For the first time in more than a decade, CBS will air two original holiday movies. I use the term “original” rather loosely, but it does mark a return to form. But don’t go looking for “prestige” productions of the old “Hallmark Hall of Fame” caliber. Sunday’s “A Christmas Proposal” (7:30 p.m., TV-G) would not be out of place on today’s non-hall-of-fame Hallmark Channel or Lifetime, GAC Family, UPtv, Netflix, Amazon or Hulu, for that matter.
Like so many of these movies, “Proposal” begins in a glitzy but emotionally sterile corporate environment. Ambitious chef Maria Winters (Jessica Camacho) dreams of opening her own line of food trucks but has settled for working as an executive chef for an up-and-coming singer. She’s all set to hit up the boss for some investment capital when he announces his holiday tour schedule has no room for her.
Meanwhile, brash and womanizing hotshot Seattle attorney Julian Diaz (Adam Rodriguez) has a problem. His father, the chief partner at their firm, wants to retire. King Learlike, he has to choose among his children to see who will succeed him. Julian might have the legal skills but lacks the gravitas of a settled-down married man. So, Julian “hires” Maria to play his fake girlfriend for the Christmas holidays.
Will the spirit of the mistletoe melt their ersatz arrangement?
Not unlike Halloween, Christmas movies have turned the occasion into an adults-only celebration. Of the many holiday movies debuting in 2021, few involve children or the childlike wonder that once was central to the festivities. Narrated by Maggie Smith and streaming on Netflix, “A Boy Called Christmas” creates some new fables among the reindeer set. Streaming on HBO Max, “8-Bit Christmas” recalls holidays when being the first to get the new Nintendo system put a twinkle in your eye. Is this a kids’ movie or a way to mine ‘80s nostalgia for a 40-something audience?
Nothing says “kids” like “Peanuts” specials, but Apple TV+’s “Snoopy Presents: For Auld Lang Syne” has the gang attending a late-night party in a downtown performance space in a sketchy part of town. Lucy throws the party because she feels unloved. It’s a move more appropriate to the 30-something sad sacks on “This Is Us” than to children.
Next Sunday, CBS returns with another Christmas movie, “Christmas Takes Flight.” But don’t go looking for reindeer. It’s about the hostile takeover of a regional airline by a cheap CEO bent on cutting charitable giving from his bottom line. Ho! Ho! Ho!
• Using artfully produced reenactments, archival interviews and a wealth of film footage, some of it mesmerizing in its decay, “The Real Charlie Chaplin” (7 p.m. Saturday, Showtime, TV-PG) recalls the first international movie superstar. A tale of rags-to-riches-to-wretched exile, “Real” offers a dreamlike meditation on fame and loss, memory and scandal, worldwide adoration and sudden “cancel culture.”
Chaplin’s rise from London poverty to music-hall success and overnight Hollywood celebrity occurred more than a century ago, but so many of the elements of Chaplin’s story speak to very contemporary themes.
Chaplin’s fame exploded at a time of extraordinary wealth inequality and an era when immigrants were changing America. As the “Little Tramp,” Chaplin always was getting over on authorities, from the police to the landlord.
As a director, actor and producer, Chaplin soon had an international reputation for being both hilarious and a “genius.” For decades, this status protected him from public scrutiny of his private life, which included a pattern of marrying very young women and treating them badly.
After the arrival of sound threatened many silent stars, Chaplin did not abandon the format and made “City Lights” (1931) and “Modern Times” (1936) well after “talkies” took over. “Real” makes the point Chaplin’s departure from silence put an end to both his lovable Tramp character and laid the groundwork for his ostracism.
At the end of “The Great Dictator,” his 1940 anti-Hitler satire, the Tramp (mistaken for the dictator) delivers a call for democracy and world brotherhood. Chaplin would continue to deliver this speech at bond drives and other public occasions. Once Hitler was defeated and the United States and the USSR no longer were allies in a war that cost the lives of 11 million Soviet soldiers, Chaplin’s sentiments were seen as suspiciously pro-Moscow.
