Best-bets for March 18: sports stars and despicable laughs

1) “Despicable Me 3” (2017), 8 p.m., NBC. Facing that cascade of sports events, NBC offers a comedy refuge. First is this animated film; Steve Carell voices a former villain (shown here with minions), now in an Anti-Villain League duo with his wife, voiced by Kristin Wiig. That’s followed by “Saturday Night Live” reruns at 10 p.m. (Colin Farrell in 2004, with the Scissor Sisters) and 11:29. Read more…

1) “Despicable Me 3” (2017), 8 p.m., NBC. Facing that cascade of sports events, NBC offers a comedy refuge. First is this animated film; Steve Carell voices a former villain (shown here with minions), now in an Anti-Villain League duo with his wife, voiced by Kristin Wiig. That’s followed by “Saturday Night Live” reruns at 10 p.m. (Colin Farrell in 2004, with the Scissor Sisters) and 11:29.

2) Basketball, CBS and cable. The college tournament field has quickly been sliced from 68 teams to 32; now the next round (today and Sunday) cuts that in half. Today, CBS has games at noon, 2:30, 5 and 7:30 p.m. ET; TNT is at 6 and 8:30, TBS is at 7 and 9:30. In a sports-stuffed day, the tourney competes with baseball on Fox, hockey on ABC and football on FX.

3) “Murdoch Mysteries,” 7 p.m. ET, Ovation. Traveling to Pennsylvania, Murdoch and his wife find a death in Amish country. That requires them to go undercover and help around the farm. It’s a stretch vocationally (she’s a doctor, he’s a police inspector), but not in their personalities; both are soft-spoken Canadians. It’s a fairly good episode, but does include one bizarre coincidence.

4) “The Hillsdale Adoption Scam,” 8-10 p.m., Lifetime, rerunning at midnight. After a brief flashforward – telling us there’s peril ahead – the story unfolds. Keshia Knight Pulliam plays someone desperate for an adoption; then an opportunity seems to pound on her door (literally), Solid work by Puilliam and newcomer Danika Frederick propel what’s said to be based loosely on a true story.

5) Movies. Fresh from the Oscars, you could catch “Elvis” (2022) at 8 p.m. on HBO. Or fresh from Mel Brooks’ mini-series, catch his “Blazing Saddles” (1974), at 7:15 on Sundance. Both are excellent, as is “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001), at noon and 8 p.m. on Paramount, surrounded by lesser sequels.

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