You know life is promising when the news ranges from Abraham Lincon to Agatha Raisin, from Meat Loaf to Joe Exotic. All show up in recent announcements about TV; that includes:
— The “Tiger King” mini-series now has a starting date. The eight-hour film begins March 3 on Peacock, under the title “Joe vs. Carole.”
This is the scripted version of a true-life story originally told in a documentary that became a hit during stay-at-home stages, early in the pandemic. Kate McKinnon (shown here) of “Saturday Night Live” plays animal activist Carole Baskin, with John Cameron Mitchell as the self-named Joe Exotic, a private zookeeper eventually convicted of trying to hire someone to kill her.
— There will be another presidential mini-series to watch on the History Channel during Presidents Day weekend. This one, Feb. 20-22, will be on Abraham Lincoln; the previous one was on George Washington.
Both documentaries are from historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Previously, one portion of her biography was adapted into the Steven Spielberg film Lincoln.
— Three more movie-length Agatha Raisin tales are ready. They’ll be Feb. 7, 14 and 21 on the Acorn streaming service, at www.acorn.tv.
Raisin is a fictional character, a giddy public-relations person in London who inherited a country estate and began solving crimes. A Christmas movie aired last month; now the other three films are coming.
— And the Reelz cable channel has put together a documentary about Meat Loaf, the epic-style rock star who died last week at 74. That will air at 7 p.m. Wednesday (Jan. 26), rerunning at 11.
To go with it, Reels will also rerun previous rock docs. They are on ZZ Top (8 p.m. and midnight) and Led Zeppelin (10 p.m. and 2 a.m.).