HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
This 2018 period drama is a result of powerful pairings both in front of the camera and in the writers’ room. John Guy, one of the writers here, is the author of Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart, so he knows an awful lot about the Scottish monarch’s attempt to overthrow her cousin, Elizabeth I, as the ruler of England. The screenplay is by Beau Willimon, who created the Netflix version of House of Cards, so he knows an awful lot about power grabs and political intrigue in general. And on camera, the rival cousins are played by two attention-demanding, and attention-deserving, young actresses. The title character is portrayed by Saoirse Ronan, star of Lady Bird, Hanna, and The Lovely Bones, and Queen Elizabeth I is played by Margot Robbie, who portrayed Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, and starred in Suicide Squad, The Wolf of Wall Street, and I, Tonya.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Both Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield received Oscar nominations for their roles in this 1972 film about African-American sharecroppers in the Deep South during the Depression – the first time two people of color were nominated from the same movie. They play a proud couple trying to get by, and advance their prospects, in a highly prejudiced environment. And Kevin Hooks, who plays their young son, was at the start of a still-illustrious career. Before the Seventies were through, he had gone from co-starring on Bruce Paltrow’s The White Shadow to directing several episodes of another impressive Paltrow series, St. Elsewhere. Hooks has been directing ever since: on episodes of V and China Beach in the 1980s; Doogie Howser, M.D., I’ll Fly Away and Homicide: Life on the Street in the 1990s; NYPD Blue, Lost, Alias, and 24 in the 2000s; and, so far this decade, The Good Wife, The X-Files, and This Is Us.