Best-bets for Oct. 20: Christmas time AND baseball season?

1) “Checkin’ It Twice,” 8 p.m., Hallmark. The surge of new Christmas movies speeds up; the Hallmark channels have 40 in the next 66 days. There are 20 new ones on Great American Family (including one at 8 p.m. today), nine on UpTV, more on Lifetime and beyond. This one stars Kim Matula (Hope in “The Bold and the Beautiful”). Kevin McGarry (shown here, who is Nathan the Mountie in “When Calls the Heart”) is a newly traded hockey player who rents a cottage owned by her hockey-mad family. Read more…

1) “Checkin’ It Twice,” 8 p.m., Hallmark. The surge of new Christmas movies begins. The Hallmark channels have 40 in the next 66 days. There are 20 new ones on Great American Family (including one at 8 p.m. today), nine on UpTV, more on Lifetime and beyond. This one stars Kim Matula (Hope in “The Bold and the Beautiful”). Kevin McGarry (shown here, who is Nathan the Mountie in “When Calls the Heart”) is a newly traded hockey player who rents a cottage owned by her hockey-mad family.

2) “Next at the Kennedy Center,” 9 p.m., PBS. As a Brooklyn teen, Martha Redbone loved to belt the Jame Brown words, “I’m black and I’m proud.” Her mother reminded her of pride in the other half: Many of Martha’s early year were in Kentucky, with maternal grandparents who are Choctaw and East Cherokee. Here, she and others (Ty DeFoe, Halluci Nation) discuss duality. There’s too much talk, but the hour starts and ends with Redbone singing.

3) “Murdaugh Murders,” 8 p.m. to midnight, Lifetime. This channel won’t rusg into Christmas while there’s still some true crime to exploit. It reruns last weekend’s two-parter in one gulp, with a perfect performance from Bill Pullman. In the first half, he’s a classic small-town lawyer, soothing people while taking their money; in the second, he’s quickly crumbling.

4) “Blue Bloods,” 10 p.m., CBS. This rerun from two seasons ago involves lots of characters. Eddie argues with her husband Jamie about a case. Abigail argues with her boss Frank, after she fights off an attacker. Erin asks her ex-husband Jack (Peter Hermann, who is Mariska Hargitay’s husband in real life) to represent a defendant in a complicated case.

5) ALSO: At 8 p.m., NBC has a “Magnum, P.I.” rerun facing lots of non-fiction – new episodes of “The Price is Right at Night” on CBS and “Shark Tank” on ABC, plus a rerun of Monday’s “FBoy Island” openers on CW. Also, baseball’s playoffs continue, with the Phillies and Diamondbacks, at 8:07 p.m. on TBS; its the fourt game of a best-of-seven, for the National League’s spot in the World Series.

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