TV: Five shows worth watching tonight: April 5
Your select viewing guide for Thursday, April 5
REALITY Full Metal Jousting History, 7 p.m. Who says the reality-TV well has run dry? Hailing from the U.S. History Channel, this new show reaches all the way back to medieval times to resurrect the lost art of jousting, which involves two people on horseback racing at breakneck speed toward each other while wielding lances (basically long sticks with padded ends). In this case, the format features two teams of eight competing in one-on-one jousts, with the last contestant standing receiving the $100,000 (U.S.) grand prize, which should be enough to cover the subsequent medical bills. Let the games begin!
DOCUMENTARY Titanic: The Canadian Story CBC, 8 p.m. Airing to coincide with the upcoming 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in the North Atlantic, this new documentary is both sombre and unsettling. Among the more than 2,200 passengers and crew were 130 men, women and children en route to Canada. Using letters and diary entries, the film relates the untold stories of several of those on board, including railway magnate Charles Hays, who made a doomful prediction before the Titanic's maiden voyage and perished at sea, and Bridget Bradley, a young Irish immigrant who barely escaped the tragedy and went on to marry a Canadian and live a full life in Gananoque, Ont.
DRAMA Grey's Anatomy ABC, CTV, 9 p.m. Were you aware that nearly every episode in this popular medical drama, currently in its eighth season, is titled after a pop song? So far, this season has produced episodes airing under the banner of Poker Face and All You Need Is Love. Tonight's show is titled The Lion Sleeps Tonight, which is apt since the storyline involves a lion breaking loose in Seattle, which leaves the earnest medics working the emergency room at Seattle Grace Hospital scrambling. In soapier plot details, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) becomes the support system for Cristina (Sandra Oh) when the latter fights with her beau; Callie (Sara Ramirez) grills Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) about her romantic past; and Teddy (Kim Raver) forces herself to finally deal with Henry's death.Bob D'Amico
DRAMA Fairly Legal Showcase, 10 p.m. For those viewers still mourning the departure of Ally McBeal, here’s a show for you. First shown on the USA Network, this light legal drama stars the lovely Sarah Shahi as Kate Reed, a lawyer turned evaluative mediator at the law firm started by her late father. Like Ally, Kate is sassy, well-dressed and soon-to-be single once she finally divorces her skunk prosecutor husband Justin (Michael Trucco). And like Erin Brockovich, her legal specialty involves fearlessly facing down the big guys. In tonight’s second-season opener, Kate mediates a case between a major corporation and a former employee who claims he was exposed to harmful chemicals on the job. You go, girlfriend!
MOVIE The Glass Bottom Boat TCM, 9 p.m. Breezy and fun, this 1966 comedy marked one of the last starring roles for Doris Day, who turned 88 this week. The eternal virgin is perfectly believable as Jennifer, a good-natured PR person at a NASA facility in Florida who also moonlights as a mermaid for her father (Arthur Godfrey), skipper of a glass-bottomed tourist craft. While wearing her mermaid costume, Jennifer meets the rakish space technician Bruce (Rod Taylor), who is naturally smitten. The only romantic roadblock is that the prissy NASA security chief Homer, played by the late, great Paul Lynde, somehow becomes convinced that Jennifer is really a Soviet spy! Hey, movies didn't have to make sense in the mid-sixties.