Welcome to Watch List, where we identify five things on TV tonight that may be worth skipping out on that night school cooking class you signed up for. Making Beef Wellington is hard. You’d much rather just eat the thing. LET’S GO!
WINTER OLYMPICS - 8:00PM (NBC)
TONIGHT! It’s the ladies’ short program in figure skating. Women’s figure skating, usually, is the big money event of any Winter Olympics. However, this year no American women are expected to medal. That hasn’t happened since 1964, and the idea of it likely has NBC's sports honcho Dick Ebersol beside himself. Your top American contenders are 17-year-old Rachael Flatt and 16-year-old Mirai Nagasu. Could either pull off the unthinkable and medal, or will they go all Michelle Kwan on us? I’ll tell you one thing about figure skating: I don’t like it when judges give out low scores to unheralded skaters just because they aren’t familiar with them, then turn around and hand out perfect scores to skaters who are favored, though the performances are indistinguishable to the naked eye. That’s like that one kid at my high school who always got A’s simply because of his reputation for getting nothing but A’s. He knows who he is!
Also tonight: the Gold medal final of men’s giant slalom, and Nordic combined finals. Poor Nordic skiers. They’ll never be as cool as the downhillers. They’re the chess club of Olympians. ANTICIPATION: THE FRENCH JUDGE WILL HOSE US.
LOST – 9PM (ABC)
Tonight’s episode is called “Lighthouse”. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? Apparently, Jin encounters an old friend. Is it his wife? Is it Locke, who is now the Smoke Monster? Is it a new character who comes in to make the show even more overcrowded just as it should be resolving things? Will the Sideways world ever come back to the real world? Will the castaways get out of the Temple? WHO KILLED THE LINDBERGH BABY? ANTICIPATION: CONFUSED YET STILL INTRIGUED
AMERICAN IDOL – 8PM (FOX)
The final 12 female singers perform for your amusement. Once, just once, I’d like to see one of these people bust out the full eight minutes of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.” MASTER! MASTER! ANTICIPATION: COME CRAWLING FASTER!
THE TRUTH BEHIND CROP CIRCLES – 8PM (NatGeo – an NBC/Universal network)
I’ll tell you the truth behind crop circles. They were created by aliens to inspire M. Night Shyamalan to pen a Mel Gibson vehicle that starts out really well then turns out to have a dopey, pious ending. Do not watch this if you are a “Lost” fan. You’ll never be able to piece everything together. ANTICIPATION: CREEPY!
PREDATOR – 7:30PM (SyFy – an NBC/Universal network)
“If it bleeds, we can kill it.” So true. ANTICIPATION: COME ON! GET TO THE CHOPPUH!!!!!!
