Nov. 22 – Nov. 28
A Patsy Cline re-do, classic Beatles reissues, and a Jack Black Christmas flick!
The music of Patsy Cline gets funneled through a new generation of performers.
All times Eastern.
FRIDAY, Nov. 22
Patsy Cline: Walkin’ After Midnight
Wynonna, Kristin Chenoweth, Kellie Pickler, Mickey Guyton, Grace Potter, Pat Benatar, actress Beverly D’Angelo and more pay homage to the late country music trailblazer (above) and her songs, including “Sweet Dreams,” “She’s Got You” and “Crazy” (9 p.m., PBS).
Jim Gaffigan: The Skinny
The Grammy-nominated comedian gives “the skinny” on appetite suppressants, raising teens and more in his first comedy special for the streaming platform (Hulu).
The Witches
What did early American women accused of witchcraft have to do with postpartum mental health? This new documentary films explores the connection with interviews from medical professionals, historians and contemporary females (Mubi).
SATURDAY, Nov. 23
Three Wiser Men and a Boy
Christmastime tale of brotherhood, a high school musical and a mom with a new boyfriend (8 p.m, Hallmark)
Die Hard
Is this 1998 Bruce Willis action flick (above) a “Christmas movie” or not? You’ve got another chance to see for yourself tonight, yippie kia yi yay! With Alan Rickman as a deliciously bad bad guy (8 p.m., TNT).
SUNDAY, Nov. 24
Expedition Files
Host Josh Gates travels through history searching for new evidence and answers to unexplained mysteries (9 p.m., Discovery).
Dear Santa: The Series
Meet the real-life “Santas” in the five episodes of this new holiday series about the people who actually answer kids’ letters to Santa Claus (ABC).
A Very Merry MeTV
Get in the Thanksgiving mood with a day of Turkey Day-themed episodes of Happy Days, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan’s Island (below), The Love Boat and more (starts 11 a.m., MeTV).
MONDAY, Nov. 25
Get Millie Black
A Jamaica-born Scotland Yard detective (Tamara Lawrence) digs into missing-person cases in this new series from the UK (9 p.m., HBO).
Tsunami: Race Against Time
Four-part series uses first-person testimony and never-seen-before footage to re-examine the catastrophic 2004 Indian Ocean event that took over a quarter-million lives (9 p.m., NatGeo).
Dear Santa
Jack Black stars in this new Christmas comedy (above) as “Satan,” a trickster who shows up to create holiday havoc when a young boy (Robert Timothy Smith) sends his wish list to the North Pole…but with a crucial spelling error. The movie’s from the Farrelly Brothers, of Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary and Shallow Hal, so get ready for some major yuks (Paramount+).
TUESDAY, Nov. 26
It’s in the Game: Madden NFL
New series tells the story of one of the most popular and successful videogames of all time, its rise to greatness and its enduring pace in pop culture (Prime).
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 27
Countdown to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
Wendi McLeodon-Covey hosts this sneak peek at the floats, balloons and bands that will be on display tomorrow in downtown New York City (8 p.m., NBC).
The Untold Story of Mary Poppins
This special edition of 20/20 comes at the 60th anniversary of the Disney classic starring Julie Andrews as England’s most famous magical nanny and Dick Van Dyke as a merry-chap chimneysweep (9 p.m., ABC).
THURSDAY, Nov. 28
Sweethearts
Two college freshmen (Nico Hiraga and Kiernan Shipka) make a pact to break up with their high school sweethearts over the Thanksgiving break…but things take more crazy turns that a wild turkey (Max).
The Day Before Christmas
When two parents accidentally swap their kids’ backpacks and their phones, it leads to a chaotic, heartwarming holiday mix-up…and some unexpected romance (BET+).
Blue Bloods: Celebrating a Family Legacy
ET’s Nischelle Turner hosts this hour-long special includes series highlights and interviews with the stars and guests on the popular series, including a rare look inside the show’s recurring dinner scene, above (9 p.m., CBS).
