What to Watch This Week: October 27 to November 1

From spooky new sci-fi to Apple's new leading ladies, we round up the top 10 shows to watch this week

From spooky new sci-fi to Apple’s new leading ladies, we round up the top 10 shows to watch this week

1. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown – Sunday, October 27, 7 p.m., ABC

It just wouldn’t feel like Halloween without an annual viewing of this beloved animated special, which first hit the airwaves in 1966, that finds hapless Linus wasting the entire night awaiting the arrival of the Great Pumpkin. As a bonus, Peanuts fans can also enjoy an additional cartoon, You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown, in which Linus attempts to run for class president.

2. Mrs. Fletcher – Sunday, October 27, 9:30 p.m. & 1:40 a.m., HBO Canada | Series Premiere

Figuratively and literally, every part Kathryn Hahn’s ever played has led her to Mrs. Fletcher.

The actress’s experience in roles supporting or main—and comedic or dramatic—proves cumulative in the hotly anticipated HBO series that premieres this weekend. Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta (previous HBO adaptation The Leftovers), who also wrote the debut episode, it casts Transparent alum Hahn in the title role of a divorced senior-centre director who finds it a challenge to adjust when her only child (portrayed by Jackson White) goes off to college. The empty-nest situation takes Eve Fletcher down a surprising path of self-discovery.

3. Patsy and Loretta – Sunday, October 27, 5 p.m. & 9 p.m., Lifetime

To become Patsy Cline for a TV movie, Megan Hilty took a deep dive into the country-music icon’s life, times and songs.

Debuting this week, Lifetime’s made-in-Nashville Patsy and Loretta recounts the friendship between Cline and Loretta Lynn (played by Hilty’s fellow Broadway veteran Jessie Mueller, of Waitress and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical).

They were at very different career stages when they met, with Cline well established and Lynn just starting out… and after Cline’s tragic death in a 1963 plane crash, Lynn carried the mantle of accomplished women in country for both of them.

4. Arsenio Hall: Smart and Classy – Tuesday, October 29, Netflix

You know Arsenio Hall is giddy when he drops a Pointer Sisters reference in the midst of announcing his new comedy special on Twitter. “It’s not coming on till October 29th, but I can’t wait any longer to tell you,” Hall tweeted, adding, “’I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it.’”

Given the reports we’ve read about some of Hall’s chosen topics, we’re pretty excited ourselves: in addition to talking about drugs and teasing his involvement in Eddie Murphy’s upcoming Coming to America sequel, he also discusses the current political climate, which leads us to believe that his time as a contestant—and winner, lest you forget—on Donald Trump’s The Celebrity Apprentice may well come into play. The performance, filmed at the San Jose Improv Comedy Club in California, is Hall’s first special for Netflix.

5. Live with Kelly and Ryan – Wednesday, October 30, 9 a.m., CTV & ABC

Does anyone love Halloween more than Kelly Ripa? Judging by the epic, sketch-filled specials she’s been doling out for years, we think not. Tune in for yet another one Wednesday, and find out what pop culture-inspired costumes she and co-host Ryan Seacrest have cooked up, among other spooky delights.

6. Atypical – Friday, November 1, Netflix | Season Premiere

This dramedy about the journey of an autistic teenager (Keir Gilchrist) returns, and things are not looking good for the relationship between his parents (Michael Rapaport and Jennifer Jason Leigh) as they come to grips with the precarious state of their marriage after her affair with a younger man.

7. Queer Eye: We’re in Japan! – Friday, November 1, Netflix | Series Premiere

In this spinoff, the peerlessly chic Fab Five venture abroad to help four Japanese men and women up their style game and learn to accept themselves, with a few celeb guest stars no doubt popping by along the way.

8. See – Friday, November 1, Apple TV+ | Series Premiere

In this intriguing drama from new streaming service Apple TV+ (which launches Friday), a virus has decimated humanity, wiping out the majority of the population. Those who survived were left permanently blind, which has left the remaining scraps of society to find new ways to stay alive. Set centuries later, See features Aquaman‘s Jason Momoa as warrior Baba Voss, the father of twins who are born with a miraculous gift: sight. As word of the sighted children spreads, a calculating queen (Blade Runner: 2049‘s Sylvia Hoeks) will stop at nothing to get her hands on the twins. And so, Voss must rely on his instincts as he travels to rally fellow tribes to his cause of taking down the queen and her tyrannical cult before they can capture his precious children. Filmed in northern Vancouver Island, See also stars Alfre Woodard as Paris, Baba Voss’s spiritual leader.

9. The Morning Show – Friday, November 1, Apple TV+ | Series Premiere

If you needed any more proof that the line between movies and TV has all but disappeared, look no further than Friday’s launch of this Jennifer Aniston-, Reese Witherspoon-, Steve Carell-starring series. The show debuts in conjunction with the arrival of streaming service Apple TV+, an app available across Canada on a variety of platforms, including Macs, iPhones, tablets and Fire Sticks (so there’s no need to actually purchase an Apple TV set-top box to access it).

The Morning Show has been the talk of the entertainment world for some time now, not only because of the star power attached but their salaries; Aniston and Witherspoon are supposedly each pulling in $1 million per episode, and the series has already been greenlit for two seasons. Overall, Bloomberg estimates production costs weigh in around the $300-million mark—a pricetag high enough to designate The Morning Show as Apple’s flagship original series.

Need more reason to get excited? Aside from reuniting the two actresses for the first time since Witherspoon played Aniston’s younger sister on Friends, the drama is inspired by author Brian Stelter’s Top of the Morning, a scintillating exposé of the Today show. It tackles the power dynamics between men and women on- and off-screen at a fictional daily morning show, delving into themes of ageism and how the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements have affected Hollywood’s status quo.

10. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan – Friday, November 1, Amazon Prime Video | Season Premiere

This season, the action moves from Paris and the Middle East to Moscow and Venezuela, where a political and humanitarian crisis spirals into a mission fit for CIA officers Jack Ryan (John Krasinski) and his boss, Wendell Pierce’s Jim Greer—one that involves the ever-foreboding combination of a dictator and nuclear weapons.