Leave it to a Saturday-night tradition to rescue an otherwise slow TV night. Jude Law hosts Saturday Night Live (Global, NBC, 11:30 p.m.), with musical guest Pearl Jam.
It’s the third new SNL in as many weeks, which seems like a record, though it isn’t, really.
This is not the first time Law has hosted SNL. In 2004, he hosted the now-infamous show where musical guest Ashlee Simpson was caught lip-synching her single Autobiography. (If you don’t remember that far back, it was one of the most spectacular boo-boos in the history of live TV, as Simpson, preparing to sing her second song of the night, was trapped like a doe in the headlights when her first song of the night, Pieces of Me, was played instead.) Law is lucky in one respect: It seems unlikely that Pearl Jam will be caught lip-synching tonight, unless it’s part of the act.
Law, who recently appeared as a very proper Dr. Watson in Sherlock Holmes opposite a dapper Robert Downey Jr., had fun playing various Brits-of-renown in that SNL: playing Tony Blair to Will Forte’s George W. Bush; playing a drunken Peter O’Toole to Seth Meyers’ drunken Michael Caine; and appearing as a randy Mr. Rochester – sneaking off to the attic for sex! – in a parody of Jane Eyre, opposite Rachel Dratch.
n The documentary Prom Night in Mississippi (HBO Canada, 8 p.m.), hosted by Morgan Freeman, focuses on a Mississippi high school that held its first racially integrated prom – in 2008. Yes, that’s right. School officials waited until two years ago to decide that, hey, maybe white kids and black kids can dance together without the whole town going up in flames.
n From highbrow to decidedly low: Broward County, Fla., is acting up again in tonight’s “all new!” instalment of Cops (Fox, 8 p.m.), as officers mount an undercover sting operation to bust a drug suspect who insists, “Winners don’t do drugs.”
