Amazon Prime Video, 3:00 a.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: This series has a long and unusual history. The story comes from Gillian Flynn, who wrote the bestselling novels Gone Girl and Sharp Objects – which were adapted, respectively, into an outstanding movie and TV miniseries. Before writing her novels, she was a TV critic for Entertainment Weekly – and now she’s serving as a TV series showrunner, by adapting for the U.S. her story Utopia, which previously begat a U.K. adaptation in 2014. It’s about a group of comic-book nerds who come in possession of an underground graphic novel whose conspiracy-laden plot may be more fact than fiction. And remember – even though the plot concerns a global pandemic, Utopia was written, and first produced for TV, so long ago that Flynn can’t be accused of pandering, or reacting to current events and headlines. Only of a spooky amount of prescience. John Cusack and Rainn Wilson star
Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: After years of watching old imported seasons of The Great British Baking Show, the U.S., thanks to Netflix, finally is up to date. Beginning tonight, the shows we see here in America are the same ones shown, almost simultaneously, in England. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, since we’re now seeing this British baking competition as new installments are pulled from the oven, we’re no longer getting full seasons at one time. From now on, The Great British Baking Show will be presented at the rate of one new episode per week. Think of it as a slow-rising treat. Matt Lucas, of Doctor Who and Little Britain cult fame, is the new judge joining the show this season.
FX, 8:00 p.m. ET
DOCUMENTARY MINISERIES PREMIERE: Tonight, FX shows the first three installments of a five-part documentary (the remaining episodes arrive next Friday) based on the book by filmmaker Errol Morris. Morris appears in this documentary version, but doesn’t direct it. A Wilderness of Error does, however, present Morris’ basic take on the case of Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted many decades ago of murdering his wife and children in 1970. And his take isn’t one of absolute guilt or innocence – but confusion. Joe McGinniss wrote a bestselling book about the case called Fatal Vision, which was made into a provocative and powerful 1984 NBC miniseries of the same name, starring Gary Cole as MacDonald. In recreations, actors portray various principals in this still-disturbing, and still-puzzling, cold case.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
Only one of tonight’s virtual guests needs be mentioned to warrant a tune-in: Bernie Sanders.