What to Watch This Week: November 18 to 23

From the disgrace of a president to pint-sized kitchen phenoms, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week

From the disgrace of a president to pint-sized kitchen phenoms, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week

1. The Clinton Affair — Sunday, November 18 to Tuesday, November 20, 6 p.m. & 10:03 p.m., A&E | Series Premiere

A three-night documentary event looks back on an infamous presidential scandal, mapping out the anatomy of an impeachment. No matter how you may feel about the situation with the current U.S. administration, presidential scandals are really nothing new for our neighbours to the south. Be it Warren Harding with Teapot Dome, Richard Nixon with Watergate or Ronald Reagan with Iran-Contra, the U.S. has a long and not-so-proud tradition of misbehaviour in the Oval Office, and one of the most recent is the subject of the series premiering this week.

2. Escape at Dannemora — Sunday, November 18, 9 p.m., TMN1 I Series Premiere

In the summer of 2015, two convicted murderers, Richard Matt and David Sweat, became the first two prisoners to break out of the 170-year-old Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York. They did so with the help of a prison tailor named Joyce “Tilly” Mitchell, that each of them seduced, setting in motion a three-week manhunt and investigation that froze the small town of Dannemora and neighbouring areas with fear, while captivating a nation. Now, an all-star cast consisting of Benicio Del Toro, Patricia Arquette and Paul Dano bring this event to life, in an eight-hour miniseries directed by Ben Stiller.

3. Poldark on Masterpiece – Sunday, November 18, 6 p.m. & 10 p.m., WTVS; 9 p.m., KCTS I Season Finale

In the fourth-season finale, Ross and Demelza and George and Elizabeth all try to mend their frayed bonds, before they’re felled by tragedy. The final season of this swashbuckling romance sets sail in 2019 – ’20.

4. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver – Sunday, November 18, 10:01 p.m. & 2:31 a.m., HBO Canada I Season Finale

We know everybody needs a break once in awhile, but with John Oliver wrapping season five this week, what we don’t know is how we’ll survive until his return. At any rate, if his past finales are any indication, expect the fiery Brit to offer a spectacle-packed retrospective on the year that was.

5. Queen America – Sunday, November 18, Facebook Watch | Series Premiere

If you’re like most Facebook users, you probably use the social media platform to share vacation photos and reconnect with people you went to school with, but a new feature called Facebook Watch has been delivering original programming in a hope to land some of those eyeballs currently binge-watching Netflix. While Facebook Watch already has a roster of programming, its latest is a big jump, meant to attract attention and hopefully make Facebook a player in the streaming-content game. Enter Queen America, a new dark comedy starring Chicago Oscar-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones as Vicki Ellis, a ruthless beauty-pageant coach renowned for taking her clients to victory by any means necessary.

6. Julia Louis-Dreyfus: The Mark Twain Prize – Monday, November 19, 6 p.m. & 11:30 p.m., WTVS; 9 p.m., KCTS

Between Seinfeld and Veep, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has certainly earned her Mark Twain Prize. Plus, she’s obviously a fan of the man himself: during her acceptance speech, which you’ll get to see on Monday, she said, “I was so sorry when I recently learned he was dead. My thoughts and prayers go out to the whole Twain family. Especially the wonderful Shania.”

7. Inside Out – Thursday, November 22, 7 p.m., 9 p.m. & Midnight, Family

One of Pixar’s most ambitious adventures is set inside the mind of 11-year-old Riley, from the POV of her emotions. When the stress of a cross-country move creates inner chaos and sends Riley down a dark path, polar opposites Joy (Amy Poehler) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) must unite to get her back on track.

8. Masterchef Junior: Celebrity Showdown – Thursday, November 22, 8 p.m., Fox

Join celebs like Eric Stonestreet and Terrence Howard as they team up with pint-sized kitchen phenoms in a two-hour Thanksgiving battle for charity. Master hostess Martha Stewart stops by to offer them (and us) a few tips.

9. Mystery Science Theatre 3000 – Thursday, November 22, Netflix I Season Premiere

The venerable series is celebrating 30 years of making fun of bad movies, and it’s on that very anniversary—American Thanksgiving—that the crew of the so-called Satellite of Love will be debuting their new season. If you caught the series’ previous season, a.k.a. its first for Netflix, then you’ll be seeing the same faces as you saw the last time around: test subject Jonah (Jonah Ray), the ‘bots (voiced by Baron Vaughn and Hampton Yount), and evil scientists Kinga Forrester (Felicia Day) and Son of TV’s Frank (Patton Oswalt).

10. The Romanoffs – Friday, November 23, Amazon Prime Video I Series Finale

The series that explores the sprawling branches of an infamous family tree wraps its eight-episode run with another instalment directed by creator Matthew Weiner. Harlots alum Hugh Skinner, Turn‘s JJ Feild and The Crown‘s Ben Miles star in a globe-spanning episode about a man trying to outrun the Romanoff curse.