TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Psst! Don’t tell my TV History and Appreciation of the 60s and 70s class at Rowan University, but this 1971 Steven Spielberg made-for-TV movie is on the lesson plan for Monday’s class. It was the masterfully directed action movie and psychological thriller that launched Spielberg’s career into a higher gear, leading almost directly to Jaws four years later. Dennis Weaver stars, as a meek man harassed on the open highway by a prehistoric-looking old truck and its mysterious, mostly unseen driver. “You can’t beat me on the grade!” Great movie.
PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
Consider this repeat telecast another of the nine lives for this 1998 Great Performances production of Cats, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s once-ubiquitous stage musical based on the fanciful musings of T.S. Eliot. This production captures, for posterity, the performances of Elaine Paige as Grizabella, Ken Page as Old Deuteronomy, and Carrot Top as Hairball. (Okay, I admit it: I made that last one up.) Check local listings.
National Geographic, 9:00 p.m. ET
Part 1 of 3. This network devotes three nights, and six hours, to an examination of what we eat, and why, and how it gets to our table and is prepared. You know that axiom about not wanting to know how the sausage is made? Be afraid. Be very afraid. Tonight: Processed foods and grocery stores.
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
This is a fascinating special, and a glimpse at watching true creativity in action – and, at times, creativity inaction as well. Writer-director Sam Jones has cameras running during the two-week period in which legendary music producer T Bone Burnett invites a hand-picked gaggle of musicians to create an entire album, and suite of songs, out of a mother lode of rare lyrical artifacts: unpublished lyrics written by Bob Dylan during his Big Pink “Basement Tapes” year in 1967. The collected group, confusingly called The New Basement Tapes (as is the resultant CD, subtitled Lost on the River), includes Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, Rhiannon Giddens, Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James and a few scattered friends. The recreated “home-movie footage,” with actors standing in for Dylan and what would become The Band, isn’t necessary – but the sequences showing artists as talented as Mumford (pictured) and Giddens getting all anxious about writing music up to the task, those are inspiring. And the music, paired with and building upon Dylan’s early, formerly unreleased lyrics? Some of it’s great. Start with Mumford’s performance on “When I Get My Hands on You,” a song credited to Dylan, Mumford and Goldsmith, and prepare to be dazzled. Oh, and I almost forgot the best part: new recordings by Bob Dylan himself. They’re only of his voice, in an audio interview recorded especially for this film, But still…
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: What a way to go out for the season. Chris Matthews is on the panel, John Cleese is the scheduled top-of-show guest, and Seth Rogen joins the panel midway through. And while there are plenty of hot topics for Maher and company to consider, the political highlight is immigration reform – and the third-rail topic, one of Maher’s specialties, is the swirling controversy surrounding Bill Cosby.
CBS, 11:35 p.m. ET
One of tonight’s guests is James Corden, for whom host Letterman, as the boss at Worldwide Pants, has more than the usual stake. Corden, come next January, is the new host of The Late Late Show.