By Rick Gables
The CW will premiere the television movie The Waltons’ Homecoming on Sunday, Nov. 28, at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The film commemorates the 50th anniversary of The Homecoming: A Christmas Story and is set in the 1933 Depression Era as told through the eyes of John Boy (Logan Shroyer), the 17-year-old eldest child of John (Ben Lawson) and Olivia Walton (Bellamy Young). His mother expects John Boy to help her raise his sisters and brothers, and his father expects him to follow in his footsteps to help support the family, but secretly, John Boy wants to be a writer. Times are hard enough in 1933, but to make matters worse, it looks to be the Waltons’ first Christmas without John Sr. When Olivia receives a letter that John Sr. is planning to make it home for Christmas after all, the family is thrilled and races to prepare for his homecoming. But when a storm threatens his arrival on Christmas Eve, and John Sr. is nowhere to be found, Olivia sends John Boy out into the night to find his daddy – a journey that will change John Boy’s life forever.
SHOWTIME will premiere the feature-length documentary, The Real Charlie Chaplin, on Saturday, Dec. 11, at 8 p.m. ET/PT. This kaleidoscopic portrait of the man who became an immortal legend, and whose life was as extraordinary as his art. Having unprecedented access to the Chaplin archives and narrated by Pearl Mackie, the documentary blends dramatic reconstructions with never-before-heard recordings, intimate home movies, behind-the-scenes material, and newly restored classic films to reveal a side of the worldwide icon that, until now, has been shrouded in mystery. Tracing back a century ago — when Chaplin first stepped onto the screen, the film recounts his meteoric rise from the slums of Victorian London to the heights of Hollywood superstardom to his scandalous fall from grace. For decades, he was the most famous man in the world. But who was the real Charlie Chaplin? The film is nominated for three Critics Choice Doc Awards.
The HBO original four-episode limited series Landscapers, starring Emmy-winner Olivia Colman and Emmy nominee David Thewlis, will debut Monday, Dec. 6, at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Inspired by real events, the series tells a unique love story involving Chris and Susan Edwards, a seemingly ordinary British couple who become the focus of an extraordinary investigation when two dead bodies are discovered in the back garden of a house in Nottingham.