Cars, bathrooms and Gordie Howe: 7 TV shows you should watch this week (April 22 to 28)
A select viewing guide for the next seven days of TV
MONDAY, APRIL 22 Last Car Standing (Discovery, 10 p.m.) Canadians sure do love their crappy cars. From the makers of Canada’s Worst Driver, this new reality series profiles five average Canucks, each of who takes inordinate pride in owning a vehicle that probably belongs in the boneyard. The five clunkers are put through a bizarre battery of challenges, including a race, toward the goal of receiving a mechanical makeover upwards of $10,000. And the rustbuckets that don’t make the cut? They are instantly impaled on the “Spike of Shame” and presumably thereafter recycled to scrap metal. Christian Potenza hosts.The Associated Press
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24 Millionaire Matchmaker (Slice, 10 p.m.) Good ol’ Patti Stanger still believes everybody has a soulmate out there. The indomitable L.A.-based professional matchmaker remains the entire reason to watch this popular reality series, now in its sixth season. Virtually every episode in the series follows no-nonsense Patti trying to make a love connection for some well-heeled bachelor or bachelorette, but tonight’s episode goes down a different road: Patti meets a man online and starts dating him! You go, girl.The Associated Press
TUESDAY, APRIL 23 Just for Laughs 30 th Anniversary: 30/30 Hindsight (CBC, 8 p.m.) These days, perhaps more than ever, we could all use a good laugh. Which is more or less the purpose of this new two-hour retro special hosted by CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos, which boasts a staggering collection of clips taken from the past three decades of Montreal’s Just For Laughs comedy festival. The footage is separated into specific themes and includes brilliant stage turns from the likes of Chris Rock, Bill Maher, Lewis Black and of course comedy homeboys Russell Peters, Rick Mercer and Jeremy Hotz. Treat yourself.The Associated Press
THURSDAY, APRIL 25 The Office (NBC, 9 p.m.) Currently midway into its ninth and final season, the original workplace sitcom just seems to get funnier with each new outing–and wouldn’t we all love to work at Dunder-Mifflin? In tonight’s new episode, Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) practice their couples-counseling lessons during office hours; Dwight (Rainn Wilson) and Angela (Angela Kinsey) are in a fierce competition to win a paper-airplane contest; and hapless Andy (Ed Helms) has a side gig acting in an industrial film, once he finishes his acting lessons with smarmy local talent agent Carla, played by guest star Roseanne Barr.The Associated Press
FRIDAY, APRIL 26 Boardwalk Empire (Showcase, 10 p.m.) For those viewers who were too frugal to pay for premium cable, HBO’s period-piece gangster saga finally arrives on regular television and it’s actually worth sitting through commercials to follow this story. Loosely based on real-life events and characters, the series takes in Atlantic City, circa 1920, shortly after the U.S. government declared Prohibition. Local entrepreneur and thug Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) launches an ambitious scheme to become very rich by bootlegging liquor, which leads to a partnership with gangsters Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlberg) and Charles “Lucky” Luciano (Vincent Piazza). The primary hitches in Nucky’s plan is the return of his ambitious ex-protégé Jimmy (Michael Pitt) and the former federal agent Nelson (Michael Shannon) now looking to get into the bootleg business.The Associated Press
SATURDAY, APRIL 27 Insane Bathrooms (TLC, 10 p.m.) Were you aware that the average person spends more than three years of his or her life in the bathroom? As the title suggests, this new series profiles people who have gone way, way over the top in turning their bathrooms into things of beauty. Tonight’s opener goes inside a thirties-era loo with a Lalique chandelier and another fitted entirely with gold fixtures. There’s also a tour of a boutique hotel that has turned every guest room bathroom into a tribute to movies and TV shows and a visit to a see-through public bathroom situated right in the middle of a busy city intersection (you’ll understand it once you see it).The Associated Press
SUNDAY, APRIL 28 Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story (CBC, 8 p.m.) Hey, if Don Cherry can have two CBC TV-movies rewinding his blue-collar life and times, then hockey legend Gordie Howe deserves at least one, right? This new film skips right past the hockey legend’s four Stanley Cup wins with the Detroit Red Wings and opens right in the mid-seventies when a 45-year-old Howe and his two sons signed a deal to play for the Houston Aeros in the fledgling WHA league. Saving Hope regular Michael Shanks is appropriately soft-spoken as Howe and former 90210 star Kathleen Robertson is right on the money as his late wife and manager, Colleen.The Associated Press