It’s entirely possible that an early work by the next Atom Egoyan or David Cronenberg will screen on Wednesday night at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. With the 2013 Student Film Showcase featuring the best from post-secondary schools around the country and the Jump Cuts Young Filmmakers Showcase kicking off the evening with Toronto-area high-school students’ films, the night will be a coming-out party for a new crop of talent. Judging by the polished creativity of some of the entries, it’s safe to say that young people are more prepared than ever to start telling stories on film from an early age.

According to CBC’s Chris Boyce, the goal of this weekend’s CBCMusic.ca Festival is twofold. First and foremost, the CBC wants to celebrate Canadian music. Second, it wants to celebrate CBC Music, the broadcaster’s online music service, which launched a little over a year ago.

In 1996, Theatre Columbus premiered playwright Michael O’Brien’s “freely adapted” take on the famous Beaumarchais play The Barber of Seville, which was written in 1775. O’Brien’s version mixed in music from the 1816 opera of the same name by Gioachino Rossini, as well as original tunes by composer John Millard. The adaptation also propelled the story forward a couple centuries, with pop culture references galore. With Theatre Columbus co-founder Leah Cherniak at the helm, the musical ended the season with six Dora Award nominations (it won three) and plenty of critical acclaim.

Seventeen years later, Soulpepper Theatre is remounting this zany reimagination of The Barber of Seville, updated once again by O’Brien, Millard, and Cherniak. But, for some reason—the change in decade, or company, or sense of humour—whatever had made the original so magical, has faded, save for a few key performances.

“So, wait, they thought people would seriously believe they PLANNED to interrupt a continuing drama right in the middle? Really?” “Apparently so.” (The “Bomb Girls” girls don’t believe this.)

Monday

Bomb Girls concludes tonight, having been cancelled because of dropping ratings. Apparently Global’s strategy—”delay the show to make room for simulcasts of American shows and then claim to have done that on purpose”—didn’t quite work, on account of that is a terrible, terrible strategy (you don’t see AMC interrupting Mad Men), but then again at least fans got two seasons of the show. (9 p.m.)

The Following also concludes, and, unlike with Bomb Girls, Canadians will get to see a second season of this unbelievably stupid, stupid show, which has caught its share of zeitgeist thanks to some good acting on the part of James Purefoy and Kevin Bacon. It’s otherwise so dumb it makes a Jim Belushi sitcom look like Twelfth Night. (CTV, 9 p.m.)

Tuesday

Panic Button is a reality show where people try to face their worst fears (e.g. snakes) without pressing the Panic Button, and—man, we only got through 22 words before we ran out of things to say about this show! And that’s counting “e.g.” as a word, which is probably cheating. (Space, 10 p.m.)

If a show about panicking buttons is too abstract for you, perhaps you should watch Ke$ha: My Crazy Beautiful Life, which is pretty self-explanatory in that it is probably about Ke$ha and her crazy beautiful life. (MTV Canada, 10 p.m.)

Wednesday

The Breakfast Club airs in primetime, and you know what that means: time to edit out all of the “fucks” in the dialogue! “No, Dad, what about you? / Freak you. / No, Dad, what about you? / Funk you! / NO, DAD, WHAT ABOUT YOU? / FLICK YOU!” (AMC, 8 p.m.)

The Family Tools has a solid lineup of talent (J.K. Simmons, Leah Remini, Edi Gathegi) backing up another sitcom starring Kyle “Worst Week” Bornheimer as another guy with insanely bad luck trying to fix a relationship with a male authority figure. Maybe this time it will not be awful! (CTV2, 8:30 p.m.)

Thursday

It’s the season finale of Big Brother Canada! We have no idea what happened, so instead we’re just going to make it up. See, first Daequan created an alliance within the house of himself, Timothy, and Alicia, but then Alicia backstabbed the alliance to team up with the twins, Herschel and Roberta—but then the man known only as Savage went on a killer competition streak! In the end, someone was stabbed to death. (Slice, 9 p.m.)

Weed Country is interesting because it’s a docu-reality show about marijuana growers and the police who try to catch them, which means it’s a show that explicitly uses law enforcement’s generally tepid response to marijuana in order to be able to exist on an ongoing basis. (Discovery Channel, 10 p.m.)

Friday

The Simpsons rerun of the week: “Dangerous Curves,” which is a flashback episode from late in the series’ run focusing on the early years of Homer and Marge’s marriage. “How many times must I say I’m sorry?” “You haven’t said you’re sorry.” “I know. I was hoping the number would be zero.” (Comedy Network, 8:30 p.m.)

The Weekend

So, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown is pretty much exactly what you expect out of every Anthony Bourdain travel show: some snark from Bourdain, some interesting local activities, and so on. Not so much with the cuisine this time around, but still, it’s an interesting travel show. That doesn’t explain why it’s on CNN, although we expect that CNN is trying to remake itself into a lifestyle channel. Can Wolf Blitzer give us all helpful cooking tips better than he can report the news? Answer: yeah, probably. (9 p.m. Sunday)

The Amazing Race concludes after a really solid season, with the unofficial Team Canada (Bates and Anthony) having established a solid leading presence (and the thoroughly annoying Max and Katie having run a very solid race as well, even winning the most recent leg). Thankfully, Megan and Joey, the grating team of “Youtube celebrities” (still a phrase we think oxymoronic) got eliminated most recently, so the finale will not feature them, making it instantly 1,000 per cent better. (CTV, 8 p.m. Sunday)

See, once upon a time Keri Russell was in a show called Felicity, and in the second season she cut her hair, and fans hated it because it looked terrible, and this is what passed for controversial TV in 1999, people, so if you’re younger than, oh, 25 you probably have zero chance of getting the reference unless you decide to watch the whole series on Netflix. (American Netflix, not Canadian Netflix.)

