The sweet hereafter
If anyone is going to make zombie life adorable, it's Drew Barrymore. In "Santa Clarita Diet," she plays a real estate agent whose transformation triggers sexual lust, the impulse to buy a Range Rover and the desire to chomp off the fingers of a randy colleague. Timothy Olyphant plays her befuddled husband. Your appetite for this 10-part series will depend solely on how much you want to watch Barrymore serve up her perky image on a bloodstained platter.
Now streaming on Netflix
Anatomy of a mass murder
"Oklahoma City" opens with horrific moments from the aftermath of the April 1995 bombing of a federal building, then quickly rewinds the clock to standoffs at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and the Ruby Ridge tragedy in Idaho. Director Barak Goodman argues, quite effectively, that Timothy McVeigh's actions were the result of incidents that happened years before and that hatred almost always has a history. To emphasize the point, next week's episode of "American Experience" focuses squarely on Ruby Ridge, mostly through the perspective of Sara Weaver, one of the family members holed up in the Idaho cabin during the fatal showdown.
8 p.m. Tue., TPT, Ch. 2
Funny business
"The History of Comedy," an eight-part series exploring the history and impact of the craft, may be thorough and populated with stars, but it's merely a curriculum for a beginner's course on comedy. The documentary gets off to a rough start with a look at the evolution of risqué humor that contains so many bleeps you'll think you're stuck in a traffic jam.
9 p.m. Thu., CNN
Neal Justin
