Various Networks, 10:00 a.m. ET
These hearings, which begin today and are covered by various networks, are the fourth presidential impeachment hearings in history – and the third which I’ve made a point of watching devotedly on television. The most recent one before this, in 1998, was about Bill Clinton, who remained in office. Before that, it was the 1973 Watergate hearings, which led to the pre-impeachment resignation by Richard Nixon. And I wasn’t a TV critic then: I was watching purely as a civilian. Each event has been covered differently by television, because television has been different each time, evolving into a new animal. And we’ve come a long way. (Think of it: Our country’s very first impeachment hearings, against Andrew Johnson in 1868, weren’t televised at all!) Today’s first day of hearings, intended to set the stage for the testimony and narrative to follow, feature two witnesses: Bill Taylor and George Kent, both of whom are on the record responding with concern about the contents of the infamous Ukraine call and negotiations. I recommend sampling coverage from several different networks whenever you watch these hearings, bouncing from network to network to hear how the respective anchors and analysts characterize the proceedings before and after the interrogations. The hearings begin at 10 a.m. ET, and you may as well begin at the most objective source: C-SPAN 3, which will cover this governmental affair as it does all others, without comment. Then go to your favorite broadcast TV source, whether it be PBS (with PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff), CBS (led by CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell), NBC (Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, Chuck Todd), or ABC (George Stephanopoulos, David Muir, Jonathan Karl). Then, or in lieu of the broadcast networks, go to the cable news channels, such as MSNBC (anchored by Brian Williams and Nicolle Wallace), Fox News (with coverage anchored by Bret Baier, Chris Wallace and John Roberts), and CNN (across all its CNN family of networks). And keep switching among them: the questions and testimony will remain the same, but the reactions will be decidedly, and tellingly, different.
Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET
Yes, there’s a real reason to watch tonight’s episode of The Masked Singer. This season already has upped its watchability quotient by unmasking, as one of its contestants, Paul Shaffer (a.k.a. the Skeleton, pictured). And tonight, its guest judge is another entertaining old dog: specifically, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Robert Smigel, who voices and operates the caustic canine hand puppet, is likely to make Simon Cowell of American Idol, by comparison, seem like a cuddly Care Bear.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Now that TCM has begun televising imaginatively paired double features (The Dirty Dozen and Kelly’s Heroes), I keep daydreaming about other possibilities. Tonight, for example, TCM leads off prime time with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s gorgeous 1948 movie, The Red Shoes. Moira Shearer stars as an ambitious ballerina swept by dueling desires and supernatural forces – and what a great opening act it would make for a double feature, followed by Natalie Portman in 2010’s similarly themed Black Swan.
AMC, Sundance, 9:00 p.m. ET
MINISERIES PREMIERE: The title of this five-part miniseries sounds like a tacky Lifetime movie drama, but it’s not. Instead, this nonfiction study, simulcast on both AMC and Sundance, is a documentary about the 1986 murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin, strangled by “The Preppy Killer,” Robert Chambers. The story becomes as much about the media and the courts as the case itself – and directors Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern reexamine it all. Continues tomorrow; concludes Friday.
FXX, 10:30 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: This delightfully unpredictable and varied sample of animation and short film pieces concludes with what I consider a very successful initial, experimental season. Not since USA Network’s original
Night Flight in the 1970s, and Adult Swim’s
Robot Chicken in the 2000s, has a late-night TV show served up such entertaining potpourri. For a coincidental but appropriately sweet connection between
Cake and TV Worth Watching,
see yesterday’s Best TV Tomorrow, which recommends this very program.
Sundance, 11:00 p.m. ET
MINISERIES FINALE: Jenna Coleman has been remarkable in this four-part mystery miniseries – and tonight, as the mystery is solved, she’s even better. And the ending, I promise, will stay with you for a long time. I saw this when it premiered on Sundance’s streaming service, Sundance Now, a year ago, and I’m still haunted by it.