NOW HEAR THIS
Christmas comes early for Beatles fans with this gollywhopper of a boxed set—all seven of the band’s albums compiled for U.S. release during the early days of Beatlemania, remastered anew into new analog mono, just as the originals. (As fans know, the U.S. albums were slightly different from the original British releases, sometimes with different artwork and tracks not always on their U.K. predecessors.) With The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums in Mono (Capitol), you’ll get Meet the Beatles, The Beatles’ Second Album, A Hard Day’s Night, Something New, The Beatles’ Story, Beatles ’65 and The Early Beatles, plus new artwork inserts, sleeve graphics and essays by Beatles historian Brian Spizer.
And if your tastes are for something a little more Southern, check out the groovy gravy of the Allman Brothers’ Final Concert 10-28-14 (Peach Records), the iconic Southern Rock ensemble’s “end of the road” concert event, staged at New York City’s Beacon Theater in 2014. It’s 30 songs drawn from six Allman Brothers albums, orchestrated by the band’s most recent lineup led by Warren Haynes.
11.20
BRING IT HOME
If you missed it back in 2016 at the theatres, now can snag this collector’s re-release edition of Hush (Shout! Factory) starring scream queen Kate Siegel as a deaf-mute writer fighting a serial killer who invades her solitary life in the woods. It’s a fan-favorite slasher flick that was remade—twice—in India!
Movie fans will freak out with Alfred Hitchcock: The Iconic Film Collection (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment), a superb remastered 4K collection of six of the acclaimed director’s groundbreaking classics, including Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, Psycho, Vertigo and The Birds. Plus, a cool collectible book!
DC Comics’ fan-favorite vigilante crime-fighting group returns in Watchmen Chapter II (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment), the latest movie installment of their animated adventures, featuring a cast of voices led by Matthew Rhys, Titus Weliver and Katee Sackhoff.
Once upon a time, back in the early ‘70s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono “took over” America’s most popular daytime talk show. Find out all about it Daytime Revolution (Kino Larber), the new documentary about the superstar Beatle and his wife “hosted” The Mike Douglas Show for a full week, filling the studio (and the airwaves) with controversial guests (Black Panther Bobby Seale, political activist Ralph Nader, edgy comedian George Carlin) and rockiin’ the house with some not-ready-for-daytime music.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Calling the Shots: A Queer History of Photography (Thames & Hudson) is an eye-opening look at nearly two centuries of LGBTQ+ imagery and subjects illustrating homosexual and pansexual representation in the arts, on the streets and in the world at large. Hey! There’s Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, David Bowie, activist Angela Davis, rocker Patti Smith, Judy Garland, singer Dusty Springfield, Queen’s Freddie Mercury, Billie Holiday and Truman Capote!
Are you “addicted” to shopping? Author Emily Mester takes on consumerism in American Bulk (W.W. Norton), a series of thought-provoking essays about excess and how it shapes our character, our sense of self and our connections to others. It’s a first-person narrative about our endless cycle of wanting, buying, consuming—and often discarding—all sorts of things and how it can still somehow leave us feeling empty inside.
Find out about the making of the fan-favorite sitcom Parks & Recreation by Jim O’Heir (who played Jerry Gergich), who gives a firsthand account of working alongside the top-notch cast in Welcome to Pawnee (William Morrow) and how it became a beloved pop-cultural fan favorite. Includes 60 color pics, plus interviews with Chris Pratt, Rob Lowe, Retta and the show’s co-creators.
It’s almost like being there in Midnight Moment (Phaedon), a unique photographic chronicle of watching artwork unfold in Times Square up on the gigantic electronic billboards. Learn how it’s done and see the work of more than a hundred artists who’ve been featured on one of New York City’s most iconic displays.
Magic, sleight of hand and carefully crafted and controlled illusions have been around since almost the beginning of time, so they’ve certainly made many appearances (and disappearances!) on film. In Magic and Illusion in the Movies (McFarland), author George Higham provides a thorough history of the technology, special effects, diversion and trickery (in projects as wide as early horror flicks, The Wizard of Oz, Scooby-Doo cartoons, The Sting and Spider-Man) that have been created to fool our eyes.
The Media Tourist 