TV: Five shows worth watching tonight: March 29
A select viewing guide for Friday, March 29
DESIGN Extreme Homes (HGTV, 7 p.m.-midnight) Looking to make some renovations to your own humble domicile this spring? Before calling the contractors, watch this odd series from the American HGTV channel, which runs in full marathon mode tonight. As the title suggests, the premise profiles people who prefer to reside in truly bizarre homes, most of which would have Frank Lloyd Wright spinning in his grave. Tonight’s marathon begins with a visit to rural Montana where a man has built a home made entirely of stainless steel and a tour of a rhomboid-shaped residence in the Netherlands. The highlight: A house in Argentina constructed entirely of soda-pop bottles!
AWARDS Kids Choice Awards (YTV, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.) It’s time for the slime. Back for its 26 th edition, this annual awards fete from the U.S. cable channel Nickelodeon pays homage to popular stars from the film, TV and music realms, as determined by viewer voting (this year’s show broke records with nearly 400-million votes worldwide). The running gag throughout the show’s history is that the winners are unceremoniously doused with green goo when they come onstage to collect their trophy. Hosted this year by Josh Duhamel, the broadcast includes musical performances by Pitbull, Christina Aguilera and Kesha and hands out awards to Johnny Depp, Selena Gomez, Katy Perry and Kristen Stewart–who somehow manages to avoid her sliming, much to the crowd’s dismay.
COMEDY Happy Endings (ABC, Citytv, 8 p.m.) Newly situated on Friday night, this sitcom demonstrates there’s still life in the venerable Friends formula of young people looking for love in all the wrong places. Now in its third season, the show began with the erratic single lady Alex (Elisha Cuthbert) breaking up at the altar with her best-friend-with-benefits pal Dave (Zachary Knighton). Also in the mix is Alex’s control-freak sister Jane (Eliza Coupe), her fey husband Brad (Damon Wayans Jr.), needy gay man Max (Adam Pally) and the desperately single Penny (Casey Wilson). In tonight’s new episode, Alex and Dave debate the wisdom of starting to date all over again, while Max and Penny attempt to break their texting habits with a little help from a highly-addictive cough syrup. Just like Friends, right?
REALITY Shark Tank (ABC, CTV Two, 9 p.m.) Now in its fourth season, this slickly-packaged search for the next great entrepreneur continues to pull in remarkable ratings each Friday night, with much of the credit going to a lack of primetime competition and the show’s ever-growing presence on social media sites. For Canadian viewers, the attraction is likely the presence of Dragon’s Den regulars Robert Herjavec and Kevin O’Leary, with the latter in particularly caustic form in most outings. In tonight’s new show, O’Leary and Herjavec (along with fellows Sharks Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner and Daymond John) ponder sales pitches from a wide range of enthusiastic entrepreneurs, including a Pittsburgh teenager looking for startup capital to launch her all-natural skincare line of sugar scrubs and a New Jersey couple hawking their product that supposedly provides around-the-clock bedbug detection.
MOVIE Jersey Girl (TLN, 10 p.m.) Written and directed by Kevin Smith, this 2004 feature tanked at the box office, but still boasts one of Ben Affleck’s most endearing screen performances. For once, the square-jawed actor is perfectly cast as the good-natured Ollie, who has a great job as a Manhattan music publicist and a gorgeous wife Gertrude (Jennifer Lopez) about to give birth to their first child. When Gertrude dies in childbirth, Ollie is understandably devastated, which leads to him losing his job and being forced to move back home to New Jersey to live with his cranky father Bart (George Carlin) with newborn daughter Gertie in tow. After a few miserable years of licking his wounds and working at a dead-end government job and licking his wounds, Ollie finally sees a chance for a new beginning in the form of a pretty video-store clerk named Maya (Liv Tyler). Watch for brief cameos from Kevin Smith regular Matt Damon and Jason Lee (but not Jason Mewes).