Showtime 2, 8:05 p.m. ET
Before concocting the futuristic universe of Star Wars, George Lucas directed and co-wrote this 1973 salute to the past: specifically, to the innocent 1950s, and the drive-in, drive-around, rock-music-soaked teen culture. If it sounds a bit like ABC’s Happy Days, which premiered the following year, it should: The stars of American Graffiti include Cindy Williams, who co-starred in the Happy Days spinoff Laverne & Shirley, and Ron Howard, who starred as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days. But that character, and series, actually originated with a 1972 segment on the ABC comedy anthology series Love, American Style, which means Happy Days, technically, mined this genre before Lucas and American Graffiti. No matter: Graffiti is the more sophisticated and rewarding treatment, with Richard Dreyfuss as a high-school graduate about to leave for college, enjoying and enduring one final night out with friends and enemies, as are other characters played by Paul Le Mat, Candy Clark, Charlie Martin Smith, Mackenzie Phillips, and a very young Harrison Ford. Disc jockey Wolfman Jack is heard throughout, along with the seminal Fifties music he plays – and Suzanne Somers, a few years before Three’s Company, has a small but memorable part (pictured) as an elusive siren of sorts. If you haven’t seen this movie in a while, and you probably haven’t, I’d say grab the chance. The movie, by now, works as an exercise in nostalgia that is itself nostalgic.
AMC, 9:00 p.m. ET
The group of “synths” with human emotions, on the run since this series began, has never been more divided, or more in danger. But all is not lost, now that they’ve found a human sympathizer in scientist George Millican, played with such touching weariness, and wariness, by William Hurt. Humans treads on very familiar sci-fi soil, but with much more humanity, and detail to character, than most.
Comedy Central, 9:00 p.m. ET
Correspondents have come and gone for years on this show, as have, more rarely, the hosts – remember, Jon Stewart, who departs this week, replaced Craig Kilborn in 1999. Tonight, the Stewart era is saluted in a one-hour special, hosted by some of the Daily Show “newbies”: Hasan Minhaj, Jessica Williams, and my favorite among the fresher faces, Jordan Klepper (pictured, at far right).
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
I’ve been waiting, quite patiently, for this second season of True Detective to evolve and show its true colors, and true quality. But last week’s episode, which ended with Rachel McAdams’ Ani going undercover as a prostitute, and escaping an exclusive and kinky party while under the influence of a mind-altering drug, didn’t advance either the story or the character enough to impress. And since this is the penultimate episode of this rebooted Season 2, with the finale arriving next Sunday, time’s up. If tonight’s episode isn’t a real home run, neither is this season of True Detective.
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
Last week’s episode ended with Ray (Liev Schreiber) managing to free his brother Terry (Eddie Marsan) from prison. Ray did it, though, by entering a sort of prison of his own, and signing himself on as a full-time employee of sinister multi-millionaire Malcolm Finney (Ian McShane,so superb in HBO’s Deadwood) and his flinty daughter, Paige (Katie Holmes, pictured, getting a chance here to play much tougher than usual).
Showtime, 10:00 p.m. ET
The jump-ahead-a-few-years trick that propelled this new season of Masters of Sex has allowed the writers not only to get more quickly to the publication of the controversial Masters & Johnson study, but also to reconfigure the love lives and situations of its primary and secondary characters. Last week we learned the face of Beau Bridges’ closeted professor, Barton Scully – and tonight, we revisit Barton’s ex-wife, played so tenderly by Allison Janney. And this year (or in this year), Janney’s Margaret has found herself a new Beau, or at least a new beau: he’s played by Tate Donovan.