Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Sunday, December 29. All times are Eastern.
TOP PICK
Getting On (HBO, 10:20 p.m.): The first season of this solid new comedy wraps up tonight, and there’s no real indication of whether HBO will let it run to a second year. On the show’s side is that the HBO series that doesn’t get a courtesy second season is exceedingly rare. Against the show is the simple fact that its ratings, to be perfectly honest, stink, falling off from even the low ratings posted by its lead-in, Treme. Now, to be sure, HBO probably expected some of this by airing the show in one of TV’s least watched months. But we still want more! HBO! Heed our call! Renew this, so Sonia Saraiya can cover season two!
REGULAR COVERAGE
Treme (HBO, 9 p.m.): When we made our top 40 list, we chose tonight’s extra-long series finale as the best episode of Treme. Of course, we’d seen it a month ago, and you only get to see it now. So let us know if we made the right call. Phil Dyess-Nugent will miss this great little show about ordinary life.
WHAT ELSE IS ON
Call The Midwife Holiday Special 2013 (PBS, 7:30 p.m.): We here at What’s On Tonight central really like this neat little drama about midwives in ‘50s London, but most of you seemed largely uninterested in it. Which is fine! But we’ll occasionally continue to remind you it exists, like we are right now. Babies!
Evil In-Law (Investigation Discovery, 9 p.m.): We rarely watch this show, but after spending the last several days with our in-laws, we can sympathize! (NECESSARY DISCLAIMER FOR WHAT’S ON TONIGHT’S WIFE: No, baby! Your family is great! Seriously. We love them like we love our own family. Honest!)
Kennedy Center Honors (CBS, 9 p.m.): Herbie Hancock, Billy Joel, and Carlos Santana are among the five honorees this evening, and now we want to hear what a jam band session featuring these three would sound like. They could work in presenters Garth Brooks, Anna Kendrick, and Bill O’Reilly on harmonica!
Tosh.0 Ladies Night (Comedy Central, 9 p.m.): Don’t like any of your other options? Then watch three hours of Tosh.0 episodes centered on ladies, as interpreted via the lens of the groundbreaking feminist theorist, Daniel Tosh. Have your preconceptions and views challenged by Mr. Tosh’s stirring rhetoric!
Bob’s Burgers (Cartoon Network, 10 p.m.): You might have missed this, but our third-best show of 2013 has joined the adult swim lineup. Tonight boasts the third-season finale, then a quick leap back to the very beginning of the show with the episode it aired first all the way back in the caveman days of 2011.
Ja’mie: Private School Girl (HBO, 10:50 p.m.): Chris Lilley’s latest also wraps up its first season tonight, though in true Lilley fashion, that’s probably all he intended to make in the first place. We weren’t too impressed with this one when it debuted, but some of you might have disagreed. Change our minds!
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone (ABC, 8 p.m.): Though this was one of the biggest movies of all time back upon its release, it hasn’t aged terribly well, though some of its sequels have. We’ll have another rank ‘n’ rate in a bit, but if you really wanted to, you could rank ‘n’ rate the Potter movies too.
Lawrence Of Arabia (TCM, 8 p.m.): The most famous role of Peter O’Toole’s—in a career filled with lots of famous roles—might have been this early one, for which he won his first Oscar nomination. And now you can rank ‘n’ rate either Peter O’Toole’s performances or the films of David Lean! We don’t care.
Slap Shot (Flix, 8 p.m.): This raucous George Roy Hill sports comedy features Paul Newman in a role he later swore coarsened his language for several years after its filming. That’s all well and good, but the reason to watch this movie is for all the fighting. The Hanson brothers make hockey fighting into art.
College Basketball: Georgia Tech at Clemson (Fox Sports 1, 7 p.m.): With bowl games mostly taking the evening off in order to stay out of the way of the NFL (and/or preserve more of themselves for the days to come), a couple of college basketball games are your best bets for primetime college sports action.
Sunday Night Football: Eagles at Cowboys (NBC, 8:20 p.m.): The winner takes the NFC East title and heads into the playoffs to face off against the Seahawks, 49ers, Cardinals, Saints, or Panthers, depending on what craziness unfolds today. Honestly, do either of these teams want to face any of those?
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Arrested Development (July): The fourth season of Arrested Development was one of the most contentious TV arguments of the year. You either thought it was a brilliant, deconstructionist masterpiece of a sitcom, or you thought it was kind of a mess. Find out which way Erik Adams and Noel Murray leaned in their season finale writeup.