Monday

Seed debuted last week and, as Canadian single-cams sitcoms go, the debut was moderately funny. Not Arrested Development-premiere level funny, of course, but funny enough in an 18 to Life/Dan For Mayor sort of way that it should run for two to three seasons before getting cancelled, and nobody will feel bad about it getting cancelled, but while it’s there, people will enjoy it when they flip to it accidentally. This is about the most that Canadian TV can hope for these days. We’re all about the hard truths here, people. (City, 8:30 p.m.)

Tuesday

The Simpsons rerun of the week: “New Kids On The Blecch,” wherein Bart, Milhouse, Nelson, and Ralph form a boy-band which is secretly being used to broadcast subliminal messages so that the Navy can destroy Mad magazine. Much better than it has any right to be. “Now listen to me, Smash. We’re not signing anything unless it’s a contract!” (Comedy Network, 8:30 p.m.)

City’s also picked up The Americans, the cable series from down south about Russian spies living in deep, deep cover during the dawn of the Reagan era. This show received nigh-unanimous praise when it debuted a couple of weeks ago on FX, and as much as Televisualist would like to play contrarian, we just can’t because the show is so good—smartly written, exciting, uses the early-80s setting properly (e.g. to make the spying harder since they have to use old-timey spy gadgets, rather than simply playing Duran Duran songs all the time in the background), and has fantastic performances from Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, and Noah Emmerich. Seriously, just get on this right now before it is the next Mad Men and you’re trying to play catch-up – or, alternately, before it is the next Homeland and you are debating whether or not to watch the good parts before it goes all “what the hell” on you. (9 p.m.)

Live from Washington, it’s the 2013 State of the Union! We will go out on a limb and predict that President Obama will tell everybody that the state of the union is “strong,” because they always say that. Maybe, maybe if they decide to push the boundaries, they might say that it is “getting stronger” or “resilient, you know, like a giant spring and we’re gonna go BOING any second now.” (American networks, 9 p.m.)

Wednesday

Returning for its twenty-sixth season, we have Survivor, which is doing another “Fans Vs. Favorites” season, which lets them bring back popular former Survivors. Granted, one of the “favorites” this year got eliminated first in her season, so maybe they are stretching a little—but other than that, some of the notables returning are Malcolm from Survivor: Philippines (a superb player), Cochran from South Pacific (lovable dork), Brandon Hantz from South Pacific (kinda crazy, but hey, Survivor now has almost twenty per cent Hantz saturation!), Erik from Micronesia (who memorably did the stupidest thing ever in Survivor when he gave up his immunity idol to another player and then promptly got voted out), and Phillip from Redemption Island (one of the batshit-craziest players ever). So: promising. (Global, 8 p.m.)

Also inexplicably returning: My Strange Addiction, wherein we learn about people who are addicted to coffee enemas and licking cats. So technically I suppose TLC is sort of living up to its name. Sort of. (10 p.m.)

Thursday

Oh my god you guys Zero Hour looks so bad it is wonderful. The basic premise, apparently, is that Anthony Edwards is out one day with his antique-shop-owning wife, and she finds this weird clock, and then she gets kidnapped because somebody wants the clock, and it turns out the clock is one of a set of magical clocks or something like that, and if you get all twelve clocks then Something Happens, and also the clocks were the entire cause of World War II because the Nazis wanted the clocks, and now Anthony Edwards and the FBI have to go up against the Latter Day Nazis in a Quest for the Magic Clocks and also the Catholic Church is involved for some reason, possibly because the clocks make scary mutant babies, because like we said they are magic. Edwards looks to be doing all of his acting on this show after drinking a fifth of NyQuil, the Latter Day Nazis cannot quite keep their accents straight, and this is a show about evil magic clocks. This is the shittiest thing we have seen show up on a major network in years. This makes Revolution—a show that famously makes no sense whatsoever—look like The Wire. (If you are not following, The Wire is very good. That is the point of the simile.) Anyway, you need to watch at least one episode of this. Preferably while drunk or stoned or maybe both. (Global, 8 p.m.)

This week on Glee: Will and Emma finally get married! Yes, it only took four seasons, but finally the worst romantic pairing on television is finally resolved. (Global, 9 p.m.)

Freakshow is AMC’s new reality show about a traveling carnival sideshow and the daily lives of its performers, and this is one of those shows that you will know quite well beforehand whether you want to watch it or not. As a television critic, I generally discourage this sort of show from existing, because what the hell am I supposed to do with that? (10 p.m.)

Friday
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The 2013 NBA Rising Stars Challenge—or, if you don’t want to bother with silly names, the all-rookie/all-sophomore game—kicks off NBA All-Star Weekend. Number of Raptors participating: none. But it should be a fun game, as the rookies and sophomores all want to make Statements, as they so often do, to ensure they get decent contract extensions. Kyrie Irving alone should make this endlessly watchable. (TSN, 9 p.m.)

The Weekend

The NBA All-Star Weekend continues, first with the All-Star Saturday Night which includes the point guard skills challenge contest, the three-point shooting contest, and finally the slam dunk competition, which includes both Toronto Raptor rookie dunking sensation Terrence Ross as well as New York’s James “Flight” White, who as a basketball player has never been particularly special—except for the fact that he is quite possibly the best dunker of all time and this is the first time he has ever competed in the slam dunk contest, so expect T-Ross to compete strongly for second place. (TSN2, 8 p.m. Saturday) The next day, you can watch the actual All-Star Game and marvel at how Dwight Howard made it onto an all-star team as a starter, or for that matter how the Los Angeles Lakers – a team with a terrible losing record – have two of five starters for the Western Conference. (TSN, 7 p.m. Sunday)

The Amazing Race returns for season 22 (!) and this go-around, we have: twin brothers who are also doctors, former Toronto Maple Leaf Bates Battaglia and his little brother, a pair of roller derby players who are also moms, a father/son team of cancer survivors, two of the three members of the country group Stealing Angels, and the now apparently-obligatory team of Youtube personalities. (CTV, 8 p.m. Sunday)

This is a bunch of worms wearing lingerie, in reference to this week's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. We assure you that this is truly biting satire.

