NBC, 9:00 a.m. ET
I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade – and it looks like relatively good weather for today’s outdoor festivities in New York City, so here it is. The parade is broadcast live, as usual, by NBC – but not even NBC Radio, which was founded in 1926, was around when the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was held in 1924. The country’s first Thanksgiving Parade held in a major city, though, was in Philadelphia, which held its first celebration in 1920.
Apple TV+, 3:00 a.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: I don’t have the slightest idea why Apple TV+ didn’t include this spooky new M. Night Shyamalan series when the streaming service launched earlier this month, because it’s better than The Morning Show or anything else the service has offered thus far. Well, actually, that may explain it, because had Servant rolled out with all the other new Apple TV+ shows November 1, it would have eclipsed them all. I don’t have an explanation, though, why Servant would be unveiled on Thanksgiving Day, because it’s a brooding, psychologically unsettling, very mature urban horror film. Lauren Ambrose stars as a woman living a well-to-do life in Philadelphia, married to an enterprising young chef, whose life is changed when they hire a young caregiver to help them after her difficult pregnancy. Ambrose, from Six Feet Under, is astoundingly multilayered here, giving a performance as inscrutable as her character. Watch the opening hour of this new series, created by Tony Basgallop and co-starring Tony Kebbell, Rupert Grint, and Nell Tiger Free, and you’ll be hooked for the remainder of the entire 10-episode first season. And it’s already been renewed for Season 2, so there will be more…
TBS, 6:00 p.m. ET
This marks the 80th anniversary of this all-time classic family film, which premiered in 1939. On this occasion, Thanksgiving night, TBS is showing it twice to families curling up around the TV after dinner – once at 6 p.m. ET, and again at 8:15. Both showings are hosted, for the evening, by Angela Lansbury.
Starz!, 8:00 p.m. ET
And once the Thanksgiving turkey has been carved and ingested, it’s time for two other holiday traditions: pumpkin pie, and TV’s first Christmas specials. And right on time, Starz presents an 8 p.m. ET showing of 2009’s Disney’s A Christmas Carol, showcasing the voices of Jim Carrey (no Mickey, no cartoons: what the Dickens?), shifting the focus from Thanksgiving to the next major holiday, not counting Black Friday. Pumpkin pie not included…