PUTIN ON THE RITZ
Food Network, 9:30 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: This long-running Russian propaganda series, broadcast often in almost unavoidable rotation on the RT state-controlled Russian television network, has finally been dubbed and imported for U.S. viewers. Americans finally can see what Russians have seen for years now: Their leader, Vladimir Putin, insisting on national television that he’s just a harmless and regular guy. Every year on this show, Putin moonlights, and shows off his “common man” connections, by taking a series of “regular jobs”: computer hacker, poison-spraying assassin, and even a hotel waiter. But that last occupation was only so Putin could get product-placement kickbacks from both the hotel chain and the cracker manufacturer, and charge extra for working them into that season’s TV title. That money has proven difficult to trace to Putin – but Putin on the Ritz, though it’s no longer shown in Russia, is now available for all of us to see in this country. Only in America…