Monday

CHCH airs The Princess Bride, because they think there’s not enough good stuff in your life. True story: last week we met somebody who had never seen The Princess Bride, not even once. You know how there was always that one kid in your class when you were little whose mom and dad didn’t let them watch TV and so, when you were at school and talking about cartoons, they just had to kind of stand to one side and not understand what all the fuss was about, and you kind of pitied them? It was like that, except we definitely pitied them this time. (8 p.m.)

Blake Shelton’s Not So Family Christmas looks like your standard “famous person invites over their friends to sing holiday songs” special, but what’s truly galling is the lack of Adam Levine. Seriously, half the reason to watch The Voice is to watch Levine and Shelton rag on each other for fun. Why would you not do this, Blake Shelton? It’s television gold you are passing up here, man! (NBC, 10 p.m.)

Tuesday

It’s the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, brought to you by the people who realized that nobody watches any part of the Miss America pageants non-ironically except for the swimsuit competition. (Global, 10 p.m.)

Vindicated is a new docudrama sort of show, about people who have been wrongly accused and convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. It’s a combination of current-day interviews and America’s Most Wanted-style re-enactments. Wrongful conviction is a serious topic worthy of consideration and something that is well worth a TV show (rather than, say, yet another frigging show about weddings, although doubtless if this show is successful, next year TLC will bring us My Wacky Marriage to a Wrongly Accused Innocent Man), but we have to admit, our first instinct upon seeing the show was “Morris Chestnut deserves a higher-profile gig than this.” Because Morris Chestnut is a terrific actor who has been unfairly consigned to “urban” fare. Then again, there are dozens of black actors who could say the same. Morris Chestnut is just our favorite. (BET, 10:30 p.m.)

Wednesday

Titanic: Blood and Steel concludes with the ship actually leaving the dock, which confirms once and for all there were far, far more boring ways—such as this one—to tell the Titanic‘s story than whatever you disliked about the James Cameron movie, which at least had Billy Zane bein’ crazy and that bit where one guy falls to his death and bounces off the propeller. (CBC, 9 p.m.)

In case you have an extremely rare case of Grammy fever, the Grammy Nominations Concert is for you! It features performances by Maroon 5, The Who, Dierks Bentley, and The Band Perry, among others, and is hosted by the incongruous pairing of Taylor Swift and LL Cool J. Which demands that we ask: who the hell actually has Grammy fever anyway? (Global, 10 p.m.)

Thursday

The Simpsons rerun of the week: “Viva Ned Flanders,” where Homer and Ned go to Vegas and get Vegas-married. “I’ll have a Shirley… No, a virgin… No, a children’s… Oh, what the heck? You only live once. Give me a white wine spritzer!” (Comedy Network, 8 p.m.)

Friday

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure is a sequel to the terrible-but-popular Christmas classic, and the sequel does not star Chevy Chase. Instead, there’s Randy Quaid as Chevy’s horrible relative. You know, the one you want to throttle. Anyway, it is very bad and if you watch it you will probably explode in despair. We can’t swear to that last part, because we aren’t doctors, but we’re pretty sure it will happen. (YTV, 8 p.m.)

The Weekend

So the big news coming out of the season finale of The Amazing Race is not this season’s race itself (which has been a sorta-okay-but-nothing-special season, with no clear favourite of the remaining teams), but instead the long-awaited announcement of The Amazing Race Canada, which will be a Canadian instalment of The Amazing Race—by which we mean “the actual race never leaves Canada.” The producers are claiming this is because they want to feature Canada’s diverse geography, which really only merits “Yes, and we’re sure the vastly reduced cost of producing the show by not going out of the country probably had nothing to do with it, right, CTV?” as a response. Literally every Amazing Race fan in Canada (self included) has had the same two-step reaction: first, “Finally I can enter!” followed by “…Oh, okay. I guess I still will” when they find out The Amazing Race Canada won’t leave the country, because Amazing Race fans remember quite well the “Family Edition” season of the show which did not leave North America and which, as a result, was basically terrible, because without the travel porn and culture clashes that are the heart and soul of the show, you have basically a boring obstacle course, and that bodes poorly for The Amazing Race Canada. Time will tell, we guess. Anyway, getting back to the American Amazing Race: boy, those Sri Lankan twins sure manage to be endearing and annoying all at once, don’t they? (CTV, 8 p.m. Sunday)

Home Alone is a Christmas movie where Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern take it in the crotch repeatedly, which is to say: it is the best kind of Christmas movie. (CBC, 8 p.m. Sunday)

Sin City Rules is about “powerful women in Las Vegas.” Ostensibly, it’s a reaction to the Real Housewives brand, since these women actually have, like, for-real jobs. Of course, it’s made by the people who bring you all the Real Housewives shows, so when we say “ostensibly,” we mean “really ostensibly.” (TLC, 10 p.m.)

This week’s column title originated by Mike McGee @MikeFromNowhere on Twitter.

We are not actually sure if Ryan Gosling in fact said this, but whatever.

Monday

This season of Dancing with the Stars is the “all-star” season, with the likes of Pamela Anderson, Kirstie Alley, Joey Fatone, Drew Lachey, and Emmitt Smith making one think the title is almost merited. But then you see that Bristol Palin is also returning and you remember “Oh, right—it’s just Dancing with the Stars.” (CTV, 8 p.m.)

