Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Sunday, December 30. All times are Eastern.
TOP PICK
Call The Midwife Holiday Special (PBS, 7:30 p.m.): We covered this British import for a few weeks, but so few of you read it that we were forced to bid adieu to Brandon Nowalk’s excellent reviews. But if you’ve been curious about people havin’ babies in the past, well, there’s nothing else on tonight, and you might just have a good time with the whole gang trying to figure out what’s up with an abandoned newborn as Christmas rolls around. Could it be… Jesus?! No, probably not, but we just wanted to throw that one out there.
WHAT ELSE IS ON
Sugar Dome (Food Network, 8 p.m.): The finest pastry experts in the world gather together with Hollywood’s best and brightest to create desserts to boggle the mind. If you’re in desperate need of mind-boggling cakes, then tonight’s episode—replicating scenes from Wizard Of Oz—is just for you.
Top 10 Of 2012 (CNN, 8 p.m.): We presume CNN is going to be counting down the top 10 news stories of the year, but since the title’s so non-descript and the episode summary is empty, we’re just going to guess it’s Wolf Blitzer shouting vaguely 2012-y things at the camera. “Barack Obama! ‘Gangnam Style!’”
Curiosity (Discovery, 9 p.m.): Discovery’s “Hey, let’s do some actual science” series continues with a bunch of scientists building a simulation of the sun. We can only presume they’ll then build a theme park to house it, and the sun will break loose and eat everybody, and won’t we all be sorry then?
Finding Bigfoot (Animal Planet, 9 p.m.): The team travels to Australia in hot pursuit of a Yowie, which is apparently what you Australians call your Sasquatch variant. We’ve never heard of this particular hairy man-beast before, but we imagine it likes to play a good game of Knifey-Spoony. After all, who doesn’t?
Bamazon (History Channel, 10 p.m.): We’ve been ignoring this show in our write-ups, because we (naturally) assumed it was about Bam Margera going to the Amazon for some reason. Turns out it’s about a bunch of out-of-work Alabama construction workers mining for gold there! Who knew?!
How It’s Made (Science Channel, 10 p.m.): This program that everyone we know was briefly obsessed with back in 2006 has finally documented its 1,000th object, yet it somehow still hasn’t done an episode about how What’s On Tonight is made. Here’s a hint, Science Channel: Lots of tears are involved.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (HBO Signature, 6:50 p.m.): Gary Oldman is superb, and a giant cast of Britain’s finest brings John le Carre’s spy novel masterpiece to the big screen, in completely engrossing fashion. The plot will leave you guessing, and the technical aspects are top-notch. Well worth watching.
Suspect Zero (TMC, 8 p.m.): Get this: There’s this serial killer, see? And he only kills other serial killers. There was a time when the goofy premise of this movie had us all excited to see it, and then we actually went and, well, saw it. But if you’ve been looking for a serial killer thriller, well, this one is on tonight.
Wall Street (Sundance, 8 p.m.): “Greed is good,” says Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko in this Oliver Stone classic of ‘80s economic whatever. Actually, that line is pretty much all we remember about this one and that Douglas won the Oscar for his performance. Oh, and there was a sequel with Shia LaBeouf?
Sunday Night Football: Cowboys at Redskins (NBC, 8:20 p.m.): Those smarties at NBC figured out that this game should be the best one to watch to finalize the NFC’s tentative playoff picture, and also hoped you’d want the chance to watch Robert Griffin III one last time before his quite likely playoff debut.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Downton Abbey (February): Yeah, the second series of Downton Abbey was a pretty big step down from the enjoyable melodrama of the first series, but that’s why we had Meredith Blake there to tell us just why it was problematic—and perhaps why PBS scheduled the worst episode opposite the Super Bowl.