HALLMARK HALL OF FAME: "A SMILE AS BIG AS THE MOON"

ABC, 9 p.m. ET

You can try and resist it all you want – this is an old-fashioned, broadcast network TV-movie, with every plot element pre-ordained and easily predicted – but if you tune in, this latest Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation will conquer you anyway. In this fact-based story, John Corbett and Jessy Schram play special-education teachers in the 1980s who fight to have their high-school students admitted to NASA’s Space Camp. Schram, by the way, may be familiar to Sunday TV viewers already: She plays Cinderella on ABC’s Once Upon a Time, which is one of the many excellent shows edged out of BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS this week. (Others include 60 Minutes, Desperate Housewives, The Simpsons, House of Lies and, on TNT and TBS, The Screen Actors Guild Awards. What a night.)

THE GOOD WIFE

CBS, 9 p.m. ET

Wendy Scott-Carr, the former politician played so coolly – make that icily – by the wonderful Anika Noni Rose, finally shows her true, revenge-seeking colors. It occurs when she has Alicia (Julianna Margulies) on the witness chair during a grand jury investigation of Will (Josh Charles) – and asks Alicia, under oath, whether she’s ever had sexual relations with Will.

MASTERPIECE CLASSIC: "DOWNTON ABBEY"

PBS, 9 p.m. ET (Checl local listings)

The Great War moves to the center of tonight’s great episode – which means that the Front moves front and center. And back home, at Downton Abbey, there are battles in the trenches as well.

LUCK

HBO, 9 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: David Milch created this new HBO series, which is set at the race track, stars Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte, and is directed by Michael Mann. A powerhouse group, and the result is another series to add to your weekly viewing list. For a full review, and a link to my radio preview for NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, see BIANCULLI’S BLOG HERE.

OPRAH'S MASTER CLASS: TED TURNER

OWN, 10 p.m. ET

I haven’t seen this Oprah Winfrey profile of Ted Turner in advance, but I have no qualms about recommending it regardless. When Turner was a fixture on the TV beat in the 1970s and 80s, rolling out one brilliant cable television network after another (TBS, CNN, the irreplaceable TCM), he was the most reliably, outrageously quotable person I ever knew. I expect no less tonight, especially since he’s kept such a low profile for so long.