ENTERTAINMENT

TV Weekend: Jim Carrey hosts ‘SNL’

Mike Hughes
For the Lansing State Journal

WEEKEND’S MUST-SEE: “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m. today, NBC.

For four years, Jim Carrey was a sketch-comedy master. On “In Living Color,” he was Fire Marshall Bill and Vanilla Ice and body-builder Vera DiMilo and (as the cast’s only white guy) lots of bigots.

He would seem like a logical “SNL” host, but he’s only done that twice – in 1996 and 2011. Now – with his “Dumb and Dumberer To” opening Nov. 14, Carrey hosts with Iggy Azalea as music guest.

WEEKEND’S MUST-SEE II: “Masterpiece Mystery,” 9-10:30 p.m. Sunday, PBS; concludes Nov. 2.

Separated by two centuries, masterful writers molded a terrific tale. Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” came out in 1813; P.D. James (known for Dalgliesh novels) made “Death Comes to Pemberley” in 2011.

James jumped ahead six years, to find Elizabeth (Anna Maxwell Martin) and Darcy (Matthew Rhys) planning a ball. Many invited guests are coming, plus two uninvited ones – the scoundrel Wickham and his wife, Elizabeth’s fun sister Lydia; then comes a murder and some clever detours and suspects.

BOTH DAYS: Sports galore.

For local football fans, it’s a packed weekend: At 3:30 p.m. today, ABC has Michigan at Michigan State. Then – with little time for fans to recover – Fox has the Lions-Falcons game at 9 a.m. Sunday in London.

There’s much more football, of course … plus the World Series, at 8 p.m. both days on Fox.

TODAY:

• “Forte,” 5:30 p.m., WKAR (Channel 23). An ex-Marine, in his first year as band leader, prepares Holly High School for competitions.

• “Elementary,” 8 p.m., CBS. One of TV’s better dramas will finally start its season Thursday. To get us in the mood, this rerun has Sherlock find that an old acquaintance (Laura Benanti) is a murder suspect.

• “The Good Witch’s Wonder,” 9 p.m., Hallmark. Amid all the Halloween horror, Hallmark annually has pleasant films with Catherine Bell using mild magic for good. The previous ones rerun, starting at 11 a.m., leading to this new one. It has enough charm to overcome two remarkably lame romances.

SUNDAY:

• “Day of Expedition,” noon to 11 p.m., National Geographic. Two “Die Trying” films are gripping. One (7 p.m.) views the 2008 tragedies on the K2 mountain; another (10 p.m.) follows two Australians trying to be the first to walk to the South Pole and back, unassisted. In between (8-10 p.m.) is the premiere of “Mammoths Unearthed,” with amazing, 30,000-year-old wooly mammoth artifacts in Siberia.

• “The Good Wife,” 9 p.m., CBS. The wonderfully quirky Elsbeth has been a great opponent and colleague for Alicia. Now they must link when each has a client accused of economic espionage.

• “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” 10 p.m., CBS. The women (Jorja Fox, Elisabeth Shue, Elizabeth Harnois) plan to relax at a conference. Naturally, there’s a mass shooting.