So the regular TV season has finally ended and the long, hot summer appears to be upon us. Are you feeling a little depressed? The usual post-season letdown feels more pronounced this post-season, very possibly due to last week's series send-offs to Lost, 24 and Law & Order. Take comfort knowing those shows should enjoy a healthy afterlife: Law & Order will run forever in second-run syndication, 24 is poised to become a feature-film franchise and Lost will eventually be forced to air a reunion special, if only to explain the baffling finale to its fans. For those desperately seeking substance this weekend, your choices include a new HBO movie set in the highest corridors of power, a two-hour block of TV's sturdiest newsmagazine and further evidence that life could exist on other planets. Now, don't you feel better?
The Special Relationship (Saturday, HBO Canada, 9 p.m.)
Even world leaders aren't above a man-crush. Working off the phrase coined by former British prime minister Winston Churchill to describe the unique connection between the United States and Britain, this new HBO movie rewinds to the heady nineties era when American president Bill Clinton and British PM Tony Blair were the best of pals. Film fixture Dennis Quaid portrays Clinton while Michael Sheen plays Blair for the third occasion, following his screen turns in The Queen and The Deal. Compacting a decade into less than two hours, the story begins in the early nineties with Blair seemingly swept off his feet by the charismatic new American president. The honeymoon is first tested when the two leaders publicly disagree on the stepped-up NATO presence in war-torn Kosovo, but Blair stands by his man when Clinton is impeached following the Monica Lewinsky scandal. When Blair's wife Cheri (Helen McCrory) asks her husband why he continues to support Clinton, he responds shyly, "I like him." Quaid and Sheen deliver believable caricatures, but the one to watch is veteran character actress Hope Davis as Hillary Clinton. She plays Hillary as steely and smart and, according to this account, the real brains of the Clinton administration.
60 Minutes (Sunday, CBS, SunTV, 7 p.m.)
While some U.S. network newsmagazines have seemingly given in to gimmickry and stunt-themes - re: NBC Dateline's To Catch a Predator or ABC Primetime's What Would You Do? - 60 Minutes steadily plods along each Sunday night with old-school reportage. This Sunday brings two solid hours of new material. The first hour, 60 Minutes Presents: Gotti, features an hour-long profile of John A. 'Junior' Gotti, who talks about growing up as the son of the most famous mob boss since Al Capone. The second hour is a standard edition of 60 Minutes with three solid news stories: First, reporter Byron Pitts spends two days with a U.S. bomb-search unit in Afghanistan; next, Lesley Stahl interviews a scientist trying to save endangered species with DNA technology; and lastly, the Toronto-born correspondent Morley Safer - still going strong at 78 - profiles Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour. In the fashion diva's first extended interview for American television, Wintour finally reveals why she always wears her trademark sunglasses. When a reporter asks the right questions, he gets answers.
Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking (Sunday, Discovery, 8 p.m.)
The truth is out there, according to Stephen Hawking. And the world-renowned theoretical physicist gets right to the point in the first chapter of this three-part science series. The first episode, titled Aliens, caused a media ruckus when the show premiered last month on the U.S. Discovery Channel- largely because Hawking throws his support behind the existence of extraterrestrial life on other planets. "To my mathematical brain," says Hawking in the program, "the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational." Within days of broadcast, his simple statement was turned into an international news story, in most cases running under the banner headline: Hawking Says Aliens Are Real! Regardless, this is a grand science class. As before, Hawking knows how to reduce complex matters to the simplest terms, and the lessons are helped immeasurably by cutting-edge CGI animation. Also airing Sunday, the second, less-contentious episode examines the scientific probability of time travel and what might happen if you went back in time and killed your grandfather. Not a smart idea, apparently.
Check local listings.
John Doyle returns on Tuesday.