Super Bowl XLIX (NBC, Sunday 6:30 p.m.) — This is what we’ve all been waiting for. The reason why we paid extortionary prices for chicken wings and invited people into our homes that we can barely tolerate. It’s Super Bowl Sunday, which means ample commercials, fresh movie trailers, and a match-up between Tom Brady’s New England Patriots and Russell Wilson’s Seattle Seahawks that will surely feature plenty of big plays, some solid defense, and ample paranoia and conspiracy theories about the PSI level of the football.
Constantine (NBC, Friday 8:00 p.m.) — One guy from Lost (Harold Perrineau) sends John to help another guy from Lost (Jeremy Davies) who has found a way to slip into an alternate dimension that is unfortunately occupied by ANOTHER GUY FROM LOST (William Mapother)!
Grimm (NBC, Friday 9:00 p.m.) — Nick and Hank investigate a murder that may have been committed by a ghost in a legendary haunted house.
12 Monkeys (Syfy, Friday 9:00 p.m.) — Cole goes to Haiti in 2014 to put right what once went wrong… or something. Also, he encounters the Army of the 12 Monkeys.
The Key & Peele Super Bowl Special (Comedy Central, Friday 10:00 p.m.) — An hour of big game analysis from Dante Pibb and Bertram Skilling as well as several football-relevant sketches, of which Key & Peele have done many.
Black Sails (Starz, Saturday 9:00 p.m.) — According to the synopsis, “Flint offers advice to Dufresne; Silver attempts to make himself indispensable; Eleanor is requested to depose a captain; and Rackham turns ambitious.”
Mel Brooks: Live At The Geffen (HBO, Saturday 9:00 p.m.) — You can stack them up however you please, but to me, Blazing Saddles and History of the World Part 1 director Mel Brooks is our greatest living comedic mind and that’s with a big screen resume that stopped growing in esteem over 20 years ago. This is a one man show where the erudite 88-year-old tells some stories that you’ve probably heard before if you’ve listened to every interview he’s given over the last few years, but a good story is a good story, so listen again and maybe you’ll hear something new.
Saturday Night Live (NBC, Saturday 11:30 p.m.) — JK Simmons hosts and the reclusive D’Angelo is the musical guest. It’s not too often that the show’s cast members make headlines for something that they did outside of the show, but Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones’ selection to join the cast of the new Ghostbusters movie has certainly put the spotlight on them this week. Is there a chance that SNL will play around with this news and/or the response that it has gotten from the nerd hoi polloi?
The Kitten Bowl (Hallmark, Sunday 12:00 p.m.) — If you’re into this kind of entertainment, then you already knew when this was on.
The Puppy Bowl (Animal Planet, Sunday 3:00 p.m.) — Samesies.
The Blacklist (NBC, Sunday 10:15 p.m.) — NBC is using it’s post big-game real estate to draw your attention to the first part of a 2-part special with Ron Perlman aboard as a guest star and Red (James Spader) in federal custody.
LATE NIGHT GUESTS: Aziz Ansari on Letterman; Ben Schwartz, Eric Andre, and Death Cab for Cutie join Adam Pally on The Late Late Show; and on Sunday night, Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, and Ariana Grande join Jimmy Fallon for a special episode of The Tonight Show.
