TV: Five shows worth watching tonight: February 11
A select viewing guide for Monday, February 11
REALITY Dragon’s Den (CBC, 8 p.m.) Will the concept of Valentine’s Day soften the heart of resident Dragon’s Den meanie Kevin O’Leary? Don’t wait for it. In tonight’s special edition of CBC’s most-watched program, O’Leary and his rich pals are only slightly less dismissive toward the standard gaggle of wide-eyed Canucks gamely pitching their supposedly brilliant ideas. The list includes new showerhead invention, a decadent chocolate bar and an online dating site looking for love in the form of startup funding.
REALITY Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan (OLN, 9 p.m.) Sure to set your skin crawling, this new series documents the peripatetic adventures of actor Dominic Monaghan, best known for playing the faded rock star Charlie on Lost and a hobbit in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. In this setup, Monaghan looks right natty in safari gear as he combs the globe in search of rare and truly disgusting beasties. In tonight’s show, he crawls through caves in Venezuela looking for the world’s largest centipede–Scolopendra Gigantica–which has a nasty reputation as a carnivore with deadly venom.
FOOD Sweet Genius (Food Network, 9 p.m.) Love him or hate him, Ron Ben-Israel knows his business. Widely acknowledged as one of the most original pastry chefs on the planet, Chef Ron rights a tight ship in the cooking-competition series, now in its third season. Each episode runs three rounds with four contestants tasked to invent a delectable chocolate dessert worthy of serving in a five-star restaurant. The catch: Each dessert must include one blue and one yellow mandatory ingredient.
DRAMA Castle (ABC, CTV, 10 p.m.) Still drawing enviable ratings in its fifth season, this easy-viewing crime drama has earned a reputation for injecting the principal characters of author-sleuth Castle (Nathan Fillion) and NYPD cop Beckett (Stania Katic) into storylines touching on current pop culture themes. Case in point: The pair are called in to investigate a murder on the set of a Real Housewives show titled The Wives of Wall Street. At the same time, Castle scrambles to find the perfect Valentine for Beckett. Did we mention they’re dating?
MOVIE Abe Lincoln in Illinois (TCM, 11:15 p.m. ET; 8 p.m. PT) Long before Daniel Day-Lewis donned a beard and stovepipe hat to play Abe Lincoln, there was this 1940 version starring a Canadian as America’s favourite president. Toronto-born Raymond Massey nicely assumes the role in the sharp biography, which tracks Lincoln’s life from his days as a woodsman to his later marriage to Mary Todd (Ruth Gordon) and eventual rise to president in 1860. Watch it for the stirring reenactment of Lincoln’s great debates with political opponent Stephen Douglas (Gene Lockhart).