Morgan Freeman returns to narrate the second season of “History’s Greatest Escapes With Morgan Freeman” (9 p.m., History, TV-14).
The series uses cinematic recreations, talking-head interviews, and when possible, insights from former prisoners, to recall legendary prison breaks.
Season two will focus on escapes from POW camps during the Vietnam War and efforts to flee France’s notorious Devil’s Island.
Located off the coast of South America and subject to blistering heat, the island, known in French as Cayenne (an extremely hot pepper), had a death rate of more than 75% during its century of use, from 1852-1952.
The penal colony was finally shut down by French authorities because its reputation for brutality and cruelty had spread worldwide. To put that in some perspective, French law enforcement continued to use the guillotine until 1977. So, Devil’s Island was well worth escaping. And one such venture inspired the 1973 drama “Papillon,” starring Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen.
Another installment covers an effort to flee Sobibor, a Nazi extermination camp located in occupied Poland.
Not all the escapes or places of inhuman incarceration are located abroad. Tonight’s season opener, “Fleeing Parchman,” involves a loner prisoner with dreams of becoming a novelist who becomes the protagonist of his own drama when schemes to escape Mississippi’s Parchman Penitentiary, that state’s oldest prison and only maximum-security facility and home to its sole Death Row.
— Love is a leap of faith. But don’t you dare fall. That’s the moral of the curious 2024 documentary romance “Skywalkers: A Love Story,” streaming on Netflix after a weeklong theatrical release.
Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus are a daredevil couple from Russia who like to document their ascents. Armed with cell phone cameras, GoPro devices, drone cameras and selfie sticks, they capture a gravity-defying courtship that straddles the line between poignancy and dumb risk-taking at its social-media-fueled worst. Is romance a fateful dare? Or a contrived stunt?
— The nonstop onslaught of the Netflix release schedule can make for some unfortunate juxtaposition. Like streaming “Skywalkers” and the 2024 romantic comedy “Find Me Falling” in the same week.
“Falling” stars Harry Connick Jr. as a rock star reeling from a string of failed albums who decides to chill out in a remote cliffside home on the island of Cyprus. There, his efforts to find creative tranquility run up against curious locals and the return of an old flame.
— Humanity shows a few green shoots of growth amidst a monsterized environment as the horror series “Sweet Home” streams its third season on Netflix.
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— “Antiques Roadshow” (8 p.m., PBS, r, TV-G, check local listings) visits Indianapolis.
— A string of bodies follows too many Russian encounters to be coincidental on “NCIS” (9 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
— Contestants recall memorable dishes linked to emotional events “The Great American Recipe” (9 p.m., PBS, TV-G, check local listings).
— Bobby Flay hosts “BBQ Brawl” (9 p.m., Food, TV-G).
— The mood shifts as the crew attempts to dock on islands consumed by wildfires on “Below Deck Mediterranean” (9 p.m., Bravo, TV-14).
— A single woman with a newly adopted baby finds herself stranded in a Rust Belt town with no place to stay over the holidays in the 2023 romance “Miracle in Bethlehem, PA” (9 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
— A database breach sparks concern on “NCIS: Hawai’i” (10 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
CULT CHOICE
Tony Anthony stars in the title role in the 1967 Italian-made Spaghetti Western “A Stranger in Town” (4:45 p.m., TCM, TV-PG), the first of a franchise of “Stranger” films. Any resemblance to Sergio Leone’s Clint Eastwood movies was strictly intentional. This was released as “For a Dollar in the Teeth” in the U.K. and elsewhere. Anthony would star as the Stranger in the very peculiar 1975 Western “Get Mean,” in which he travels to Spain to fight off Vikings, Moors and cruel barbarians with the shotgun hidden beneath his serape. Some have compared this to Sam Raimi’s 1992 cult hit “Army of Darkness.”
SERIES NOTES
On two episodes of “The Neighborhood” (CBS, r, TV-PG): baby showers (8 p.m.); baby names (8:30 p.m.) … “American Ninja Warrior” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG) … “Name That Tune” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … “The Bachelorette” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … Patton Oswalt hosts “The 1% Club” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … “The Wall” (10 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG) … “Claim to Fame” (10 p.m., ABC, r, TV-PG).
LATE NIGHT
Jimmy Fallon welcomes Ryan Reynolds, Tony Hale and Jimin on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … Glen Powell and Anna Sawai visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC) … Taylor Tomlinson hosts Joe Mantegna, Zach Gilford and Laci Mosley on “After Midnight” (12:35 a.m., CBS).
