Last week in my TV History & Appreciation class at Rowan University, we showed Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty, one of the seminal Golden Age live TV dramas of the Fifties. Later this term, in that class’ unofficial sequel, I’ll show the movie that TCM is showing tonight: Chayefsky’s 1976 masterpiece, Network, an astoundingly prescient commentary on television that is equal parts searing satire and accurate prediction. Peter Finch is perfect as the mad prophet of the airwaves – and in a small but indispensible role, Ned Beatty, as a greedy media mogul, is perfect, too.