Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, May 1-7. Details and times are subject to change.
Monday
E! LIVE FROM THE RED CARPET: MET GALA 2023 6 p.m. on E! Officially known as the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute benefit (unofficially as the party of the year) and attended by some of the biggest names in the media and art world, the Met Gala is a black-tie event that raises money for the fashion wing of the museum. This year’s themed exhibition is “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” a homage to the longtime luxury brand designer who helped shape the modern fashion world. (Mr. Lagerfield died in 2019). Regina King, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Lin-Manuel Miranda are the event’s co-chairs this year.
A SMALL LIGHT 9 p.m. on LIFETIME, NGC and NAT GEO WILD. This limited series tells the story of Miep Gies (Bel Powley), a Dutch woman who was the secretary to Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber), the father of Anne Frank (Billie Boullet), during World War II. Premiering with two back-to-back episodes, the series follows Gies and her husband whose lives changed when they agreed to help hide the Frank family — and four other individuals — over the course of two years.
LIFE BELOW ZERO: FIRST ALASKANS 8 p.m. on NGC. This unscripted series, a spinoff of the Emmy Award-winning series “Life Below Zero,” follows Indigenous Alaskans as they survive and thrive in one of the most remote landscapes on Earth. In the show’s second season, the cast stays true to the traditions passed down from generations of Alaska Natives while adapting to 21st-century technology and advancements.
COUPLES RETREAT 9 p.m. on MTV. Celebrity couples head to Las Vegas for the third season of this MTV reality series, in which they will challenge their relationships with the help of some unconventional experts. The couples, who range from R&B legends to “Real Housewives of Atlanta” alums, break out of their comfort zones in a series of adrenaline-fueled activities like zip-lining, cattle herding and wilderness training.
1000% ME: GROWING UP MIXED 9 p.m. on HBO. The Emmy Award-winning producer and comedian W. Kamau Bell explores the joys and challenges of growing up mixed-race in this hourlong compilation of interviews with multiracial children in the Bay Area. Topics like casual racism, microaggressions and the pressure to pick a side are all fair game, as is a chipper rundown of the interviewees’ favorite animals and weekend hobbies.
Wednesday
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007) 10:17 p.m. on MAX. Joel and Ethan Coen “combine virtuosic dexterity with mischievous high spirits” in their film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel of the same name, writes A.O. Scott in his review for The New York Times. This neo-western thriller, which won the Oscar for best picture, follows three men entangled in a drug deal gone awry in 1980 West Texas. Javier Bardem plays Anton Chigurh, a “deadpan sociopath with a funny haircut.” Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is a jaded sheriff, trailing the detritus Chigurh leaves behind. Both are following Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), “the human center of the film, the guy you root for.” Scott promises you will be “jangled, stunned,” and “completely and ecstatically absorbed.”
GUNGA DIN (1939) 3:30 p.m. on TCM. “All movies should be like the first twenty-five and the last thirty minutes of ‘Gunga Din,’” wrote Benjamin Crisler in his review for The Times. This classic adventure film, which pulls elements from Rudyard Kipling’s 1890 poem by the same name, follows three British sergeants in colonial India (Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) who fight a murderous cult, with the titular Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe) as their guide. The film was deemed culturally significant by the Library of Congress in 1999 and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Friday
THE ARTICULATE HOUR 9 p.m. on PBS. This three-part mini-series features the journalist Jim Cotter in conversation with poets, musicians, neuroscientists and historians on a variety of topics. The first episode delves into the concept of human memory, while the second explores our contrasting needs for community and solitude.
Saturday
FREE CHOL SOO LEE 8 p.m. on PBS. For Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month, PBS’s Emmy Award-winning anthology series, “Independent Lens,” presents a documentary about Chol Soo Lee, a Korean immigrant who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1973. Though he is ultimately exonerated, this “isn’t an uplifting movie,” wrote Ben Kenigsberg in his review for The Times, as the documentary follows Lee on his troubled post-prison journey. “Just because Lee was innocent doesn’t mean he was perfect,” Kenigsberg writes.
Sunday
MTV MOVIE & TV AWARDS 8 p.m. on MTV. The actress Drew Barrymore will host this year’s awards show, where a number of film and television stars will be recognized for their work — among them Jennifer Coolidge (“The White Lotus”), the 2023 winner of the Comedic Genius Award, which will be presented to her at the event.
THE 2010s 9 p.m. on CNN. This seven-part series, from Emmy Award-winning executive producers Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Mark Herzog, examines the last decade influenced by Instagram, the former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, marriage equality and the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, before culminating with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
