Fox, 7:30 p.m. ET
Last night’s Game 1 featured several lead changes, some tense duels between pitchers and batters, some outstanding defensive plays, and a few amazing swings of the bat. All in all, a great beginning to what could be a terrific, and anything but anticlimactic, World Series. The Washington Nationals prevailed over the Houston Astros in Game 1, with a final score of 5-4. Tonight, played again in Houston, it’s Game 2.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
I’m used to going to Turner Classic Movies to look for Best Bets – but tonight, in prime time, TCM is showing three comedy films that represent the best from some of cinema history’s very best comics. This tremendous triple feature begins at 8 p.m. ET with what I consider the Marx Brothers’ very best movie, 1933’s Duck Soup. It’s about the absurdity of war – well, it’s about the absurdity of everything, basically – but in questioning governmental authority of all types, Duck Soup is especially welcome in these times, even if some of the laughs may hurt a bit.
TCM, 9:30 p.m. ET
The second of three TCM comedy classics shown tonight, this is W.C. Fields’ 1940 masterpiece, The Bank Dick. It’s about a town drunk who accidentally prevents a pair of bank robberies, and is rewarded with the job of bank guard. The humor begins with the inebriated central character’s name: Egbert Sousé.
TCM, 11:00 p.m. ET
After the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields, what else do you need for a perfect evening of comedy? How about Laurel and Hardy? And here they are: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, in a movie made the same year as Duck Soup in 1933. Sons of the Desert has our less than dynamic duo trying to sneak away from their wives to attend a lodge convention. How funny is that? In their hands, very, very funny indeed…
Sundance, 11:00 p.m. ET
This miniseries was shown already on Sundance’s streaming service, Sundance Now – and I reviewed it very positively then, because of both its clever mystery plot, and its spellbinding central performance by Jenna Coleman, who charmed me as Clara in Doctor Who, then wowed me as a young Queen Victoria in Victoria. Now the miniseries gets an encore showing on Sundance Channel itself, which should bring The Cry, deservedly, to a larger audience. Coleman plays a schoolteacher whose baby vanishes while she’s on vacation in Australia – but the facts, motivations, and twists are a lot more complicated than that.