Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Feb. 13-19. Details and times are subject to change.
Monday
BOYHOOD (2014) 5:40 p.m. on SHO2e. This award-winning coming-of-age drama depicts the life of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) as he moves through childhood and adolescence. Filmed over the course of 12 years in Texas, the director Richard Linklater’s home state, “Boyhood” began with only a few basic plot points grounding the story. In her review for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote that “the realism is jolting, and so brilliantly realized and understated that it would be easy to overlook.” The director’s “inspired idea of showing the very thing that most movies either ignore or awkwardly elide — the passage of time — is its impressive, headline-making conceit,” she added.
Tuesday
LOVE TRIP: PARIS 9 p.m. on Freeform. In what could be described as “The Bachelor” meets “Emily in Paris,” this new, unscripted reality dating show follows four American women as they move into a penthouse in the middle of Paris to find a selection of Frenchmen and women waiting to date them. The series follows them in their search for love abroad.
Wednesday
POST-ROE AMERICA 11 p.m. on VICE. This documentary is the result of a seven-month investigation into the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn of Roe v. Wade, which had granted women the constitutional right to an abortion in 1973. The reporter Gianna Toboni meets with an array of women, politicians, doctors and abortion providers, in addition to the Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, to understand what the future of reproductive rights might look like in this country.
WEST SIDE STORY (1961) 8 p.m. on TCM. Inspired by the Shakespeare play “Romeo and Juliet,” this Oscar-winning musical follows the tragic love story of Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood), two teenagers associated with rival New York City gangs. “The strong blend of drama, dance and music folds into a rich artistic whole,” wrote Bosley Crowther in his 1961 review for The Times. “What they have done with ‘West Side Story’ in knocking it down and moving it from stage to screen is to reconstruct its fine material into nothing short of a cinema masterpiece.”
Friday
GLADIATOR (2000) 3:15 p.m. on Showtime. Set in the 2nd-century Roman Empire, this Academy Award-winning epic film follows the Roman general Maximus (Russell Crowe) on his journey to freedom after he is stripped of his rank, enslaved and sold to a gladiator trainer following a change of ruler. “‘Gladiator’ is an allegory of its own time,” wrote Herbert Muschamp in a 2000 column for The Times. “The first Roman cinema spectacular to be made by Hollywood since the end of the Cold War, it is a meditation on the perplexity of the world’s sole surviving superpower.”
Saturday
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967) and TO SLEEP WITH ANGER (1990) 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on TCM. This week’s selection for Turner Classic Movies’ Black History Month Saturdays features a detective story set in the South and a comedic drama centered around familial tensions. The Oscar-winning film “In the Heat of the Night,” based on the 1965 novel of the same name, follows Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), a Black detective from Philadelphia, as he becomes entangled in a murder investigation while traveling through a small town in Mississippi.
Written and directed by Charles Burnett, a director known for his films about the Black experience in the United States, “To Sleep with Anger,” was inspired by Burnett’s own family. Through the fictional story of Gideon (Paul Butler) and Suzie (Mary Alice), a married couple living with their two sons and their wives and children in Los Angeles, Burnett explores themes of tradition, modernity, morality and superstition as the couple takes in an old friend from the South, Harry (Danny Glover), when he pays a surprise visit to their home.
Sunday
AMERICAN IDOL 8 p.m. on ABC. This singing competition show is back for its 6th season on ABC (and 21st season overall), featuring the music industry legends Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie as judges.
NAKED AND AFRAID 8 p.m. on Discovery. Each episode of this unscripted survival series, returning for its 15th season, follows two strangers who are left without food, water or clothes in places like the American West, Gabon and Mexico.
