Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Sunday, November 25. All times are Eastern.
Top pick
My Brilliant Friend (HBO, 9 p.m.): My Brilliant Friend is real damn good. Perhaps unsurprising, given the source material, but not all adaptations are created equal. While remaining determinedly faithful to Elena Ferrante’s source material, director Saverio Costanzo somehow creates something utterly cinematic, as his textured, thoughtful worldbuilding makes Naples feel reachable, immediate. One could be forgiven for feeling the need to wash the dust from their shoes or the sweat from their face after spending an hour in the company of Lila and Lenú, and part of that success must be credited to Elisa Del Genio and Ludovica Nasti, the two young actors bringing those unforgettable girls to life.
And now they’re done. Thanks, kids. Bring on the teens.
Lest you fear that the appearance of Gaia Girace and Margherita Mazzucco will mark a drop in the show’s potency and power, let us reassure you, the slightly older Lenú and Lila are every bit as compelling as their predecessors. If you liked the original version, you’ll also dig the remix. Allison Shoemaker has blown the dust off her copy of Little Women and stands ready to be dazzled by both brilliant friends.
Regular coverage
Doctor Who (BBC America, 8 p.m.)
The Simpsons (Fox, 8 p.m.)
Supergirl (The CW, 8 p.m.)
Outlander (Starz, 8 p.m.)
Bob’s Burgers (Fox, 8:30 p.m.)
The Walking Dead (AMC, 9 p.m.)
Charmed (The CW, 9 p.m.)
Escape At Dannemora (Showtime, 10 p.m.)
Wild card
Great Performances, “Tony Bennett & Diana Krall: Love Is Here To Stay” (PBS, 8 p.m.): Here’s the deal. Tony Bennett and Diana Krall doing a concert together that’s made available for free though the magic of public television would be a high priority regardless of circumstances. They are, each of them, the kind of singer one is tempted to describe by saying they have a voice like honey poured into whiskey dotted with nectar laced with smoke that’s then poured over velvet that’s draped over a sleeping cat floating atop a vast ocean made of cream and flecked with starlight, or some similarly flowery yet kinda warranted bullshit. Tony Bennett! Diana Krall! Worth seeing, no matter when they should appear.
Yet this particular gig gets a bump because the pair are paying tribute to the Gershwins, meaning a whole catalog from some of America’s finest songwriters is at their fingertips. And here’s the best bit: None, or almost none, of those tunes is a holiday song! Maybe you hear them at the holidays sometimes, because there’s a temptation to call any cheery jazz standard a holiday song, but we can guarantee you won’t hear “Sleigh Ride” even once. You’re welcome. Enjoy.
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Politics Corner – Did you hear about how climate change is a massive problem we should be trying to mitigate? The Trump admin released a report about that which looks grim. But on the other hand, they dumped it on Friday night after Thanksgiving. If it was actually important, they wouldn’t have tried to bury it, right? Yeah, 97% of scientists agree that this is already a huge problem we’re causing that is getting worse, but there’s still those 3% of scientists saying ‘maybe it isn’t?’The Trumpists would have you believe that the 97% of climate scientists are bought off by Big Science to make sure that sweet grant money keeps flowing, and the 3% getting funded by mom and pop oil and coal companies are the real truth tellers. Don’t believe your lying eyes that say severe catastrophes are getting worse while the ice caps melt and the sea levels rise, because Trump says it’s a hoax! Who are you going to trust, Trump, or 97% of scientists backed up with your own experience?Apparently the Trump admin rushed the report to Black Friday, because they cared so much about it that they had to drop on the biggest news dump day of the year – if they released it next Wednesday we would have lost 5 critical days where we could have been combatting climate change. Trump is still pushing hard for coal, and while that won’t bring back the jobs lost to automation, it absolutely will help dump trillions of tons of carbon the Obama climate plan would have prevented while opposing efforts to make us a leader in the new green energy economy I desperately hope is inevitable.I read a proposal today about how we could possibly mitigate climate change by building high atmosphere super-tankers to dump mirror particles that reflect enough of the sun’s rays to offset the thickening of the atmospheric blanket created by CO2 and methane emissions, and the plan, honestly, is not insane. The scientists who authored it made their own arguments against it – it would be a temporary band aid whereas the only real solution is NOT pumping trillions of tons of ground into sky. But based on my understanding of the science, which is less than expert but far more advanced than Trumpist, it’s plausible. If we won’t curtail the emissions that retain the sun’s rays, we balance them out with emissions created to deflect the sun’s rays.It sounds insane. Maybe it IS insane. I read some journals about how SO2 reflects sunlight back in my debate days, but they were balanced by ‘also, SO2 creates acid rain – that’s bad!’ While they aren’t proposing a massive sulfur dioxide dump, the potential negative consequences are why the authors are saying ‘here’s an idea, instead of balancing one pollutant with another, cut the levels of the first pollutant!’ Maybe sending tigers to eat the snakes we released on the island to eat the mice we released on the island isn’t actually the best strategy to protect the people on the island. (The island in this metaphor is Earth. The planet you live on.)The thing is, desperate times call for desperate measures. The first step is admitting you have a problem. America hasn’t even reached that first step yet. Meanwhile, we are getting ravaged by a metaphorical plague of killer snakes, and it’s getting worse.
Let’s see the science by an independent body, not one funded by government, the UN or the globalist shill Pope. Till then keep Al Bore, Obozo and Dope a Pope, on a leash and keep these bought and paid for articles away from the public in the hope that the idiots amongst us might just believe. – The_Master_Don, Far Away from HUSSEIN Obama, Antarctica, August 2015
Globalist Shill Pope would be a good user name.
I wrote a screenplay for a pilot a few years ago called “The Globalist, The Shill & The Pope. It was about three friends. One was a globalist, one was a shill and one was the Pope. Together they solved crimes.
On the plus side, during the George W. Bush administration such a report would never see the light of day at all.
Sweetie, I feel for you, but if you are trying to change the minds of white men who hang out here and on reddit, good luck. They are so brainwashed into thinking they are superior to everyone based on their gender and race and “free thought”, they will not hear you. However, if you want to have fun, refer to computer programs as glorified knitting patterns. Or just say that Ayn Rand sucks and should only appeal to angry 6th graders.