Peacock, 3:00 a.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: In 1984, Soleil Moon Frye began a successful run as a child TV star, as the title character of NBC’s Punky Brewster. Young Punky was spunky, wore pigtails and mismatched sneakers, and had a beloved golden retriever. After the premiere, I never saw it again, though it was part of NBC’s Saved By the Bell kid TV wave. And since that series has been revived and updated by Peacock for a new generation, today Punky Brewster follows suit. Frye’s Punky, now a somewhat mature adult, no longer wears pigtails, but still wears mismatched shoes, and still has a golden retriever – though not, 37 years later, the same one. If the original series pleased and amused you, this reboot might. But if you your reaction to the Eighties series was less attraction than repulsion, consider this a warning.
TCM, 6:00 a.m. ET
TCM has a full day of films to build a dream on – or, at least, movies containing at least one spectacularly resonant dream sequence or nightmarish setting. Things start at 6 a.m. ET with The Exterminating Angel, surrealist Luis Buñuel’s 1962 allegory about an endless dinner party. At 7:45 a.m. ET, the mood gets darker with another 1962 film, Carnival of Souls, a creepy horror film starring Candace Hilligoss. At 9:15 a.m. ET, Federica Fellini directs his wife, Giuletta Masina, in 1966’s Juliet of the Spirits, where dreams and reality intertwine. At 11:45 a.m. ET, TCM presents the first of two movies directed by Vincente Minnelli: 1945’s Yolanda and the Thief. The second, at 4:15 p.m. ET, is 1954’s Brigadoon, starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse. And between those two Minnelli movies, at 1:45 p.m. ET, is Michael Powell’s visually stunning 1948 ballet fable, The Red Shoes. And rounding everything off, at 6:30 p.m. ET? The 1943 moody horror film produced by Val Lewton, 1943’s I Walked with a Zombie (pictured).
