Seven days of television: November 4 to November 10
A select viewing guide to the next seven days of television
MONDAY NOVEMBER 4 Mike & Molly (CBS, Citytv, 8 p.m.) Some viewers still prefer their sitcoms of the old-school variety. Back tonight for a fourth season, this comedy starring Emmy-winner Melissa McCarthy (she’s Molly) as a sweet plus-sized schoolteacher and Billy Gardell (he’s Mike) as her big-boned cop hubby consistently ranks among TV’s most-watched programs. The new season opens with Molly at a career crossroads and thinking that there must be more to life than teaching. But watch the look on Mike’s face when she announces she wants to become a writer.Art Streiber
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 5 American Masters: Jimi Hendrix (PBS, 9 p.m.) As cliché as it sounds, the late Jimi Hendrix was truly one of a kind performer. Airing on TV fresh from a theatrical release, this new documentary provides fresh insight into the life of the electric guitar virtuoso who died far too soon in 1970 at the age of 27. The profile begins with his erratic childhood in Seattle and documents his brief stint in the U.S. military before he found his calling with The Jimi Hendrix Experience in the mid-sixties. In the final tally, Hendrix is shown to be an intensely shy man with an amazing musical gift.
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 6 Criminal Minds (CBS, CTV, 9 p.m.) Creepy as it ever was, this crime procedural continues to pull in huge ratings each Wednesday night, most likely because it rarely deviates from its formulaic format. With rare exception, each episode in the series devotes 70 percent of the screen time to a horrific criminal investigation, with the other 30 percent going to a whimsical sub-plotline, presumably to buffer the brutality. Take tonight’s new episode as a case in point: FBI profiler David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) and his Behavioural Analysis Unit scramble all over Boston in search of a serial-killer strangler who likes to keep mementos of his victims. At the same time, the BAU mounts a campaign to save Rossi’s favourite bar. Whatever works.
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 7 The Big Bang Theory (CBS, CTV, 8 p.m.) Network television’s highest-rated sitcom faithfully focuses on the lifestyles of super-smart nerds, but the show’s writers are no slouches in the brain department. Tonight’s episode brings back the guest star Bob Newhart, who won an Emmy last season for the role of TV science personality Professor Proton. In tonight’s new outing, Sheldon (Jim Parson) feels slighted when the Professor reaches out to Leonard (Johnny Galecki) for assistance instead of him. The solution: Sheldon befriends a rival science TV host: Bill Nye the Science Guy. Bazinga!
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 8 Shark Tank (ABC, CTV Two, 9 p.m.) In business terms, ABC struck gold with this faster and slicker version of our own Dragon’s Den, which not coincidentally features Den regulars Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec on its panel. In tonight’s new show, the Sharks field pitches from a New York paparazzi with a new method to help men with marriage proposals and a California baker determined to bring his homemade brand of bread pudding to the masses. As on Dragon’s Den, the fun part is watching O’Leary deflate their balloons.
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 9 Cujo (AMC, 10:30 p.m.) This 1983 thriller was based on a novel by Stephen King, who affectionately described it as a “big, dumb slugger of a movie.” The story casts Dee Wallace as Donna, a frustrated Maine housewife who hauls her young son along when she takes her car to a mechanic living on a nearby farm. The bad news is that the mechanic’s Saint Bernard, named Cujo, has already been infected by a rabid bat and has turned into a bloodthirsty killing machine.
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 10 Catch Me If You Can (Bravo!, 9 p.m.) Given the right role, Leonardo DiCaprio can truly be an astounding actor. In this 2002 drama, DiCaprio morphs fully into the character of Frank Abagnale, Jr., one of the most successful con men in American history. Set in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the film follows the young Abagnale’s first taste of criminal behaviour, which apparently began when his father, Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken, in an Oscar-nominated performance), was rejected by both his wife and his local bank for a business loan. To appease the old man, Abagnale Jr. begins a bizarrely peripatetic lifestyle that includes impersonating an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, among other vocations. Along the way, Abagnale is pursued by FBI agent Carl Hanratty, played by Tom Hanks in sixties-era horn-rims and fedora.