Once a reliable moment of art and substance during holiday week, the event was canceled altogether last year, only to reappear now as a strangely cobbled together 43rd Kennedy Center Honors (CBS, 8 p.m.). The honorees are Joan Baez, Garth Brooks, Dick Van Dyke, Debbie Allen and the violinist Midori. Among the stars who come out to celebrate them are James Taylor, Kelly Clarkson, Gladys Knight — and that’s just for Brooks. Nobody’s in the usual Opera House; instead they’re all over the performing arts center, including the rooftop plaza and the parking lot — before no audience but the camera crew. But it does have its moments. Here’s a longer piece I wrote about the show for Entertainment Weekly.
Oddly, public television counter-programs with the last time Garth Brooks got a big award — and D.C. was still open even as the virus was closing in, at the 2020 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings). (Here’s a thing I wrote about that).
The six-part anthology series “Little Birds” (Strarz, 9 p.m.) adapts the erotic stories of Anaīs Nin, starring Juno Temple, Hugh Skinner and Yumna Marwan.
Also new on premium cable is “Domina” (Epix, 10 p.m.), a new eight-part drama that takes part in Ancient Rome, tracking the rise of Augustus Caesar’s third wife, played by Kasia Smutniak.
“The Story of Late Night” (CNN, 9 p.m.), the informative and wildly entertaining series, concludes with a look at the effects on late night of the virus (that also delayed the airing of this series).
The four part boxing documentary series “Four Kings” (Showtime, 8 p.m.) takes a look at 80s stars Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard.