CBS, 8:00 p.m. ET
These two teams met last year during the regular season, and again in the BCS Championship. LSU won the first game, but the Alabama Crimson Tide won the championship game, and the bragging rights. So this contest tonight, while it’s not for a championship title, certainly carries a lot of weight on both sides.
HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
Certain movies are easy to recommend because they’re good. Others, like this 2011 comedy-drama, make the Best Bets cut because a) it’s a slow TV night, and b) this is the kind of film that doesn’t draw people to theaters, but seems a passable way to pass the time when watching on TV at home. I’ve seen the promos for this fact-based movie, in which Matt Damon stars as a widower who tries to run a run-down zoo, and I’d tune in just to see the porcupines.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
One of a ridiculously large number of classic films that emerged in the year 1939, this one stars Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in a romantic, moody tearjerker that more than does justice to Emily Bronte’s novel.
BBC America, 11:00 p.m. ET
Tomorrow, BBC America fills its daytime schedule with a roster of James Bond films. But tonight, in this new edition of TV’s most audacious talk show, it has 007 himself. Specifically, it has Craig. Daniel Craig.
NBC, 11:29 p.m. ET
The TV treat of the night, bar none. On this last SNL before the presidential election, the guest host is Louis C.K. – the smartest, most inventive comic currently working on TV. And if we’re ever going to get a last-second drop-in appearance by either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, or even Tina Fey, this is the time. This ought to be fun. And the musical guest is Fun.