Partners is a sitcom starring Jon Cryer and Tate Donovan. The premise is that Jon and Tate are business partners and friends, but then Tate wants to get married to Maria Pitillo and Jon is worried about what that means for his friendship and their partnership…. No, wait, sorry, this is actually taken from a 1995 Televisualist column that somehow travelled forward in time. This new show called Partners is a sitcom starring David Krumholtz and Michael Urie, and David wants to get married to Sophia Bush, and Michael is worried about what this means for his friendship and their partnership. The twist this time around is that Michael’s character is gay, so the homoerotic subtext can be more, like, text. Also, you should have seen Televisualist’s hair in 1995. It was out there. (City, 8:30 p.m.)

Tuesday

Ben and Kate has been getting a lot of favourable press in the “show most likely to be unjustly overlooked” column, as it is one of those shows which is quietly excellent but has no obvious hook by which its network can publicize it. It is just a simple little sitcom about a single mother who invites her brother to live with her because she needs live-in help to take care of her kid, and it’s funny. So don’t unjustly overlook it, people! You don’t want to be unjust! (City, 8:30 p.m.)

Meanwhile, basically everybody has been giving The Mindy Project heavy ups because TV critics all love Mindy Kaling because she is funny and talented AND a woman AND a minority AND Hollywood has not thrown her out on the street yet despite all of that. However, here is the thing: the pilot of The Mindy Project is kinda meh. It’s not a home-run slam-dunk touchdown of comedy is what we are saying here. The cameos by famous people are forced and the episode feels awkwardly paced. Obviously we’re willing to let it work out its growing pains, because Mindy Kaling. But…yeah. (City, 9:30 p.m.)

Vegas is one of this season’s big, ambitious shows, about the early days of Las Vegas as the gambling-and-strippers paradise we all know and love, and the conflicts between the Mafiosi coming in and the cowboys who had always been there. In this show, Dennis Quaid is the heroic cowboy sheriff and Michael Chiklis is the bastard mobster, and that alone should sell you on the pilot if nothing else. (Global, 10 p.m.)

Wednesday

So, cynical critics are all predicting that Animal Practice will be NBC’s big breakout comedy hit this season, because it is basically Scrubs: But With Veteranarians This Time. Big, broad humour and cute animals. It’s not bad by any means (Bobby Lee in particular seems to be acting as if failure to sell his wimpy character will result in certain death). But it’s just sorta there. Still, it does have broad humour and cute animals, often at the same time, and people do like that sort of thing. (NBC, 8 p.m.)

The Simpsons rerun of the week: “Scenes From the Class Struggle in Springfield,” wherein Marge wants to be part of Springfield’s social 1 per cent thanks to her newfound Gucci dress. “But Marge…valets! For once maybe someone will call me ‘sir’ without adding ‘you’re making a scene.’” (Comedy Network, 8 p.m.)

Thursday

The other one of this season’s big, ambitious shows is Last Resort, ABC’s super-intense drama about a submarine captain (played by Andre Braugher, who delivers more dramatic speeches per hour than he did in Homicide) who refuses to nuke Pakistan when ordered and then the U.S. government attacks his sub so he does the natural thing and uses his nukes to secede from the country. Shawn Ryan (The Shield, The Chicago Code) is behind this one, and the general odds people are giving is that it lasts for one season but OH what a season. Or, maybe it goes for multiple years and wins all the awards. The future is an unwritten country. (Global, 8 p.m.)

Elementary is CBS capitalizing on the success of Sherlock by doing an hour long procedural in which Sherlock is dysfunctional and Watson has to keep him in hand, so basically it becomes like every CBS procedural ever, except with Sherlock Holmes. The stunt-casting of Lucy Liu as “Joan Watson” and emphasizing Sherlock’s history as a drug addict are new takes on the modernized Sherlock, though, and we like Jonny Lee Miller (and Liu) so we’ll give this a chance to get good. (Global, 10 p.m.)

Friday

Made In Jersey is a legal drama starring newcomer Janet Montgomery as a plucky criminal defence lawyer from New Jersey and…you know what, just go watch the trailer and save yourself the work of actually watching the TV show. (Global, 9 p.m.)

The Weekend

This season on The Amazing Race: an athletic double amputee! Husband-and-wife monster-truck drivers! Reality-TV goat farmers! Chippendales dancers! Sri Lankan twins! Hard rockers! The potential to win $2 million rather than $1 million (if you come in first on the first leg and then win the whole thing)! Phil and his eyebrow! Ah, Amazing Race, we have missed you. (CTV, 8 p.m. Sunday)

666 Park Avenue is a show about a condo development in New York that is run by Vanessa Williams and Terry O’Quinn, who collectively are the Devil. Somebody greenlit this. No, really. (City, 10 p.m. Sunday)

This week, Brett answers the eternal question: what if Sherlock Holmes teamed up with Jeff from previous Stephen Moffat show Coupling? And now, we know.

Monday

The Pitch had a sneak preview earlier this month, but this new reality show from AMC (motto: “Story Matters Here”) wherein advertising firms compete for a wealthy client company’s business is… not bad? It’s not great and it doesn’t feel like a very AMC-ish show beyond the obvious thematic connection to Mad Men, but there are many, many shows out there that will insult your intelligence more than this. This feels like a segment from The Apprentice except the people involved in the challenge are not horrible and stupid. (AMC, 9 p.m.)

Team-up alert: the good guys from NCIS: Los Angeles are teaming up with the good guys from Hawaii Five-O in something where there’s an evil bioterrorist and only Hawaii Five-O and NCIS teamed up together can stop him for some reason. Because Hawaii Five-O hates Tupac, but loves the LL. And also Chris O’Donnell and his dorky haircut. (Global, 10 p.m.)

Ridiculousness is Rob Dyrdek’s new show – this one is all about Rob Dyrdek and his crew of commentators “dissecting” failed YouTube video stunts. You know, the type where somebody tries to do something EXTREEEEME but then they take a shot to the nuts when they try to do it. Anyway, it looks like this will be less dissection-and-analysis then it will be “oh man look at his nuts.” Maybe you want to watch that, and make Idiocracy start coming true well in advance of when it was supposed to happen. If so, we shall not judge. (MTV Canada, 10 p.m.)

