Worth Watching: Kennedy Center Honors, an Apollo Mission on ‘Nova,’ and a ‘Vikings’ Death

Matt Roush
18 Comments
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Michele Crowe/CBS

A critical checklist of notable Wednesday TV:

The 41st Annual Kennedy Center Honors (8/7c, CBS): One of the classiest performing-arts tributes of any year tries something new, saluting a contemporary work and its creative team with a special Kennedy Center Honor for Broadway blockbuster Hamilton, its composer/star Lin-Manuel Miranda, director Thomas Kail, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler and music director Alex Lacamoire. Also breaking tradition: Manuel, an honoree, gets down from the box to perform onstage during the Hamilton segment, along with original cast members Christopher Jackson (Bull), and the Schuyler Sisters themselves: Tony winner Renée Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo and Jasmine Cephas Jones. 2017 honoree Gloria Estefan hosts the evening, which also pays tribute to jazz great Wayne Shorter, country queen Reba McEntire (with daughter-in-law Kelly Clarkson among those singing her praises), pop icon Cher and composer Philip Glass.

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Nova: Apollo’s Daring Mission (9/8c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): While not as well remembered as the Apollo 11 moon landing the following year, Apollo 8 made history on Dec. 21, 1968, as the first manned mission to leave lower-Earth orbit and circumnavigate the moon. Commander Frank Borman, his crewmates, the mission control team and engineers are among experts reflecting on the risky venture that relied on untried new technologies.

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Vikings (10/9c, History): A high body count is nothing new for this grueling historical drama, but prepare yourself for a major loss when Vikings led by King Harald (Peter Franzen) clash with Saxons on the battlefield. Meanwhile, in a fight with his inner demons, Bishop Heahmund (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) wrestles with guilt over his earthly passions.

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Inside Wednesday TV: Turner Classic Movies celebrates the film career of Burt Reynolds, who passed away in September, with a night featuring some of the best-remembered movies from his 1970s heyday: 1977’s Smokey and the Bandit (8/7c), the hit that launched a franchise; 1972’s harrowing Deliverance (10/9c), arguably his best film; and 1974’s football prison romp The Longest Yard (midnight/11c)… Rowan Atkinson gets serious as the detective Maigret, in a second season of two mysteries based on the Georges Simenon novels, streaming on Britbox… IFC airs all six episodes of writer/star Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s unsparing tragicomedy Fleabag, starting at 11/10c. (This put her on the map; Killing Eve secured her place in the pop-culture pantheon.)

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  1. G

    GreenElephant

    It's Kennedy Center Honors for me tonight!

  2. G

    GoldSubmarine

    AMC is airing a National Lampoon Vacation movie marathon. Every one is funny to me. The Christmas and Vegas one (featuring a hilarious Randy Quaid) had me laughing non-stop when I watched them in the theatres.

    The least funny one was the European one, but still had enough laughs to make it worthwhile.

    Also if anybody hasn't watched Smokey and the Bandit (even the sequel is worth watching) in a while or ever, I highly recommend it. So many great laughs and good country songs. Burt Reynolds , Sally Field, Jackie Gleason and Jerry Reed are superb!

    Deliverance is a great movie but very hard to watch and I can't recommend it to everyone. But Smokey and the Bandit is fun for all!

    1. G

      GreenElephant

      Watched Smoky both online and in a theatre after Burt Reynolds death. Yes, it's indeed good fun for "Good "Ol Boy" humor. Gleason, especially is good for laughs!

    2. G

      GoldSubmarine

      So much fun! Part 2 was funny enough for me also. But of course the first one is the classic!

    3. R

      RedCupcake

      I was a little surprised that Smokey & the Bandit is going to be on TCM. But I guess if they're sporlighting Burt Reynolds, that movie would almost have to be in the mix.

    4. G

      GoldSubmarine

      Yes, I thought that too. Although more contemporary it still is considered a classic comedy.

      I'm still watching lots of vintage classic movies. Meet Me in St Louis and It Happened on Fifth Ave. Both superb!

  3. R

    RedQuill

    Since I don't subscribe to Amazon Prime...I've NOT run across Fleabag...

    Another site writes: "WORTH YOUR TIME IF YOU ENJOY… | British comedies with a wickedly dark sense of humor, rom-coms with frank discussions of sex (e.g. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), amusingly bleak depictions of the modern dating scene, characters breaking the fourth wall, Olivia Colman, guinea pig-themed cafés.

    YOU SHOULD PROBABLY ALSO KNOW… | Waller-Bridge is phenomenal here in a real star-making role: flat-out hilarious, endlessly charming (even when Fleabag misbehaves) and surprisingly poignant, too. And the show saves a big twist for the finale, which packs a real emotional wallop — and pushes Waller-Bridge’s performance to new heights."

    1. C

      CyanCoathanger

      Fleabag is on IFC which is a premium cable channel owned by AMC. It evidently isn't on my Comcast service.

  4. G

    GoldSubmarine

    To the TV INSIDER staff

    This site has lots of issues lately. This page sometimes doesn't populate under Matt Roush and/or Worth Watching. It finally did after multiple attempts. And the home page article about canceled shows of 2018 featuring Quantico, Scandal and Kevin Probably Saves The World doesn't work when I click on it.

    1. C

      CyanCoathanger

      That link to the article about cancelled shows is working for me now, but I've had problems with some of the links too in the past couple of days. However, I haven't had any problems with the Worth Watching links once they get them up. Didn't they have similar problems near the end of last year too?

    2. G

      GoldSubmarine

      Yes they did.

    3. R

      RedCupcake

      The cancelled shows page is an old page, only updated as new shows were added. So some comments were from two or four or even six months ago. Oth3er than that, I haven't experienced any problems with it.

  5. G

    GoldSubmarine

    Hope to find more classic movies this week. Last night I watched one of the funniest Christmas movies ever- Christmas in Connecticut. Not the remake of course, but the classic one. Cast was superb!

    I will watch that one again.

    1. R

      RedCupcake

      YEah, with Barbara Stanwyck. Very good movie.

  6. C

    CyanCoathanger

    Debating if I want to watch the Kennedy Center Honors or the Royal Variety Performance for 2018 which I get on a Canadian channel. Either way, I can't miss a new episode of Vikings!

    1. R

      RedQuill

      Vikings is one of those shows that NEVER back up on my DVR!!!

    2. C

      CyanCoathanger

      The way you talk sometimes, I'm surprised there's anything that you never get backed up on.

    3. R

      RedQuill

      Well Don...since Verizon's DVR has so much capacity (? 100 hours HD)...I "Season Pass" anything that I may have even 1 iota of interest in checking out...

      But...after watching the first (second) episode...I'd guess (at least) 50% of the shows end up backing up...(into my "4 and Gone" category)...