Televisualist: The Baseball Election

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.

Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair practise their karate.

Monday

It’s the season finale of The Canadian Federal Election! In tonight’s extra-long episode, Stephen Harper (played, as always, by veteran actor Heywood Iablome) goes up against his greatest challenge yet, the one-two punch of Justin “The Avenging Son” Trudeau and Thomas “El Beardo” Mulcair. Showrunners are promising numerous twists and turns after the recent crossover with Crack Mayor drew major criticism; we’re hoping for a surprise cameo from Don Cherry. (Election night coverage begins as follows: CBC, Newsworld and CTV 7 p.m., CHCH 8 p.m., Global and Omni-1 9 p.m., City 10 p.m.)

Also, it’s Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, after the Blue Jays dropped the first two to the Kansas City Royals. This is the first Jays home game in the ALCS, so hopefully it will be loud. Also hopefully nobody forgets to vote because of a frigging baseball game. (Sportsnet, 8 p.m.)

Arctic Rescue is the least creatively titled Discovery reality show yet. But, to be fair, it’s about Arctic car-towing companies, so there wasn’t a lot of fun leeway they could exploit. (8 p.m.)

Being Mary Jane returns for a third season of being that show nobody talks about because it’s on BET, even though it has Gabrielle Union and she’s great. (9 p.m.)

Hunting Hitler is a show about searching for Hitler. “But he died in 1945,” you say? You see, this show is based on a “book” by noted author Jerome Corsi (who wrote a book in 2004 claiming that John Kerry faked his war injuries, and another in 2011 claiming that Barack Obama faked his Hawaiian birth certificate) that suggests that Hitler survived the war and instead fled to Argentina, because Jerome Corsi isn’t creative enough to come up with a new lame conspiracy theory. (History, 10 p.m.)

Turner Classic (“the only movie channel that still matters”) has The Producers tonight, the original 1968 one with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder (as opposed to the film version of the musical, which was not very good at all) and, like many of the early Mel Brooks works, it still feels fresh and sharp. (8 p.m.)

Torontoist alumnus Desmond Cole shows up on tonight’s episode of The Agenda With Steve Paikin as part of a wider episode on racial bias in policing. Also, next week, Desmond is scheduled to appear on The Muppets (not really). (TVO 8 p.m.)

On PBS tonight, Great Performances airs a live showing of Billy Elliot: The Musical. Whether this qualifies as a great performance or not is no longer your call. It is entirely up to PBS now. (8 p.m.)

The Fifth Estate begins its new season with a special on the toll of civilian casualties in Syria, which probably should have aired last week, really. (CBC, 9 p.m.)

The big draw of this year’s “Treehouse of Horror” episode of The Simpsons: Sideshow Bob finally gets to murder Bart. Which was a long time coming, let’s be honest. (Global, 10 p.m. Sunday)