Count down to yet another year of stupid crap with a bunch of hosts you don't like all that much
Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Monday, December 31. All times are Eastern.
TOP PICK
New Year’s Eve Countdown (CNN, 10 p.m.; Fox, 11 p.m.; ABC and NBC, 10 p.m. primetime concert and 11:30 p.m. countdown): Guess what, everybody? We’re going to have to live in a year with a three at the end again, but before we leave the stylish and classy 2012 for the abomination that is 2013, we’re going to count it out in style with, depending on your choice of network, Carson Daly, Ryan Seacrest, Carmen Electra, or the tag team of Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin. What nobody knows is that if you stay up until 5 a.m., all of these people are in a competitive dance-off. So make that happen!
WHAT ELSE IS ON
Mistletoe Over Manhattan (Hallmark, 8 p.m.): The Hallmark Channel will give up its Christmas movies over its dead body! Here’s one where Mrs. Claus becomes the new nanny for a couple on the verge of divorce, because she needs the extra scratch or something. We have no idea why, to be honest.
New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Celebrates Dick Clark (ABC, 8 p.m.): Before you watch ABC’s two-and-a-half hours of coverage of the ball drop (with a brief break for your local news), you can spend two hours remembering when Dick Clark used to be the consummate TV host before we got stuck with Seacrest.
WWE Monday Night Raw (USA, 8 p.m.): The wrestlers of the WWE are also counting down to 2013, though they’re going to fall an hour or so short, depending on where you live. Then again, maybe Vince McMahon can declare it 2013 an hour early. He can do that! His wife was almost a senator, you know!
Cake Boss: Next Great Baker (Food Network, 9 p.m.): After the Cake Boss mothership was canceled, it got spun off as a competitive reality show, as is the life cycle of all reality franchises. Anyway, a bunch of would-be bakers have to live and work together, and you’ve never seen anything like that before, huh?
Maya Underworld: The Real Doomsday (National Geographic, 9 p.m.): We have to admire the chutzpah of National Geographic scheduling this program 10 days after the world was supposed to end, since, uh, it didn’t. At least it didn’t for us. Did it for you? If it did, what’s it like? Dark? Scary?
Andrew Dice Clay: Indestructible (Showtime, 10 p.m.): Showtime closes out the year with the inimitable comedy stylings of Andrew Dice Clay. Our only familiarity with him—besides that awful CBS sitcom he was in—was when a bunch of people did impressions of him on America’s Funniest People.
Collateral (HBO2, 6:55 p.m.): We don’t know if you remembered, but this Tom Cruise/Jamie Foxx two-hander, directed by Michael Mann, is pretty awesome. Foxx is a cab driver. Cruise is the very bad guy who gets into his cab. Then there’s some cat-and-mouse all around Los Angeles. It’s great fun.
Broadcast News (Sundance, 8 p.m.): There are some terrific movies on tonight, but this might be our pick for the one you should watch over and over, mostly because Sundance is airing it over and over, but also because you can’t go wrong with the team of William Hurt, Albert Brooks, and Holly Hunter.
The Apartment (TCM, 10 p.m.): You can also countdown to 2013 with Billy Wilder’s superb workplace satire and romantic comedy, about a sad sack in love (played by Jack Lemmon), who opens up his apartment so his bosses can sleep with women they’ve picked up. And it all ends at New Year’s Eve!
Chick-Fil-A Bowl: Clemson vs. LSU (ESPN, 7:30 p.m.): Two teams named the Tigers, both with 10-2 records, face off in Atlanta, in a bowl game named for a fast food chain you may or may not have strong feelings about. Can we all agree that pre-New Year’s Day bowl games still suck? We think we can!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The Vampire Diaries (May): The third season finale of The Vampire Diaries was some of the best TV we saw all year, and Carrie Raisler’s review was good enough to make our “Best of TV Club” series. Got your own “Best of TV Club” pick? Tweet it out with the #BestofTVClub hashtag, or talk about it in comments.