $20,000 to the seller’s local food bank. “I want that piece of art hanging behind me on this wall next week,” Oliver said. Tonight, we’ll see if he pulled if off – and hung it up.