It may seem like there are a load of new Christmas movies on cable every year, but actually they’re all just variations on one story:
An overworked single city woman has to also work on Christmas, is sent to a small town or maybe her own hometown for the holidays, is immediately confronted with a male she inherently dislikes, eventually learns to slow down, appreciate the holiday and even settle down with the guy.
It happens on the subpar “Let It Snow” (Hallmark, 9 p.m.), which includes Alan Thicke as a demanding father and boss to Candace Cameron Bure,sent tovisita showy lodge inMaine from their headquarters in Arizona.
It’s not so different on “Dear Secret Santa” (Lifetime, 8 p.m.), in which Tatyana Ali returns to her hometown to care for her ailing father and slowly becomes less prickly. It also stars Lamorne Morris of “New Girl” and Jordin Sparks.
New tonight on cable is “Beautiful Creatures” (HBO, 8 p.m.), the adaptation of the young adult novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl starring Alice Englert, Viola Davis and Emma Thompson.
Football dominates broadcast TV again with Notre Dame at Stanford (Fox, 7 p.m.) and UCLA at Southern California (ABC, 8 p.m.). Prime time football on cable includes Texas A&M at Missouri (ESPN, 7:45 p.m.) New Mexico at Boise State (ESPN2, 10 p.m.) and San Diego State at UNLV (ESPNU, 10:30 p.m.).
Two holiday specials run back to back, “The Flight Before Christmas” (CBS, 8 p.m.) and “The Story of Santa Claus” (CBS, 9 p.m.), an animated musical with the voices of Ed Asner and Jennifer Connelly.
The National Dog Show (NBC, 8 p.m.) that ran after the Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving, gets a primetime rerun.
Vera Miles gets the Turner Movie Classics spotlight tonight with “The Searchers” (8 p.m.), “The Wrong Man” (10:15 p.m.), “Autumn Leaves” (12:15 a.m.) and “The Doll Squad” (2:15 a.m.).
Bob Mould plays a rerun of “Austin City Limits” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings).
The Kerry Washington-hosted episode of “Saturday Night Live” (NBC, 11:30 p.m.) with Eminem is rerun. An edited version of last week’s episode with Josh Hutcherson and Haim is repeated at 10 p.m.