History has never been drunker than Colin Hanks hunting an invincible wolf and its super-hot girlfriend
Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Tuesday, November 3. All times are Eastern.
Top pick
Drunk History (Comedy Central, 10:30 p.m.): So, we left Drunk History out of last week’s What’s On Tonight, because apparently somebody was too drunk to properly double-check that it was a new episode in the ancient prophecies—wait, scratch that, make that “the TV Guide listings”—we consult to write these things. So, like many a drunkard in times gone by, we’re trying to make up for screwing up something basic with a grand but essentially meaningless gesture, which is to say: Hey, Drunk History is this week’s top pick! All rejoice! And tonight’s episode features Colin Hanks as the cofounder of the Boy Scouts on the hunt for a … well, you can read the headline. As Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya promises in her review, this one is enough to get an entire audience of teetotalers sloshed just by looking at it.
Also noted
Grandfathered/The Grinder/Scream Queens (Fox, 8 p.m./8:30 p.m./9 p.m.): The Kansas City Royals breaking the souls of the New York Mets and finishing the World Series in a rally-filled five games means Fox’s Tuesday night slate gets to return a week early. This week features trouble with preschool, Rob Lowe and Christina Applegate hooking up, and supernatural fun with Ouija boards, at least until the Royals can squeeze a couple singles into the gap and come back to steal another game from the Fox schedule. They just don’t know how to shut it off!
The Flash (CW, 8 p.m.): The latest visitor from Earth-2 is Dr. Light, but which one? The evil male original, or the heroic female successor? Just to muddy the waters, this Dr. Light is a woman, yet she also blinds the Flash, so … classic misunderstanding between superheroes, maybe? Also, Barry and Patty go on a date, which is going to be so, so awkward. Scott Von Doviak is hoping for endearingly awkward, but we’re not counting on it.
30 For 30 (ESPN, 9 p.m.): Tonight’s documentary looks at title-winning Colorado Buffaloes coach Bill McCartney, who mixed football and religion more than maybe anyone before or since—and yes, we realize that’s saying a lot—as the founder of the Promise Keepers, which we were previously aware of only as the punchline to that one Simpsons joke. SEC country resident Noel Murray wonders which current coach might follow in McCartney’s openly devout footsteps, then immediately hopes that Louisiana State’s Les Miles never gets round to watching the first season of True Detective. Bringing Carcosa to Death Valley feels a little too right.
Regular coverage
The Mindy Project (Hulu)
Adventure Time (Cartoon Network, 8 p.m.)
The Muppets (ABC, 8 p.m.)
Fresh Off The Boat (ABC, 8:30 p.m.)
Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC, 9 p.m.)
iZombie (The CW, 9 p.m.)
Manhattan (WGN, 9 p.m.)
Hey, how long is The Bastard Executioner overrunning this week?
The Bastard Executioner (FX, 10 p.m.): Tonight’s episode is going until 11:15, so it’s overrunning by 15 minutes. Or, going by the prior average length of these episodes, it’s underrunning by 15 minutes. Kind of the new glass half-full, glass half-empty thing, if you think about it.
Elsewhere in TV Club
Molly Eichel has some high praise for Aziz Ansari’s new sitcom, Master Of None. Here’s her explanation of the Ansari’s protagonist, who is basically a grounded, less self-parodying version of Tom Haverford:
Dev is grounded and real, a guy who is at once so confident in his life but can be as equally flummoxed in his interactions with other people. It’s not that Dev stubbornly refuses to grow up, it’s that he really doesn’t have to. He became an actor after he was spotted by an agent in the park, not because of passion, and he can coast by on the royalties he makes from commercials. (Yes, he is that guy from the Go-Gurt commercial.) He can be in his 30s but still make stupid decisions because he has the luxury to do so. “You realize fun is a new thing, right?” Dev’s dad (played by the actor’s real father, Shoukath Ansari, who is quite delightful) says to him. “Fun is a luxury only your generation had.”
Then check back at 11 a.m. for Marah Eakin’s interview with SNL and Mr. Show writer Mike O’Brien.
What else is on?
