By Christopher Bird

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.

Monday

Saturday Night Live again appears on a non-Saturday to present their Presidential Bash 2008, which will no doubt feature multiple appearances of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, it probably also means multiple appearances of Fred Armisen as Barack Obama and Darrell Hammond’s surprisingly lacklustre John McCain. Also, Amy Poehler had her baby so she probably won’t be on the show either. Therefore, this one will probably stick to the standard SNL ratio of “five minutes of brilliance, an hour and a half of suck.” (Global, 9 p.m.)
Trash classic alert: Anaconda! Jennifer Lopez before she became famous! Eric Stoltz in a coma for most of the movie! Ice Cube versus a giant snake! Jon Voight’s theoretically Paraguayan accent! Also, did we mention the giant snake? (Peachtree, 8 p.m.)

Tuesday

So there’s this election thing happening which Televisualist is told is rather important for some reason. Maybe you want to watch that and see what happens to the free world, or something. All Televisualist has to say is he doesn’t want to wake up on Wednesday and have to hear “Gosh, how could the polls have been so wrong?” (All major American networks plus Newsworld and BBC Canada, 7 p.m.)
And once the hurlyburly’s done, once the battle’s lost and won (or not, depending on how close the results are), tune into the Daily Show/Colbert Report combination hourlong “Indecision 2008″ special, which is traditionally the only good part of the American federal election in this millennium. However, in fairness this time around, George Bush will not win, so presumably there’s nowhere to go but up. (CTV, 10 p.m.)
The Simpsons (eerily related!) rerun of the week: “Sideshow Bob Roberts,” wherein Sideshow Bob is elected Mayor of Springfield. “Mayor Quimby supports revolving door prisons. Mayor Quimby even released Sideshow Bob, a man twice convicted of attempted murder. Can you trust a man like Mayor Quimby? Vote Sideshow Bob for mayor.” (Comedy Network, 9 p.m.)

Wednesday

Another entry in the “TVO ordered this and Televisualist only just got caught up on it in time to discuss it as the last episode airs,” the British TV series The Fixer is really quite good: a decent dramatic thriller about an ex-soldier turned state-sponsored assassin targeting members of organized crime cartels, with all the spy-based intrigue and shades-of-grey moral conundrums one might expect, and all performed quite well. Andrew Buchan as the assassin is particularly impressive. (9 p.m.)
Somewhat optimistically, BET scheduled “The First Black President? What Obama Means To America” for tonight’s BET News. Man, if Obama doesn’t get elected… actually, we’ll all have bigger problems than BET getting cocky, frankly. (8 p.m.)

Thursday

Your Survivor update: there are two tribes as usual, Kota and Fang (pronounced “Fong”). Kota is home to anybody who is not a total idiot, and Fang is everybody else, dominated by a supposed power-alliance of no-hopers who steadily decimate their own tribe in anticipation of making it to a merger they will never, ever see. However, on the bright side, one of the girls on Fang used to be a bit player on Gilmore Girls. So they’ve got that going for them. (Global, 8 p.m.)
Your Grey’s Anatomy update: they are all doctors and sometimes they have sex with each other. I don’t know. I figure rather than watch this I can watch reruns of Scrubs, which are half as long and twice as entertaining. (CTV, 9 p.m.)

Friday

The CBC’s much-delayed airing of Doctor Who’s fourth season continues with “Silence In The Library,” which was far and away the best storyline in what we now know to be David Tennant’s last full season as the Doctor; this two-parter (of which this is the first half) is creepy and dramatic and exciting and just full-tilt awesome in the way that only Doctor Who can be when it’s at its peak. (9 p.m.)
“We’re just gonna go home later, right? And then there’s gonna be all that tension; we’ve never kissed before and I’ll never know when to make the right move or anything. So we’ll kiss now and get it over with, and then we’ll go eat. We’ll digest our food better.” If you didn’t know that was from Annie Hall, you owe it to yourself to watch it, and to learn that Woody Allen was once really, really goddamned brilliant. (Turner Classic, 8:30 p.m.)