1) Basketball, 6:09 and 8:49 p.m., CBS. The college tournament has been wildly entertaining – and unpredictable. In three of the four regions, the top-seeded team was ousted; even Duke, with its superhero superstar, is gone. The only one to survive (barely) was Virginia; in today’s first game, it faces Auburn, fresh from upsets over North Carolina and Kentucky. The second game has Michigan State (the Duke-slayer, led by Cassius Winston, shown here) facing Texas Tech, which upset Gonzaga.
2) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. “Game of Thrones” starts its final season in eight days. First, one of its stars (Kit Harington) hosts “SNL”; Sara Bareilles is the music guest.
3) “Alien” marathon, 6 p..m., IFC. After drawing strong praise for “Alien” (1979), director Ridley Scott stepped aside; the sequel went to James Cameron, who had just triumphed with “Terminator.” The result (1986) is brilliant; Cameron would go on to more “Terminator” films, plus “Titanic,” “Avatar” and more. The “Alien” films are at 6 and 8:30 p.m., with “Alien 3” at 11:30.
4) “True Love Blooms,” 8-10 p.m., Hallmark. A gardener (Sara Rue) fumes at a developer (Jordan Bridges) who wants to take away her land. But they’re both kind of attractive and this is Hallmark and … well, let’s not rule out a happy ending.
5) “American Idol,” 8-10 p.m., ABC. The Wiltern Theatre – built in 1930-31, renovated a half-century later — is an elegant Los Angeles landmark, reflecting movies’ golden age. It’s also an imposing place for young singers, some of them teens, to perform. The top-20 does that, in this rerun from Monday.
— Mike Hughes, TV America