Tuesday

The Biggest Loser concludes – oh, we probably didn’t mention previously that it was on, did we? Well, we assume people will seek out this show if they want to see it. There is a limit to the number of times we can make fun of Jillian Michaels’ crazy eyes. (CFMT, 8 p.m.)

This week’s Frontline is about Wall Street continuing to make risky bets with other people’s money while regulators do their best with limited power to try and keep them from blowing up the economy again. In short: it’s a horror movie! And a documentary! At the same time! (PBS, 9 p.m.)

Okay, we made fun of the Hawaii Five-O/NCIS: Los Angeles team-up above—part two of which airs tonight—but in all sincerity: when good guys from two different shows team up, it makes us feel like we are seven years old again and reading Superman and Batman team-up comics. Or like we are twenty-nine years old again and reading Superman and Batman team-up comics, if we’re being honest. The point being: team-ups are inherently awesome and we don’t want people to think that us making a little bit of fun of Chris O’Donnell’s dorky haircut doesn’t mean we aren’t honestly thrilled by this. (Global, 9 p.m.)

Wednesday

The Simpsons rerun of the week: “Co-Dependent’s Day,” wherein Homer frames Marge for drunk driving so that he doesn’t get caught drunk driving. “I can’t talk to my wife for 28 days. Sir, she is not an alcoholic. You can’t put me on hold, I’ll put you on hold. I am a lineman for the counteeeee… Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold. And I driiiiive the main rooooad… There are…eight calls ahead of you. And the Wichita lineman is still on the li-li-li-li-li-li-li-li-li-li-li-li-line…” (CJMT, 10:30 p.m.)

Thursday

This week’s 30 Rock isn’t live like last week’s was, but they’ve given us an even better alternative: it features the return of Queen of Jordan, Angie’s reality-show-within-30 Rock that was so inspired. We cannot wait to see what new nuggets of wisdom D’Fwan, Angie’s gay hairdresser/homosexual party planner, delivers unto us. And also to see what Michael does this time to get his hands on some meth. (City, 8:30 p.m.)

Friday

For people who love prison-break movies, but have already seen The Shawshank Redemption, perhaps you should consider Papillon if you have not already seen it? After all, this 1973 classic – featuring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman – offers a far more realistic view of what one has to do to escape prison, which involves spending time with lepers and being betrayed by nuns over a period of thirty-plus years. It’s grim at times, but definitely something all fans of prison break stories should watch. (PBS, 9 p.m.)

The Losers flopped in 2010, which is a shame because it’s honestly a great action movie (and a fine adaptation of the comic book of the same name). It has a kickass cast (Idris Elba, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chris Evans, Zoe Saldana), good dialogue, things blow up really nicely, and people shoot guns in all sorts of entertaining ways. It is a fine way to kill a few hours. (Showcase, 10 p.m.)

The Weekend

The Amazing Race concludes, with not a single likeable team left in the race. The closest the remaining competitors get to likeable, in fact, is Dave and Rachel, and that only counts because Rachel seems cool and maybe Dave isn’t as misogynistic and patronizing in real life as he is on TV. The rest of the teams – drama-queening Brendon and Rachel, irritating Vanessa and Ralph, and whiny wannabe-alpha-males JJ and Art – come across as horrible people, and with Mark and Bopper’s elimination this week we have to settle for the finale of the Race being exciting because it almost always is, even when someone terrible wins. And that will just have to do. (CTV, 8 p.m. Sunday)

Sherlock returns for season #2 (which, admittedly, aired long ago on the BBC, but this is its first North American network airing). Now, granted, there are some sexism issues with the first episode, “A Scandal In Belgravia,” which introduces this Sherlockverse’s version of Irene Adler – some critics complained that reducing Adler’s level of personal agency diminished her, which is a fair complaint, but the counterpoint to that complaint is that the show is not called Adler. (PBS, 9 p.m. Sunday)

Luckily, George Takei is trained to deal with human wind tunnels after a career spent in the presence of William Shatner.

Monday

Undercover Boss: Abroad is basically the standard Undercover Boss formula of “have a boss go undercover, complain that the work is hard, then give the employees prizes so as to not have to do anything about how the work is shitty,” except these are global companies rather than American ones. But don’t expect to see any undercover bosses going to work in overseas sweatshops, because that would run contrary to the principles of Undercover Boss—or lack thereof. (TLC, 9 p.m.)

“Do you want me to send you back to where you were? Unemployed, in Greenland?” “You mean, you’ll put down your rock and I’ll put down my sword, and we’ll try and kill each other like civilized people?” “Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.” “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” “Mawwidge, that bwessed awangement, that dweam wiffin a dweam.” “It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead.” “Probably some local fisherman, out for a pleasure cruise at night in eel-infested waters.” “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” “This is true love—you think this happens every day?” If you don’t know The Princess Bride, what the hell is wrong with you? (CHCH, 9 p.m.)

Tuesday

Making a long-overdue triumphant return (or, well, sorta) is Cougar Town, which is apparently sticking with the Cougar Town name for the time being. (Let’s be honest, it should just be called Boozing.) But we love the show no matter what it goes by, because Bill Lawrence has brought along all of the comedic silliness from Scrubs, and also because the show’s unofficial crossovers with Community are wonderful bits of meta-humour. (City, 8:30 p.m.)

New Girl has been steadily improving after a shaky start, partly by downplaying Zooey Deschanel’s quirkiness so that her Jess, rather than just being a set of adjectives, is actually a human being. The gag writing has been steadfast throughout, but a few weeks ago Lizzy Caplan (Party Down) joined the cast on a temporary basis, and—quite apart from the fact that Lizzy Caplan is beautiful and talented and awesome on numerous levels (except for the fact that she is in a relationship with Matthew Perry)—she is a perfect foil for Zooey Deschanel. One can only hope that Team New Girl recognizes this and brings her on full-time. Sadly, we doubt that will happen. (City, 9 p.m.)

