It's almost as though broadcast TV, along with the rest of the country, is enjoying a holiday weekend tonight.
There's nothing on worth watching, really, unless you have cable -- and even then, the choices are few.
* "My Girl" (8-10 p.m., Channel 2) -- On a night when ABC pre-empts its weekly Saturday family movie to present NCAA football instead, NBC jumps into the breach and presents a family movie of its own: "My Girl," which provides two wonderful services in the field of family entertainment.
First, it allows Anna Chlumsky to embody the hopes, fears and romantic dreams of a young girl in very credible fashion. Second, kills off a character played by Macaulay Culkin. NBC.
* "TV's Funniest Families" (10-11 p.m., Channel 2) -- According to whom? There's nothing wrong with looking at four decades' worth of sitcoms: All sorts of insights can be gleaned there, especially regarding the growth of the suburbs, the pop-culture depiction of the American dream and the encroachment of widespread cynicism after Watergate. But this special is much more interested in comedy than sociology, so what you see is what you get, and what you see are laughs and insults, not landmarks and insight.
Alan Thicke is a co-host, which says it all right there. NBC.
Cable
* "Good King Wenceslas" (8-10 p.m., FAM) -- This period Family Channel story can't be taken too seriously, because there are too many tacky production flaws -- but it's worth a peek to see Stefanie Powers chewing the castles and other scenery as the wicked stepmother,Perry King in a bad Hamlet wig, and Leo McKern emerging from even this drama with dignity intact.
Jonathan Brandis stars.
* "Fatherland" (8-9:50 p.m., HBO) -- The first few moments of this HBO drama set up a brilliant alternate-reality premise: What if Adolf Hitler had won the war? The time is 1964, isolationist Joe Kennedy is the American president, Albert Speer's architectural plans for postwar Berlin are presented as actual, and the best-kept secret of the war, which S.S. officer Rutger Hauer and American journalist Miranda Richardson stumble onto, is easy to guess. Unfortunately, after a solid buildup, "Fatherland" deviates completely from Robert Harris' best-seller to present a depressingly hokey and stupid climax. But on such a slow night, it's worth watching.
* "Barbra Streisand: The Concert" (10 p.m.-midnight, HBO) -- The "once in a lifetime" event occurs again, repeated in our same lifetime.