TV: Five shows worth watching tonight: Jan. 24
A select viewing guide for Tuesday, Jan. 24
FOOD You Gotta Eat Here! Food Network, 7 p.m. ET; 8 p.m. PT Is this program a comedy series or a cooking show? A bit of both, really. The loose format follows the amusing John Catucci all over Canada in search of unique comfort-food experiences at little known restaurants. And when we say comfort food, we really mean high-calorie repasts involving cheese, bacon and barbecue sauce. In tonight's show, Big John samples some non-traditional breakfast delights at a Toronto eatery called Betty’s Diner. Eggs Benedict served atop freshly made doughnuts? Why not?
COMEDY The Rick Mercer Report CBC, 8 p.m. ET/PT Still pulling ratings in the million-viewer range, this show benefits hugely from a frill-free format. In each episode, Rick Mercer simply drops into a Canadian city or town, where he immediately dives headlong into exploring the virtues of some heretofore unheralded person, place or thing. Tonight, for example, he’s in Sarnia, Ont., to learn firefighting techniques at the Lambton Fire College. Mercer’s next stop is in Charlottetown, where he checks in at the local Humane Society. Among other duties, Mercer actually installs a microchip in a cat and reads stories to the rabbits. He’s a trooper, our Rick.
DRAMA R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour Teletoon, 8:30 p.m. ET/PT The younger viewing demographic can’t get enough of this filmed-in-Vancouver series based on the works of bestselling fright novelist R.L. Stine. Unlike the previous Stine series Goosebumps, this one is slicker and the kids cast in the primary roles should be familiar to anyone who watches television. Tonight, for example, the precocious Ariel Winter, better known as Alex on Modern Family, ventures into her late grandfather’s office and ends up facing down the actual personification of Fear itself, which is pretty darn impressive for a 13-year-old kid.
MOVIE Agent 8 ¾ TCM, midnight, ET; 9 p.m. PT Released theatrically with the unseemly title Hot Enough for June, this 1964 comedy capably spoofs the spy-thriller genre created by the James Bond movies. The plotline, such as it is, involves the witless Czech-speaking writer Nicholas Whistler, played by English film veteran Dirk Bogarde, taking a trip to scenic Prague for what he believes to be a spot of industrial espionage. In fact, he’s now a card-carrying member of the British spy service MI6. Naturally, Whistler is handed a vital mission to protect world peace, which means he must rely entirely on the female agent Tatiana, played by the lovely Sylva Koscina.