The 40th Annual Kennedy Center Honors ceremony airs on CBS. And Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic is available to stream.
What’s on TV
KENNEDY CENTER HONORS 9 p.m. on CBS. While news of President Trump’s decision to skip this year’s Kennedy Center Honors — the first under his administration — might have taken over some of the conversation around the event, the attitude at the 40th edition of this annual ceremony honoring distinction in the performing arts was one of empowered defiance. This year’s honorees were the television producer Norman Lear, the rapper LL Cool J, the actress Carmen de Lavallade, and the singers Gloria Estefan and Lionel Richie. The ceremony includes performances and tributes from Stevie Wonder, Busta Rhymes, Luke Bryan, Rob Reiner and Meryl Streep, among others.
SECRETS OF THE DEAD 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). A new documentary in PBS’s “Secrets of the Dead” series, “Secrets of Spanish Florida,” delves into the history of an early coastal European settlement in present-day Florida. Scientists, archaeologists and historians discuss the background and significance of the Spanish settlement, which, in addition to the Spanish, included people from Africa, Italy, Germany and Ireland. In the program, that conversation is tied to the current conversation about race and immigration. Jimmy Smits narrates.
THE PROFIT 10 p.m. on CNBC. In this special episode of the business advice reality show, the host, Marcus Lemonis, travels to Puerto Rico, where he looks at recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
What’s Streaming
TRAVELERS on Netflix. In this time-travel-centric Canadian sci-fi series, agents from the future are on a mission to save the world. “It’s hard to find a fresh take on the time-travel conceit,” Neil Genzlinger wrote of the first season. “But ‘Travelers’ has some attention-grabbing flourishes and fine acting.” The show’s second season aired in Canada this fall and is now streaming.
DUNKIRK (2017) on iTunes and Amazon. Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic highlights the intimate: a masked British fighter pilot crammed in the cockpit of a spitfire; a father and two teenagers (one his son) steering a civilian yacht into a war zone; a group of Allied soldiers huddled and hidden in the body of a beached boat. The story is set in mid-1940, when about 400,000 Allied soldiers were trapped in the French port city from which the film takes its title. A rescue effort known as Operation Dynamo involved large numbers of civilian vessels. (For a glimpse of the bureaucratic side of this period, see “Darkest Hour,” currently in theaters.) The cast includes Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Fionn Whitehead and Harry Styles, and the plot flits between three different story lines and three different time frames. The director’s “elastic approach to narrative works beautifully in ‘Dunkirk,’” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The New York Times. “At one point, Mr. Nolan pulls the three narrative strands tightly together, creating a tremendous, enveloping sense of bone-deep dread.”
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