Televisualist: The Worst Channel

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.

This sort of stare is the one we give editorial when they ask us where our column is.

Monday

Turner Classic (“the only movie channel that really matters”) has The Mouse That Roared, the 1959 classic Peter Sellers comedy where the tiny nation of Fenwick declares war on the United States in order to surrender immediately and get American post-war spending directed their way. It’s a fine comedy that’s aged quite well, and Turner Classic airing movies like this (while AMC has more or less given up on airing any movies other than box office hits from the last two decades) justifies it forever. (8 p.m.)

Showcase officially becomes “The Most Hated of All Channels” by airing Christmas movies on November 3, which feels like a new record. Tonight you can watch His and Her Christmas, which is about Dina Meyer (the second-most important female character in Starship Troopers) and David Sutcliffe (Christopher, A.K.A. The Worst Character, from Gilmore Girls) being rival columnists in a small-town newspaper war (?), and also it is Christmas. Then there’s Recipe for a Perfect Christmas, which is about how a woman whose mother is Christine Baranski and falls in love with Bobby Cannavale, and also it is Christmas. Finally, there’s Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas, where the answer to the title is “Drew Lachey, playing a rock star,” and also it is Christmas. You can always tell a terrible Christmas movie, because “and also it is Christmas” always fits into the description. Anyway, congratulations on being hated, Showcase! We thought for sure Slice was going to ruin the holidays first. (6 p.m., 8 p.m., and 10 p.m. respectively)

Premium Rush, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s bike-courier action movie, kind of flopped at theatres but deserved much better: it’s a great action movie, it has Michael Shannon as the villain (which, okay, not original, but Shannon as the baddie means you get a good baddie). If you’re a cyclist at all you owe it to yourself to see what is, for all intents and purposes, the closest that we will ever get to a bicycle equivalent of Ronin. (Peachtree, 8 p.m.)

It’s the 49th Annual CMA Awards, because the country music industry is so insecure that if they don’t get an awards show every month, they might think their artform is dying! Which it kind of is. (City, 8 p.m.)

People use “hatewatch” to describe compelling TV they feel ashamed to enjoy, but really, the term should be reserved for works that are technically brilliant but morally void. Gone with the Wind is an excellent example of something that is truly hatewatchable, given that it is a film made with remarkable craftsmanship on all levels, which is about a slave-owning plantation belle who wants to steal her cousin’s husband, actually steals her sister’s fiancé, and is then trapped in a loveless marriage until her husband rapes her and shoves her down a flight of stairs, after which she falls in love with him, but he leaves her after her cousin dies because she came to console the belle while the belle had a case of the vapours. If you want to spend three hours lustily booing Vivien Leigh, this is the movie for you. (Turner Classic, 9:45 p.m.)

Mr. D returns for a fourth season in a desperate bid to make people think the Tories were right to kill the CBC. It’s actually airing on City this season, but its existence is still the CBC’s fault. (8 p.m.)

MasterChef Junior Edition returns for a new season of Gordon Ramsay desperately trying not to swear at adorable moppets. (CTV2, 8 p.m.)

War Junk: a reality show about guys who scavenge old battlefields with new technology in order to try and find historical/military relics. Hey, wait, it’s a reality show on the History Channel that actually belongs, on the History Channel! (10 p.m. Sunday)

Black Books, Graham Linehan’s crazed-bookshop-owner comedy series, is fully available for your viewing pleasure. In fact, so is The IT Crowd, which in addition to being hilarious also launched the careers of both Chris O’Dowd and Richard Ayoade. Fun fact: NBC actually commissioned an American version of The IT Crowd starring Ayoade in the same role and Joel McHale in the O’Dowd role, but the pilot tested poorly, so they scrapped it. But you can watch it online