In the postwar years, Chaplin found himself branded a Communist, his films condemned and his private behavior suddenly the stuff of headlines, particularly in papers belonging to William Randolph Hearst, the Rupert Murdoch of the day. Once the darling of millions, Chaplin was condemned as an undesirable alien and forced into exile and seclusion.
“Real” includes taped interviews with at least two ex-wives, daughter Geraldine Chaplin and a heavily accented neighbor whom Chaplin referred to as his “cousin” when they were mere urchins growing up in the 1890s.
As hard as it tries, “Real” only proves even those closest to Chaplin didn’t really know him. That, and the rotting emulsion so frequently on display, is why the film often can seem like an indecipherable dream.
SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
• Santa’s workshop makes room for differences in the 1964 holiday favorite “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (7 p.m., CBS, TV-G).
• The Philadelphia 76ers host the Golden State Warriors in NBA action (7:30 p.m., ABC).
• Jimmy Durante narrates the 1969 chestnut “Frosty the Snowman” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-G).
• John Goodman and Jonathan Winters voice “Frosty Returns” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-G), from 1992.
• Billie Eilish hosts and performs on “Saturday Night Live” (10:30 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
SUNDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
• “White House Christmas 2021” (5 p.m., HGTV) looks behind the scenes at the elaborate decorations at the executive mansion.
• Scheduled on “60 Minutes” (6:30 p.m., CBS): Inside NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope; aid agencies still at work in Afghanistan; a glance at Canada’s Fogo Island, located off the coast of Newfoundland.
• The Green Bay Packers host the Chicago Bears in NFL football action (7:20 p.m., NBC).
• Steve Harvey hosts the 70th Miss Universe pageant (7 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) from Eilat, Israel.
• Siblings discover the meaning of the holidays in “Sister Swap: Christmas in the City” (7 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
• Misery loves company on “Dexter: New Blood” (7 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).
• “Bowl-Mania” (8 p.m., ESPN) dissects the forthcoming schedule of college football games.
• Shiv and Roman have their hands full on the third season finale of “Succession” (8 p.m., HBO, TV-MA).
• Wesley bugs Elijah on “The Rookie” (9 p.m., ABC, TV-14).
• Wild horses on “Yellowjackets” (9 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).
CULT CHOICE
An insecure youth (Peter Kastner) meets eccentric characters while working for the New York Public Library in the 1966 comedy “You’re a Big Boy Now” (9:30 p.m. Sunday, TCM, TV-MA), written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, with a cast including Elizabeth Hartman, Julie Harris, Geraldine Page, Karen Black and Rip Torn.
SATURDAY SERIES
“The Wall” (7 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG) … The lights go out on “9-1-1” (7 p.m., Fox, r, TV-14) … “Dateline” (8 p.m., NBC) … Serial arson cases on “9-1-1 Lone Star” (8 p.m., Fox, r, TV-14) … “48 Hours” (9 p.m., CBS) … A vintage helping of “Saturday Night Live” (9 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).
SUNDAY SERIES
“Celebrity Wheel of Fortune” (7 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … Adults play on “Legends of the Hidden Temple” (7 p.m., CW, TV-PG) … “Supermarket Sweep” (7 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … The season for selling on “Greatest Holiday Commercials Countdown” (8 p.m., CW, TV-PG) … International heisters on “NCIS: Hawai’i” (9:30 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
— OK, that was weird. The least expected story of the week was the scandal involving Felicity Huffman (“Desperate Housewives”) and Lori Loughlin, star of “When Calls the Heart” (7 p.m. Sunday, Hallmark, TV-G), in a bribery/cheating plot to get their respective daughters into elite universities.
This is obviously an ongoing case, and all sides must have their say, or day, in court. But the motivation at the center of this story is worth discussing. It involves some overwhelming need to do anything to get children into elite schools. As if anything “lesser” were unthinkable.
