1) Oscar prep. On Academy Awards eve, here are two best-piicture nominees. “Past Lives” (7:15 p.m., Showtime) is also up for best original script; it’s extremely slow and subtle, sort of the opposite of a soap opera. “American Fiction” (8 p.m. and midnght, MGM+) is up for adapted scriipt, music, actor (Jeffrey Wright, shown here) and supporting actor (Sterling K. Brown). It has a wonderfully clever plot.
2) Oscar history, Turner Classic Movies. In the old days, the best-picture award kept going to sprawling epics set in past eras and distant lands. Here are examples – “The Last Emperor” (1987), at 1 p.m. ET, won nine Oscars … “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962), 4 p.m., won seven … “Ben-Hur” (1959), 8 p.m., won 11.
3) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. Josh Brolin hosts and Ariana Grande is the music guest, each for the third time. Grande also has a personal connection: She was dating Pete Davidson when he was an emerging “SNL” actor and she was already a star.
4) “Tracker,” 8 p.m., CBS. This reruns a fairly good episode, with Colton trying to help Reenie’s friend, whose son has disappeared from a tough-love survival school. That’s followed by “CSI: Vegas,” with a popular guest killed at an influencer’s party.
5) MORE: Most conference basketball tournaments are next week, but a few are already here; the Ohio Valley championship game iis 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Also, the original “Star Wars” trilogy is at 2, 5 and 8 p.m. on FX. And Freeform has a great animation line-up, including “Snow White” (1937) at 11:15 a.m., “Beauty and the Beast” (1991) at 5:20 p.m. and “Encanto” (2021) at 7:25.