College Football Playoff: Top 25 (ESPN, 7 p.m.): College football’s first set of real rankings are being announced live tonight, and this week should pose some interesting conundrums for the committee, in that there are a bunch of one-loss teams—looking at you, Alabama and Stanford—that are probably better than some of the undefeated teams, but they also, you know, lost, which should probably count for quite a bit when working with such an inherently unrepresentative sample size. Which we like, by the way. Part of the fun of college football is how much dumb luck is baked into the process, especially when it allows us to campaign for puntin’ Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa Hawkeyes. The 2015 Iowa Hawkeyes: If you were undefeated in the Big Ten West, they’d vote you into the playoff!
Kareem: Minority Of One (HBO, 10 p.m.): This 90-minute documentary explores the quietly iconoclastic life of the all-time NBA great who we’re going to go ahead and guess is a bit underrated, if only because he lives on more as Magic Johnson’s veteran running mate with the Showtime Lakers and less as the destroyer of worlds who dragged the Milwaukee Bucks—the Bucks!—to a championship as a second-year player. (And yes, those Bucks were a really good team that also had Oscar Robertson, but still, this accomplishment is way underrated.) Also, they’ll probably play that clip from Airplane!
Frontline (PBS, 10 p.m.): Presumably, Frontline is going to take it easy one of these days and do a nice, light story on fluffy bunnies or something. They’ve certainly earned it. But that definitely isn’t this week, as the latest episode investigates the unsolved murders of Vietnamese-American journalists.
Christina Milian Turned Up (E!, 10 p.m.): Singer Christina Milian returns for the second season of her reality show charting the lives of her and her family, and … look, we’ll be honest. We have no idea who this person is, and we can’t bring ourselves to bluff our way through this. That is not a judgment on the value or notoriety of Christina Milian, by the way! We have absolutely zero doubt that we’re the uncool ones here.
Bring It On: Fight To The Finish (MTV, 8 p.m.): Oh, why didn’t you all tell us that was the same Christina Milian who played Lina Cruz, the tough-as-nails cheerleader from East L.A. who comes to preppy Malibu Vista High School and shows those rich kids a thing or two about cheerleading? Now we totally know who she is, if by “know” you mean “are now capable of reading and regurgitating the first line of the plot summary of the Wikipedia article on the fifth and final Bring It On movie.” There’s just so much journalism going on right now, it’s kind of crazy.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1/Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (AMC, 5:30 p.m./8 p.m.): The Kill Bill movies probably still represent peak Tarantino, in that they are suffused with all the things—thrilling violence, obscure homages, genre-bending experimentation, stylishly lengthy conversations, foot shot after foot shot after foot shot—we associate with Tarantino, with relatively few of the things that make the crime dramas before or the (anti-) historical epics after feel like deviations from the Tarantino baseline. All of which is to say: Yeah, these are both really great, if maybe a little exhausting. Also, Michael Madsen is terrific in this.
College Football: Northern Illinois Huskies at Toledo Rockets (ESPN2, 8 p.m.): Who’s ready for some hot #MACtion? Admittedly, we’ve had some weak vintages in recent years, but this Tuesday tilt should be plenty fun, as undefeated, Arkansas-beating Toledo tries to snap its losing streak to the perennial conference power from DeKalb. Should be points aplenty!
In case you missed it AKA let’s all just watch Shawn Michaels do his thing
Supergirl: A good chunk of the old wrestling clips we’ve shared with you have spotlighted Stone Cold Steve Austin at his Attitude Era apex. But let’s give the Texas Rattlesnake a rest this week for another of the Lone Star State’s greatest contributions to the world of wrestling, with the transcendence that is Shawn Michaels. Seriously, here’s a random eight minutes of him appearing on the jumbo screen to set up a bunch of matches, back when he was out with injuries and appearing as the commissioner. In concept, it’s nothing special, yet it’s still spellbinding, because the Heartbreak Kid is just that good.
Also, sans context, we can’t help but think the last couple minutes of that would lead one to assume that the old WWF was ruled by some kind of magical teleporting exotic dancer trickster god, and we’re not sure that’s completely incorrect. Either way, they definitely cast the wrong NWO member in Magic Mike.