Television plays no small role in this insecurity. I can’t remember how many times I’ve had to describe an ABC legal drama where every single character hails from only the most exclusive Ivy and spends most of the pilot bragging about it.
There was a time, not that long ago, when John Grisham wrote best-selling books about young, barely accredited lawyers from no-name institutions who took on impossible cases against massive corporations and eventually won. And got the girl, to boot.
So, our current era’s neurotic obsession with elitism and inequality is hardly hard-wired.
If anything comes of this sordid affair, it’s an appreciation that shoddy efforts at snobbery are always essentially pathetic. Or on classic TV, comedic. Watching “Gilligan’s Island,” we identified with Mary Ann and the Skipper, and pitied the millionaire and his wife.
— CNN launches the four-hour documentary “Tricky Dick” (8 p.m., Sunday), profiling the life and times of Richard Nixon’s public career, which spanned the decades from the dawn of the Cold War to the Clinton years.
SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— An anxious new mother joins a group for solidarity and support, only to discover that it has darker plans on its agenda in the 2019 shocker “Mommy Group Murder” (7 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).
— The Thunder and Warriors meet in NBA action (7:30 p.m., ABC).
— An old kidnapper returns to form on “Ransom” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-14).
SUNDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— Scheduled on “60 Minutes” (6 p.m., CBS): Embassy workers in China and Cuba complain of mysterious ailments; AOL founder Steve Case and his plans to invest in the future of overlooked American small towns and cities; a visit to Monaco.
— The duels begin on “World of Dance” (7 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).
— Auditions continue on “American Idol” (7 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
— Lex Luthor is on the loose on “Supergirl” (7 p.m., CW, TV-PG).
— Mr. Wednesday prepares for battle on “American Gods” (7 p.m., Starz, TV-MA).
— After learning about her royal lineage, an adopted 10-year-old becomes a little tyrant in the 2019 shocker “Mommy’s Little Princess” (7 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).
— A secret room holds dangers on “Charmed” (8 p.m., CW, TV-14).
— Hidden secrets revealed on “The Walking Dead” (8 p.m., AMC, TV-MA).
— A new trial is pursued on “The Case Against Adnan Syed” (8 p.m., HBO, TV-14).
— Axe is determined to destroy Taylor on the fourth season premiere of “Billions” (8 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).
— Ulysses pursues a conspiracy theory on “Now Apocalypse” (8 p.m., Starz, TV-MA).
— “Unsung” (8 p.m., TVONE) profiles the Jets.
— Pacific overtures on “Madam Secretary” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-PG).
— Tensions rise on “Good Girls” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
— Mo’s past is revealed on “Black Monday” (9 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).
CULT CHOICE
— St. Patrick’s Day inspires many traditions. Syfy offers a marathon of “Leprechaun” movies, from “Leprechaun 5: In the Hood” (4 p.m. Saturday, TV-14) to “Leprechaun 2” (8 p.m.). TCM takes the traditional approach, ladling out the Technicolor blarney of director John Ford’s 1952 romance “The Quiet Man” (7 p.m. Sunday, TV-PG).
SATURDAY SERIES
“Dateline” (7 p.m., NBC, TV-PG) … “NBA Countdown” (7 p.m., ABC) … The kids are all right on “MasterChef” (8 p.m., Fox, r, TV-PG) … “48 Hours” (9 p.m., CBS) … A vintage helping of “Saturday Night Live” (9 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).
SUNDAY SERIES
A visit from an old friend inspires Miles on “God Friended Me” (7 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … Homer can’t leave Bart’s virtual realm on “The Simpsons” (7 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … Empathy for all things on “Bob’s Burgers” (7:30 p.m., Fox, TV-14).
A walk down the aisle on “NCIS: Los Angeles” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … On two episodes of “Family Guy” (Fox, TV-14), Meg’s winter Olympics (8 p.m.), fighting over a dowager (8:30 p.m., r) … Aches and pains on “Shark Tank” (9 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
