The best documentaries tell you something you didn’t know — and didn’t even know enough to ask about. “AKA Mr. Chow” (9 p.m., Sunday, HBO) profiles the flamboyant restaurateur who revolutionized the Chinese restaurant in Hollywood and elsewhere, changing the notion of Chinese cuisine from quick and cheap to a chic venue and an exclusive dining experience attracting a hip A-list crowd.
Along the way, we learn about his desire to be a painter and the prejudices he faced in mid-20th-century America and Europe, when Chinese immigrants were often considered at the low end of the status totem pole, consigned to restaurants and laundries.
The art dealers and others who dismissed his work and looked down on him did not know, or were not curious about, his background. Born Zhou Yinghua in 1930s Shanghai, he was the son of a grand master of the Beijing Opera, from whom he learned a great deal about performance, presentation, theater and showmanship.
The evolution from immigrant to thwarted artist to renowned restaurateur in the 1960s and ’70s occurred at a time when China itself was closed off to the West and seen as a dangerous Communist entity whose troops clashed violently with U.S. forces in the Korean War between 1950 and 1953.
It is pretty difficult to convey just how foreign China seemed, or just how fierce anti-Asian feelings were, in the U.S. before President Nixon’s visit in 1972. From 1941 to 1973, American forces fought three wars in Asia, with horrific casualties, justified, in part, by a Western assumption that “they” just didn’t value life the way “we” did.
That was the era when Mr. Chow came of age as a man, a businessman and an artist. As sophisticated as he is, and as dominant as he has become in both art and cuisine, he still recalls the racism he endured. Because, as he says, “it hurts.”
— Bad Bunny hosts and performs on “Saturday Night Live” (11:30 p.m., NBC, TV-14). Like late-night talk shows, the settling of the writers strike has enabled “SNL” to return. Now in its 49th season, it arrives despite the ongoing Screen Actors Guild (SAG) strike. Apparently “SNL” performances fall under a different area of the SAG agreement.
While this technicality enables actors and comedians to appear, should they?
Or should they show solidarity with their colleagues who are still walking the picket line and going without paychecks and benefits?
In collaboration with networks, are “SNL” guests and performers prolonging the strike?
And how will their current actions, convenient to them for the moment, seem in retrospect, months and years from now, when people wonder what they did during the work stoppage?
While I’m clearly not his target audience, I remain mystified by the appeal of last week’s “SNL” host, Pete Davidson, as either a comedian or an actor. Should we now also think of him as a scab?
SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— College football action includes Virginia at North Carolina (6:30 p.m., CW), Ole Miss at Auburn (7 p.m., ESPN), TCU at Kansas State (7 p.m., ESPN2), Michigan at Michigan State (7:30 p.m., NBC/Peacock); Duke at Florida State (7:30 p.m., ABC) and Utah at USC (8 p.m., Fox).
— A corrections officer looks for love in all the wrong places in the 2023 shocker “Bad Romance: The Vicky White Story” (8 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).
— A woman’s idea to skip the holidays for a year results in a nightmarish vision in the 2023 fantasy “Where Are You, Christmas?” (8 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
— Raised in a Fundamentalist community, a young woman (Eliza Scanlen) tries to make sense of the wider world in the 2023 drama “The Starling Girl” (9:10 p.m., Sho2), co-starring Lewis Pullman, who stars in “Lessons in Chemistry” on Apple TV+.
SUNDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— Scheduled on a 90-minute helping of “60 Minutes” (7:30 p.m., CBS): The Five Eyes, combining intelligence agencies from the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand; Americans held in Iran; a profile of pop star Pink; the Isle of Man motorcycle race.
— The 1993 animated feature “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” (8 p.m., ABC) blends action, horror and holiday comedy.
— A mystery deepens on “Hotel Portofino” (8 p.m., PBS).
— The Philadelphia Eagles host the Miami Dolphins in NFL football (8:15 p.m., NBC).
— Chuck, Axe and Wendy team up against Prince on “Billions” (9 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).
— Harry adjusts to desert combat on “World on Fire” on “Masterpiece” (9 p.m., PBS).
— The new arrival of an old face shakes Strand’s sense of tranquility on “Fear The Walking Dead” (9 p.m., AMC, TV-MA).
— A corpse dragged from the river reopens an old case on “Annika” on “Masterpiece” (10 p.m., PBS).
— Families (over)decorate their homes in search of a cash prize on “The Great Halloween Fright Fight” (10 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
— A neighbor’s behavior says a lot on “Shining Vale” (10:30 p.m., Starz, TV-MA).
CULT CHOICE
A cute, impish child (Patty McCormack) displays increasingly psychopathic tendencies in the 1956 screen adaptation of “The Bad Seed” (2 p.m., Sunday, TCM), from Maxwell Anderson’s stage drama, itself adapted from a novel by William March.
SATURDAY SERIES
A simulated space trip results in a real death on “NCIS: Hawaii” (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-PG) … “48 Hours” (9 p.m. and 10 p.m., CBS).
SUNDAY SERIES
Homer’s midlife crisis on “The Simpsons” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … A miscarriage of justice on “Krapopolis” (8:30 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
John discovers just who he can trust on “Yellowstone” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … A bachelorette party on “Bob’s Burgers” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … Peter falls for a reverse mortgage scam on “Family Guy” (9:30 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … “Big Brother” (10 p.m., CBS, TV-14).
