HD Highlights: August 27

Network Movie Premiere: Knight and Day (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) How’s this for mission impossible: a silly secret agent romp that entertains despite being top-heavy with star power and a screenplay rewritten so often that the difference between it and the original is like night and day. Yes, the title’s dire but, as a classic odd couple caught up in a spy conspiracy, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are the most appealing they’ve been in years while director James Mangold (3.10 to Yuma, Walk the Line) keeps the hi-jinks pumping. (2010) ✭✭✭✩

SoHo Highlight: The Newsroom (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) Will’s new approach rankles CEO Leona Lansing; Jim soothes Maggie during a panic attack; Don charges Elliot to get in the game. Whatever this Aaron Sorkin drama’s frustrating failings, episode three’s worth a look for the first of Jane Fonda’s recurring turns as Lansing. Fonda, of course, is CNN founder Ted Turner’s ex-wife. “I think she’ll win an Emmy just for her performance,” predicted TV Week. “She’s only in the show briefly, near the end. But Sorkin has given her a humdinger of a speech. It’s pretty much what you’d expect a top-notch, no-nonsense business CEO to say, but it’s Sorkin at his best, matched by a great performance. It reminds me of Jack Nicholson, who was Oscar-nominated for delivering Sorkin’s ‘You can’t HANDLE the truth’ speech in A Few Good Men.” Said the Wall Street Journal: “Structurally at least, the third episode reaches a high point. Director Greg Mottola deftly cuts between the six months leading up to the midterm elections and one continuous, contentious meeting of network suits. He juggles multiple story threads in ‘The 112thCongress’ with actual news footage and the suspense of a regal woman observing the arguing alpha males. Who is she? What will she say? Is there any hope Newsroom writer Aaron Sorkin can create an interesting female?” ✭✭✩

❑ Missing  (TV One, 9.30, 5.1, F) Season finale: Becca faces her own inner demons in a way she never has before, in a last-ditch effort to save her son, while Suspect Zero tries to complete his sale. Fans may be frustrated by the cliffhanger, given Missing wasn’t renewed, but it does provide closure of sorts. According to The Hollywood Reporter, creator Gregory Poirier (National Treasure: Book of Secrets) “hates series that promise to solve a mystery then make you wait until the second season.” ✭✭✩