Various Networks, 9:00 a.m. ET
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett were all about the opening statements, especially by the various senators. Today, the committee members get to ask questions – and finally, Barrett gets a chance to answer them. The action begins wherever you watch your news.
Various Networks, 6:00 p.m. ET
Postseason baseball continues. At 6 p.m. ET on Fox, the Los Angeles Dodgers face the Atlanta Braves for Game 2 of the National League Championship Series. The Braves won last night’s Game 1, but even if you were rooting against the Braves, there was one bright spot: With the stadium virtually empty, that annoying Braves “chant” was all but stifled. Then, at 8:40 p.m. ET on TBS, it’s Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, with the Tampa Bay Rays, after yesterday’s victory, now enjoying a 2-0 series lead over the Houston Astros. And that game, by the way, featured two wildly noteworthy plays from Rays outfielder Manuel Margot. In the first inning, he slammed a three-run homer – his third home run of this still-young postseason, even though he’d hit only one ball out of the park in all of the regular season. And then, one inning later, Margot caught a ball in foul territory that sent him head over heels – and over the right-field fence – without dropping the ball (pictured).
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Tonight is installment seven of Women Make Film, and it’s a sizzling entry: the chapters and topics are “Bodies” and “Sex.” Hard to have one without the other, for the most part, but the movies shown tonight as part of this months-long celebration of cinema made by women feature plenty of both – bodies and sex, that is. Of the movies I’ve seen in this international sampler, the most riveting, and disturbing, is 1974’s The Night Porter, directed by Liliana Cavani. Shown by TCM very late tonight at 4:15 a.m. ET, The Night Porter, set 13 years after the end of WWII, stars Dirk Bogarde as a former Nazi keeping a low profile as a hotel employee, when checking into his hotel one day, by chance, is a woman (played by Charlotte Rampling) who, years earlier, he had forced into a sadomasochistic relationship while in the same German concentration camp – he as an officer, she as a prisoner. Flashbacks of their wartime experiences are very unsettling – but so are the scenes showing how they act, and react, during their accidental 13-years-later reunion (pictured). Other films showcased tonight include Wanuri Kahiu’s Rafiki, a 2018 drama above love beginning to spark between two Nairobi women, televised at 12:15 a.m. ET.
Fox, 9:00 p.m. ET
The plot and scriptwriting for this new Fox sci-fi series hasn’t grabbed me yet – but John Slattery has. As the artificial intelligence expert who has come to fear, and know, that a computerized entity has decided to turn on its creators, he’s dynamic, and as entertaining as always. The rest of neXt, so far, though, doesn’t match his performance. Put it this way: Up to this point, the A.I. at the core of this Fox series has nothing on HAL 2000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: This new two-hour documentary is based on the book and reporting by Gretchen Soren, and is brought to PBS in collaboration with acclaimed nonfiction filmmaker Ric Burns. Whenever a Burns is involved, whether Ric or his brother Ken, any chosen subject will be fully and fascinatingly grounded in history – and
Driving While Black is no exception. Rather than focus exclusively on modern examples and abuses, this film also traces the development of new travel options available to some Blacks in the U.S., including the establishment of post-WWII interstate highways and roadside motels, and the emergence of such invaluable publications as Victor H. Green’s
Negro Motorist Green Book, alluded to in such recent scripted films and TV shows as 2018’s
Green Book film and the current HBO miniseries
Lovecraft Country. Check local listings. For full reviews, see
Mike Hughes' Open Mike and
David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.