Wednesday

Survivor returns for a fresh new season, and the wrinkle this time around is the “One World” gimmick, wherein the two tribes will live together rather than on separate beaches. It’s interesting, because this actually has a lot of potential to alter the standard Survivor gameplay. Now, the capacity for inter-tribal alliances and coordination early in the game exists on a level that has never really been available to Survivor players before. Of course, this will depend on whether the producers have cast actual players rather than the idiot brigade of wannabe-starfuckers they’ve been casting the last couple of seasons. The lack of returning “All-Stars” can only help in that regard. (Global, 8 p.m.)

Thursday

The Simpsons rerun of the week: “Lard of the Dance,” wherein Homer steals cooking grease from restaurant grease traps for profit. “Marge, if you don’t mind, I’m a little busy right now achieving financial independence.” “With cans of grease?” “No, through savings and wise investment. Of course with grease.” (CJMT, 10:30 p.m.)

Friday

I’m probably horrible at heart, because when I saw that the 43rd NAACP Image Awards were this week, the only thing that came to mind was: “I wonder how long the Whitney Houston memorial/tribute segment of the show will be?” Oh well. (NBC, 8 p.m.)

So, on Twitter last week there was a #FiveFavoriteMovies hashtag game floating around, and on my list was Glory (along with Big Trouble In Little China, Hard Boiled, Three Kings, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, since I know you’re wondering), and someone asked, “Really? Glory?” And I said “yes,” and told them to catch it on some Turner-owned network since it was only a matter of time. And here it is! Glory: Providing quality content to Turner-owned networks since the early 1990s. (Turner Classic, 8 p.m.)

The Weekend

The Amazing Race comes back for its 20th iteration, with a team of former Big Brother contestants (because CBS wants Big Brother to really be an omnipresent thing), a team of Jersey Shore wannabes (because CBS wants to get the almighty Snooki dollar), a team of federal agents, a team of border-patrol agents, a team consisting of an ex–combat pilot and his wife (because CBS is the network of NCIS and as such must pay homage to the mighty American military/police machine), a team of married circus clowns (because CBS cannot ruin The Amazing Race, no matter how they might try), and a team of friends whose names are Mark and Bopper (because one of them is named Bopper!). (CTV, 8 p.m.)

Also returning to the reality world: Celebrity Apprentice, a.k.a. “Donald Trump can’t run for president because he needs the money from his horrible show.” This season’s selection of individuals willing to demean themselves by submitting to the notion that Donald Trump is in any way fit to judge them for charity includes Arsenio Hall, Dee Snider, Lou Ferrigno, Clay Aiken, Penn Jillette, Tia Carrere, and George Takei (who we desperately hope will not take any of Trump’s crap). (NBC, 9 p.m.)

As we see Pan Am come to what is almost certainly its end (no official cancellation announcement has been made, and ABC previously said that despite its awful ratings the show is on the bubble for renewal, but network shows that stop after 14 episodes and have bad ratings generally don’t come back), let us consider what did not work about this show. The stupid espionage subplot? No, that did not work. The attempts to remake Mad Men with a PG rating? Nope, that didn’t work either. Christina Ricci doing light comedy? Definitely didn’t work. The CGI planes? Didn’t work. But the girl who played the French stewardess was definitely good. So there is that. Maybe she’ll get to be in a real show in the future. (CTV, 10 p.m.)

Life’s Too Short is Ricky Gervais’ new sitcom, but really it is Warwick Davis’s (Willow, and so much more) show about being Warwick Davis and also being a famous dwarf. Davis, Gervais, and Stephen Merchant all play fictionalized versions of themselves (à la Curb Your Enthusiasm) and they are all basically pricks. So it’s funny. The “Liam Neeson does comedy” clip that went viral a couple of months ago is from this show, so if you liked that, you should like this show. (HBO Canada, 10:30 p.m.)

Brett's cynicism is unwarranted. Mostly.

Tonight on 2 Broke Girls, they finally answer the question of what the titular broke girls are going to do when winter comes and they still have that horse. Also: probably some racism. (City, 8:30 p.m.)

Heart and Souls is one of those movies that did poorly at the box office but then rebounded on video in the long term, mostly because it’s a lovely little comedy about ghosts and love, and featuring Robert Downey Jr. just as the actor was starting his long slide down into addiction—so, in essence, this Young Robert Downey Jr. at his peak, immediately following Chaplin, and he gives a hell of a performance in a story that, without his talents—and those of Alfre Woodard, Charles Grodin, and David Paymer, among others—could have been mundane and dull. Recommended. (CHCH, 9 p.m.)

Christmas stuff tonight: A Sing-Off Christmas brings you all of the thrills of The Sing-Off, except with no voting or contest of skill and it’s all Christmas music (CTV2, 8 p.m.); A Charlie Brown Christmas is exactly what you should realize it is (ABC, 8 p.m.); How The Grinch Stole Christmas is not the classic Christmas special but the hideously bad Jim Carrey movie (Global, 8 p.m.).

Tuesday

Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays concludes, and…okay, we’re going to put on the Bad TV Critic Hat and admit that Televisualist has not managed to watch even one episode of the CBC’s sitcom which has actually significantly improved on its debut numbers. We promise in future to not spend time half-watching episodes of Family Guy, which we don’t even really like except for the baby and the dog. (CBC, 9 p.m.)

Storage Wars: Texas is the spinoff of Storage Wars, except it is Texas-style. We don’t know what that means, exactly. Maybe all of the lost possessions they purchase for cents on the dollar will come drenched in chili sauce rather than misery. (A&E, 10:30 p.m.)

