Game of Thrones
HBO, Sunday at 9 p.m.
Last Sunday’s premiere set the table nicely for season six. Here are some of the things we learned. 1. So far, Jon Snow was still dead. There’s plenty of time for him to be brought back in some way, but for the entire premiere, he was just a cold body surrounded by loyal friends including Davos. “Weekend at Bernie’s,’’ anyone? 2.?Psych! Looks like Melisandre isn’t really a voluptuous hottie at all. In the last moments of the premiere, we saw the Red Woman remove her magical disguise. Turns out she’s old, really old, as in ancient old, and she is wrinkled, too. Osteoporosis? I’d bet money on it. 3. Brienne of Tarth to the rescue! Even though the newly heroic Theon does his best to help save Sansa from Ramsay’s goons, they find her. And at that moment, Brienne and Podrick show up and kill off the bad guys. Brienne and Sansa vow loyalty to each other forever more. 4. Daenerys, abandoned by her dragon and a prisoner of the Dothraki, is windblown and sandbeaten. Just as Khal Moro is about to tear off her clothes, after she has already been whipped and bullied, she tells him she is the former wife of Khal Drogo. His response: assisted living. Or something like it called the widow temple.
Seinfeld
TBS, daily 6-8 p.m.
Streaming on Hulu and Crackle
Everything in life comes down to “The Twilight Zone’’ or “Seinfeld.’’ That’s my philosophy. Those two shows covered a lot of ground, maybe all the ground there is, with “TZ’’ taking on global politics, the environment, time, and space, and “Seinfeld’’ covering manners, human nature, and urban life. Fortunately, you can still find “Seinfeld’’ every day on TBS, Hulu, and Crackle, which is a godsend. In some ways “Seinfeld,’’ which ran from 1989-1998 has aged, in that references such as “The English Patient,’’ Mary Hart, Merv Griffin, and “Last Tango in Paris’’ might need to be clarified for young viewers. But in most ways, “Seinfeld’’ remains not only as funny and clever as ever but also painfully true. The show perfectly captured all the petty things that color human relations — the little competitions, the little annoying habits, the little betrayals between friends. By unearthing all the trifling negatives about people — especially people in close proximity, such as the population of New York — the show made those negatives seem funny. And by making them seem funny, the show defused them a bit.
The Night Manager
AMC, Tuesday at 10 p.m.
The John le Carre movies have been pretty good, including “The Tailor of Panama,’’ “The Constant Gardner,’’ and the 2011 version of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.’’ But le Carre stories are rich enough to open up into miniseries, and AMC’s “The Night Manager’’ proves that once again. It’s a really enjoyable adaptation, and none of the six episodes feels like filler. Some hardcore le Carre fans might find “The Night Manager’’ a little too James Bond-ish, and a little lacking in challenging, ironic resolutions. But as a lively, beautifully filmed miniseries, it’s perfectly entertaining. It helps that there are a few good, layered performances in the British import, most of all by Hugh Laurie as bad guy Richard Roper, arms dealer and all-round billionaire creep. On the surface, he is all civilized calm and charm. Underneath, he’s ruthless, greedy, and abusive. Tom Hiddleston is fine — if a little shallow — as the hotel night manager, Jonathan Pine, who is recruited by the British government to spy and winds up going undercover in Roper’s entourage. Pine is beautiful and clever, and it seems as though Roper is going to trust him.
MATTHEW GILBERT
