YouTube, 3:00 a.m. ET
How time crawls. This is the first anniversary of our daily TVWW video offshoot, Best TV Tomorrow, in which I give a casual visual shout-out to the very best single offering on TV the next day, whether on broadcast, cable or streaming TV. The subject of the inaugural report, keyed to Oct. 10, 2019, was NBC’s
The Good Place. A year later, you can see what we recommend, then stay tuned to compare it to our video a year ago, just by watching yesterday's Best TV Tomorrow for today – Saturday, Oct. 10, 2020.
You can see that here. But I just realized… since these videos are posted on our YouTube channel, TV Worth Watching, one day in advance, our actual one-year anniversary was yesterday. Oh, well. It’s not the first deadline I’ve blown. Take today, for instance…
Decades, 12:00 p.m. ET
The New Twilight Zone is the title under which Decades is presenting this weekend’s marathon – but back when CBS mounted this first revival reboot of Rod Serling’s classic anthology series, back in 1985, it was called, simply, The Twilight Zone (as is the current CBS All Access version). Two episodes, in particular, should be watched for, and watched, from today’s crop. The series premiere, shown at noon ET, includes the segment Shatterday,which stars Bruce Willis (pictured) as a man who phones home – and hears himself picking up and saying hello on the other end of the line. It’s a segment directed by Wes Craven, and based on a short story of the same name by the brilliant, recently departed Harlan Ellison. Then, at 5:30 p.m. ET, there’s another segment based on an Ellison story – but for this one, he wrote the teleplay as well. It’s called Paladin of the Lost Hour, and stars Danny Kaye, making his penultimate acting performance. (His last, for the record, was the following year, as a guest star on NBC’s The Cosby Show.)
HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
This 2019 movie version of the super-long-running Andrew Lloyd Webber Broadway musical was slammed mercilessly when it was released – but somehow, nine months into this pandemic, I’m sort of looking forward to seeing it. (And I just checked my nerd book social calendar, and Hey! I’m going to home tonight anyway! The cast, at least, sounds furry interesting: Performers include Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella, James Corden as Bustofer Jones, Judy Dench as Old Deuteronomy, Rebel Wilson as Jennyanydots, Ian McKellen as Gus the Theatre Cat, Idris Elba as Macavity, and Taylor Swift (pictured) as Bombalurina. And if you want to hate-watch and make remarks as you watch, well, go ahead. Be as catty as you like…
Sundance, 10:00 p.m. ET
Richard Pryor was one of the writers on this Mel Brooks 1967 comedy, and Brooks had intended for Pryor to star as his Western spoof’s racism-confronting, African-American new sheriff in town, Black Bart. But the movie studio wouldn’t insure Pryor for the film (even that early, his bouts with substance abuse were well known), so Brooks cast Cleavon Little instead. Similarly, Brooks had hired Gig Young to play Black Bart’s eventual sidekick, the alcoholic Waco Kid, but on the first day of shooting, Young went into convulsions, and then to the hospital, as part of an actual alcoholic episode – and Brooks called on Gene Wilder, who had begged for the role but been bypassed as too young, to step in and start filming the very next day. He did. And those two “replacement actors,” Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, are a large part of why Blazing Saddles is so brilliant. An even larger part: Brooks’ story and direction. In these days of Black Lives Matter, by the way, the prejudice it exposes and lampoons is not only topical – it’s so sharply pointed and wickedly handled, I’m not sure any studio would release this movie at all in 2020. Well done, Mel.
NBC, 11:30 p.m. ET
…And speaking of last-minute replacements. Bill Burr, that very caustic and funny comedian, was scheduled to host tonight’s second SNL of the new season – and he still will. But tonight’s scheduled musical guest, country artist Morgan Wallen, was disinvited, after videos surfaced of him partying recently without social distancing or masks. His probable replacement, according to reports: Jack White. Meanwhile, I hope the SNL writers and producers have heard the recent Twitter buzz about that fly on Mike Pence’s head during the vice presidential debate – and the gathering-momentum plea to have that fly portrayed, in a sketch tonight on SNL, by Jeff Goldblum, who starred in the remake of The Fly in 1986. It’s a stupendous idea… and I’m hoping, against hope, it comes true.