Christmas stuff tonight: A Michael Buble Christmas is guaranteed to be the blandest Christmas special of the week (CTV, 8 p.m.); Last Man Standing has its Christmas episode, presumably so Tim Allen can complain about hippies ruining Christmas by saying “Happy Holidays,” and then Nancy Travis gives him an exasperated look (City, 8 p.m.); Turner Classic airs A Christmas Story for what will probably be only the first of seven thousand times in the next two weeks (9 p.m.).

Wednesday

It is thankfully not seasonal, and nothing from last week was better than Supernatural‘s ultimate Bobby Singer episode. No spoilers, but: this is how you treat a character right even when the news for that character is bad. Respectful, honest and fair. Idjits. (Space, 10 p.m.)

Christmas stuff tonight: A Christmas Carol—specifically the 1984 George C. Scott version, which is not the finest of them but has its moments (AMC, 8 p.m.); A Very Merry Daughter of the Bride and Will You Merry Me? are apparently actually for-real movies, if you can stand to watch them even with titles like those (W, 7 and 9 p.m. respectively).

Thursday

America’s Next Top Model concludes its forty billionth season as Tyra Banks devours the final contestants alive. No, wait, that’s just what that discredited prophecy said. Or maybe we read it wrong. (CTV2, 9 p.m.)

Christmas stuff tonight: Community has its Christmas episode, “Regional Holiday Music,” as the study group fills in for the Greendale glee club—a lot of bad things seem to happen to the Greendale glee club, don’t they—and this is also the last episode before the show goes on hiatus (City, 8 p.m.); Wipeout has its annual “Deck The Balls” Christmas-themed Wipeout sort of thing (ABC, 8 p.m.).

Friday

The Simpsons rerun of the week: “Burns’ Heir,” where Bart becomes, well, you know. “Are you gonna release the hounds? Or the bees? Or the hounds with bees in their mouths, so every time they bark at you, they shoot bees at you? Go ahead, do your worst.” (Comedy Network, 8 p.m.)

Christmas stuff tonight: Frosty the Snowman, along with the awful, awful, so-bad-it’s-actually-just-really-bad sequel Frosty Returns (CBS, 8 p.m.); Christmas With The Kranks, the unbearably terrible Tim Allen movie where the moral is, and we kid you not, the real meaning of Christmas is putting on a big showy expensive display for your neighbours (W, 9 p.m.).

The Weekend

The Amazing Race concludes a season that has been a little more lacklustre than average, but thanks to the surprise elimination of Andy and Tommy, the Snowboarders For Jesus, suddenly the team that has been winning practically the entire season is gone and we have a race between three reasonably strong teams. Televisualist is rooting for Amani and Marcus, because they are the most lovable of all three teams, which is not hard given that Ernie and Cindy always seem like they are on the verge of a meltdown and we are hardpressed to remember Jeremy and Sandy’s names despite having watched them for an entire season. No, really, we had to check Wikipedia to be sure. (CTV, 8 p.m.)

CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute is not about soldiers or police, but instead mostly about people who have started charities or who work as community organizers and do good works for people who need help. We’re not sure how this happened to get on television, but there are far worse things to have on the news. (8 p.m. Sunday)

Christmas stuff over the weekend: A Very BET Christmas features performances by Monica, among others (8 p.m. Sunday); the original Miracle on 34th Street is still the best, even though Richard Attenborough was arguably a more charming Santa in the 90s remake (W, 9 p.m. Sunday).

CORRECTION: December 5, 2011, 3:30 PM The original post said that naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough played Santa in the 1994 version of Miracle on 34th Street. Santa was actually played by his brother, Richard Attenborough.

Monday

2 Broke Girls is CBS’ new vehicle for Kat Dennings, who is a lovely and talented comic actress. They have, unfortunately, given her a terrible, terrible sitcom: Dennings plays one of the titular waitresses just trying to get by in the big city, with Beth Behrs playing the other one, who is named “Caroline Channing,” which we assume is supposed to be funny. There’s a lot of potential being squandered here, which means it is the perfect show to follow Two and a Half Men. How did Whitney Cummings manage to create this? (City, 9:30 p.m.)

Whitney is the other sitcom by Whitney Cummings which got picked up this year, and unlike 2 Broke Girls this is a pretty funny traditional sitcom, mostly because Whitney Cummings is a really good comic actor and Chris D’Elia, playing her boyfriend, pairs with her supremely well in a George-to-her-Gracie way. Plus, Jane Kaczmarek plays her mother, and Jane Kaczmarek makes everything just a little better. (CTV, 9:30 p.m.)

The Playboy Club is painfully bad, as any show where the 60′s Playboy bachelor lifestyle is portrayed as a safe haven for strong women (who nonetheless all want to get married to rich husbands) would inevitably have to be, but what’s really bad is the murder mystery tacked onto the show in the opening episode. It’s not as bad as, say, the murder which partially derailed the second season of Friday Night Lights. Mostly because that show was very good, and The Playboy Club is schlock of the lowest calibre, trying to be Mad Men so hard it’s kind of pathetic. (City, 10 p.m.)

Returning shows of note: How I Met Your Mother (City, 8 p.m.), Dancing With The Stars (ABC, 8 p.m.), The Sing-Off (NBC, 8 p.m.), Two and A Half Men (CTV, 9 p.m.), Castle (CTV, 10 p.m.), Hawaii Five-O (Global, 10 p.m.)

Tuesday

New Girl is Zooey Deschanel’s new series, and why does Zooey Deschanel need a television series? Isn’t she a successful movie actress? Why does she need to shift gears downward to television? Let us just say that, although we of course love television, we recognize that movies are higher-status and higher-reward for actors, and Ms. Deschanel has only so long before she hits Hollywood’s brick wall of stupid and becomes unemployable except in a sitcom where she is married to her generation’s equivalent of Jim Belushi. Why is she running ahead of her natural cycle as a famous actress? We don’t get it. Oh, the show is fun, incidentally. (City, 9 p.m.)

