Paul Giamatti (“Billions”) lends his voice to “Empires of New York” (8 p.m. Sunday, CNBC), narrating a tabloid fantasy disguised as a history of the 1980s.
“Empires” profiles seminal figures from the period, junk-bond king Ivan Boesky, hotelier and “Queen of Mean” Leona Helmsley, gangster John Gotti, prosecutor and future mayor Rudolph Giuliani and media-savvy developer and future president Donald Trump.
The five-part series runs through Dec. 27, chronicling a decade that saw New York City rise from squalor and bankruptcy to a kind of feisty glitz, even if much of it was financed by sketchy debt and speculation.
Curiously absent among its major profiles are Ed Koch, the mayor associated with the city’s 1980s turnaround, and Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who used the tabloid New York Post and later his Fox empire to celebrate law & order politics, tax-cut conservatism, sleazy celebrity gossip and vulgar and ostentatious displays of wealth. Both were more influential at the time than the five profiled in “Empires.”
There’s a certain sleazy audacity to this series. Three of its five main figures spent time in prison and the remaining two, Trump and Giuliani, have uncertain legal futures.
Above all, it presents a “legend” of the 1980s with a certain slapdash approach to history and fact. Early in the first episode, while covering the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan is referred to as “an unlikely candidate” who had come out of nowhere. That would have come as a surprise to anybody who had seen him almost wrest the nomination from sitting president Gerald Ford in 1976. Calling Reagan, always a front-runner in 1980, “unlikely” flies in the face of reality. But tabloids don’t report events, they shape them to their narrative.
Curiously, “Empires” airs as New York City undergoes an economic meltdown and identity crisis. New York isn’t the broken-down city depicted in the beginning of “Empires,” but its future may be even more uncertain.
— Directed by Errol Morris (“Thin Blue Line”), “My Psychedelic Love Story” (9 p.m. Sunday, Showtime, TV-14) recalls a curious chapter in the history of the counterculture.
Employing striking graphics, reenactments and period footage and photography, “Love Story” offers an extended interview with Joanna Harcourt-Smith, who spent her 20s as the lover of LSD guru Timothy Leary, when he was on the run from the U.S. government after being sprung from prison by the Weather Underground.
Recalling a hallucinogenic odyssey that took them from Switzerland to Kabul, Harcourt-Smith’s recollections evoke the political paranoia of the time. She wonders aloud if the entire escapade wasn’t some elaborate trap set up by the government to ensnare Leary, a former Harvard professor condemned by President Nixon as the most dangerous man in America.
Fans of Morris’ documentaries are used to his habit of following peculiar characters down rabbit holes. But for all of her youthful beauty and exotic radical chic, Harcourt-Smith is an unreliable narrator. What would you expect of somebody who took acid every day for years?
Her story seems better suited as one chapter in a richer tale. Spending the better part of two hours with her is wearisome. I learned more about her story reading her obituary. Harcourt-Smith died on Oct. 11, 2020.
— Just a day after Disney+ debuted its new “Black Beauty,” HBO presents “The Call of the Wild” (8 p.m. Saturday), a 2020 adaptation of Jack London’s 1903 novel. The modern-day “Beauty” relates the tale of a mustang ripped from the wild to the posh domesticity of a Long Island paddock. “Wild” sticks closer to London’s story of a family dog taken from the comforts of his California home to the tooth-and-claw savagery of the frozen north.
“Call of the Wild” may concern the turn-of-the-century Yukon country, but the movie tells a tale of 2020. As it stands, the film is considered a commercial failure, but only because it was yanked from theaters in March, as COVID-19 struck. It actually made more money in its second week, a rarity for big-budget wide releases. Some critics quibbled about the special effects, but were generally pleased with Harrison Ford’s performance and narration.
— Alan Cumming hosts “Masterpiece: 50 Fabulous Years” (8 p.m., PBS). The special glances back at the Sunday-night institution that has aired such favorites as “I, Claudius,” (1976); “Bleak House” (1985 and 2005); “Prime Suspect” (1991); and “House of Cards” (1991) over the years.
SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— College football action includes LSU at Texas A&M (7 p.m., ESPN), Oklahoma at West Virginia (7:30 p.m., ABC) and Arizona at UCLA (8 p.m., Fox).
— “Robbie the Reindeer: Hooves of Fire and Legend of the Lost Tribe” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-G).
— John O’Hurley (“Seinfeld”) hosts “The National Dog Show” (8 p.m., NBC, r), with insights and commentary from David Frei and Mary Carillo.
— Plans go awry in the 2020 holiday romance “Merry Liddle Christmas Wedding” (8 p.m., Lifetime).
— The voices of Ed Asner, Betty White and Tim Curry animate the 1996 special “The Story of Santa Claus” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-G).
— A bride-to-be welcomes the embrace of her dance instructor after her wedding is canceled in the 2020 romance “The Christmas Waltz” (9 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
SUNDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— Scheduled on “60 Minutes” (7:30 p.m., CBS): An interview with Deptartment of Homeland Security director Chris Krebs, fired by the White House; the discovery of a historic shipwreck thought to be a slave ship; a profile of James Corden.
— As Reagan cuts benefits and social programs while cutting taxes, his first lady takes the brunt of media criticism on “The Reagans” (8 p.m., Showtime, TV-PG).
— The Green Bay Packers host the Chicago Bears in NFL action (8:20 p.m., NBC).
— Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall star in the 1988 comedy “Coming to America” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14).
— Grace puts family first in the season finale of “The Undoing” (9 p.m., HBO, TV-MA).
— Loy is given a business lesson on the season finale of “Fargo” (10 p.m., FX, TV-MA).
— Barbara’s sister’s story emerges on “Murder on Middle Beach” (10:10 p.m., HBO, TV-MA).
CULT CHOICE
— Henry Fonda stars in the 1967 Western “Welcome to Hard Times” (6 p.m. Saturday, TCM, TV-PG), directed by Burt Kennedy and based on a novel by E.L. Doctorow.
SATURDAY SERIES
“48 Hours” (10 p.m., CBS) … A vintage helping of “Saturday Night Live” (10 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).
SUNDAY SERIES
“Football Night in America” (7 p.m., NBC, TV-14) … Skinner and Chalmers take a road trip on “The Simpsons” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … “Supermarket Sweep” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … A return to Earth on “Pandora” (8 p.m., CW, TV-PG) … A bias incident on “The Neighborhood” (8:30 p.m., CBS, r, TV-PG) … “Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas” (8:30 p.m., Fox, r, TV-PG).
A sudden visit on “Bob’s Burgers” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” (9 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … Few options for Talon on “The Outpost” (9 p.m., CW, TV-14) … First encounters on “Family Guy” (9:30 p.m., r, Fox, TV-14) … “Card Sharks” (10 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
