5 THINGS YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS
Sunday, 8 p.m. (COM) Night of Too Many Stars Autism is the cause for which this event raises money, and one of the few things that won’t be the target of jokes during the evening. Jon Stewart (r., at the previous benefit, in 2010) hosts. Comics on the bill will also include Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Tracy Morgan. Then there are singers like Katy Perry and folks who aren’t really either, like Bill O’Reilly. Plus, if you call in a donation, Jerry Seinfeld just might answer the phone.
Sunday, 10 p.m. (BBCA) Copper This dense, often dark series about 1860s New York isn’t the easiest thing to watch. But it’s worth following. There’s a good cop, or at least the closest the city was likely to get to a good cop (Tom Weston-Jones, l.), standing at the intersection between people with piles of money and those with pretty much nothing. How he handles that, plus a precocious young girl of the streets, adds up to a good story, richly filmed in what often resemble sepia tones, whose first season ends Sunday.
Monday, 9 p.m. (Ch. 2,4,7, 13, CNBC, CNN, FBN, FNC, MSNBC) Presidential debate You’d think we’d be sick of the campaign by now, and a lot of people have said at some point that they are. But the first Romney-Obama debate drew 67 million viewers, and the TV audience for the second debate was only slightly smaller, at 65.6 million. Monday brings the third and final debate, from Boca Raton, Fla., moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Tuesday, 8 p.m. (Ch. 13) Cuban Missile Crisis: Three Men Go to War PBS marks the 50th anniversary of the th Cuban missile crisis with two specials. The T first is on the leaders involved in the crisis, c which almost led to nuclear war. President P John F. Kennedy was finally able to t get Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to back off from his threat to install nuclear warheads in Fidel Castro’s Cuba, 90 miles from U.S. shores. At 9 comes a documentary on a little-known Soviet officer, Vasili Arkhipov, who was on a submarine near Cuba on Oct. 27, 1962. The sub was too deep to use its radio, a U.S. destroyer was using depth charges to make it surface, and the captain, thinking war had begun, wanted to fire a nuclear torpedo. Arkhipov held out successfully against it. If he hadn’t, the crisis might ended very differently.
Wednesday, 9 p.m. (Ch. 4) Law & Order: Special Victims Unit “SVU” is the last show standing in the remarkable “Law & Order” franchise, and this is its 300th episode. No, sorry, TV isn’t interactive enough so everyone can get a slice of cake. It does, however, salute the show’s history via guest star Chris Orbach, son of the late Jerry Orbach, who played one of its best-loved detectives. (Pictured: Danny Pino and Mariska Hargitay.)