Body of Proof is where Dana Delany pretends to be Dr. House. Or a woman version of Dr. House, anyway. That’s really all you need to know. If you think we’re not being respectful here, this summary is about 10 times more classy than the show, which is not very good at all. (City, 10 p.m.)

Returning shows of note: Glee (Global, 8 p.m.), Raising Hope (City, 8:30 p.m.).

Wednesday

Hey! Did you want to watch a singing show? I mean, yes, there’s The Sing-Off airing right now, and Canada Covers, and it’s only been a week since America’s Got Talent, and The Voice is barely out of memory, but maybe you have the attention span of a squirrel? Or, possibly, what you think a singing show really needs is the presence of a mean British judge who actually doesn’t have the greatest musical taste but is occasionally witty, or at least mean using different words than you normally hear? In that case, The X-Factor is for you! Also featuring the return of drunk Paula Abdul. (CTV, 8 p.m.)

Revenge is straightforward heavy-soap, wherein Emily Van Camp is a girl who used to live in the Hamptons but then something happened and the people there were responsible for her daddy’s death, so she returns as an adult to seek, well, revenge on them. The show is very, very rich and very, very white—there probably hasn’t been a show this unapologetically wealthy since Dynasty. Our theory is that ABC is hoping that rich people doing bad things to other rich people will make its not-rich audience really happy and watch the show every week. We dunno about that. (CITY, 10 p.m.)

Returning shows of note: Modern Family (City, 9 p.m.), Harry’s Law (Global, 9 p.m.), CSI (CTV, 10 p.m.).

Thursday

Charlie’s Angels is exactly what you think it is, and reviewing it is totally pointless. So instead, let’s talk about the cancellation of So You Think You Can Dance Canada, a show which was a solid hit for CTV and which the network has cancelled, citing excessive cost and lowered audience share. (Of course, their example—that this year’s finale had 30 per cent fewer viewers than last year’s—ignores that firstly this season aired mostly over the summer, when viewership is lower, rather than in fall, and secondly that the finale was on September 11, competing against all the 10th-anniversary-of-9/11 news shows.) Let’s be clear: this is a reality competition show, and therefore less expensive to produce than most scripted programming. It was also a successful show, both critically and popularly. Its cancellation is thus a bold statement from CTV: the network and the rest of Bell Media are making it quite clear that their interest in production is not profitable shows or popular shows or quality shows; their interest is in making shows as cheaply as possible to satisfy their Cancon requirements, and not a thing more. And that is not a good thing at all. (ABC, 8 p.m.)

Person of Interest is one of two offerings from J.J. Abrams this season, and it is more or less a straight-up action series. Michael Emerson plays a very Michael Emersonish character who has built a machine that can predict when people will kill people and/or get killed by people, and he sends Jim Caviezel (going extremely one-note and growly) to go stop bad things from happening with fighting. It’s a gloriously stupid riff on your standard procedural. (City, 9 p.m.)

Global has picked up Happily Divorced, Fran Drescher’s for-cable sitcom about continuing to live with one’s gay ex-husband post-marriage. We unapologetically love Fran Drescher for being awesome, but this show is just not very good. It’s got a great cast, but the writing is… not there, with so many old-school stereotypical gay jokes it’s almost painful. (Global, 9:30 p.m.)

Prime Suspect is the American remake of the classic British TV series that basically made Helen Mirren’s career for her, with Maria Bello in the Mirren role. It’s hard to say whether this will be good. Maria Bello is great, of course, and seeing Kirk Acevedo as her sidekick is pleasantly surprising, but Prime Suspect worked so well because it was short: each series was only four hours long. The first season of the American Prime Suspect, in comparison, will have as many episodes by the end of a first full season (assuming it goes that long) as the first five seasons of the British show did. This sort of thing can get tricky, is all we’re saying. (Global, 10 p.m.)

Returning shows of note:: Community (City, 8 p.m.), The Big Bang Theory (CTV, 8 p.m.), Parks and Recreation (City, 8:30 p.m.), The Office (Global, 9 p.m.), The Mentalist (CTV-Two, 10 p.m.).

Friday

A Gifted Man has a weird premise: a doctor meets his ex-wife by accident one day, then finds out after meeting her that she died two whole weeks before he met her that time (BUM BUM BUM!), and then she starts sending him on missions where he can use his doctoring to save people using his doctorism. So it’s a medical procedural crossed with Ghost Whisperer, kind of. (Global, 8 p.m.)

Returning shows of note: Supernatural (CHCH, 9 p.m.), Fringe (City, 9 p.m.), Nikita (CTV-Two, 8 p.m.).

The Weekend

This season on The Amazing Race, we have: Ethan and Jenna, both of whom have previously won Survivor; a pair of Olympic snowboarders; a team of grandparents; a gay couple; a pair of Vegas showgirls; a father-son team where the son was the first person under 18 to sail around the world solo; and the now-kind-of-standard team of twins. This season also marks the Race‘s first visits to Denmark, Malawi, and Indonesia, because after 19 seasons, this show still has lots of things it hasn’t done yet. (CTV, 8 p.m. Sunday.)

Pan Am, like The Playboy Club, wants to be Mad Men really badly and does so by using a setting (1960s air flight) that was a gratuitously sexist workplace. However, Pan Am is much more tolerable than The Playboy Club is, mostly because it manages the Mad Men trick of playing up the glamorous portions of the period without flinching from the ugly parts. It’s still not as good as Mad Men, though. (CTV, 10 p.m. Sunday.)

Returning shows of note: The Simpsons (Global, 8 p.m. Sunday), Desperate Housewives (CTV, 9 p.m. Sunday), The Good Wife (Global, 10 p.m. Sunday).