MONDAY OCTOBER 16
As we get close to Halloween, expect a lot of holiday-themed TV content, beginning with the Food Network, where “The Halloween Baking Championship” continues with the episode “Sweet Creams” at 9 p.m. It will be followed by the special “Halloween Wars: Hayride of Horrors” at 10 p.m. Los Angeles’ Hotel Cecil may not ring a bell, but it was the setting for one of the “American Horror Story” seasons (the one with Lady Gaga). The Investigation Discovery Channel launches a series looking at the sordid history of the hotel, including the discovery of the body of a woman in the hotel’s cistern, which inspired “AHS: Hotel.” The place has become a tourist attraction now, which probably wasn’t covered in the hotel management course given to the desk clerk. “Horror at the Cecil Hotel” premieres at 10 p.m. Season 11 of “Fast ’n Loud” revs up on the Discovery Channel at 10 p.m. The second season of the unlikely hit “Martha and Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party” begins at 10 p.m. on VH1. It’s season 15 for “Pawn Star$” on the History Channel at 10 p.m. Elaine Cassidy (“The Paradise”) stars in the six-part drama “Acceptable Risk,” whose first two episodes are available today on Acorn.TV. Cassidy stars as Sarah Manning, whose husband has been murdered. Searching for the reasons for his murder, she finds that her husband led a secret life and may have been mixed up in a conspiracy of corporate, police and political figures.
Rachel Ward (“The Thorn Birds”) and Victoria Thaine (“Rake”) star in the sixpart Australian series “Rain Shadow,” set in a small Australian town that has experienced a 10-year drought and is now facing further loss of its sheep herds because of a mysterious disease. For information on both shows, go to www.acorn.tv.