MOVIES & TV

Thanksgiving TV for those who hate Thanksgiving TV

Channing King
IndyStar
"Die Another Day," starring Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, will run at 5 p.m. Thursday and again at 1 p.m. Friday.

While it now serves as little more than a holiday speed bump between Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving does score well in one regard: TV traditions. From the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to the Detroit Lions getting waxed in front of a national audience, there are numerous programs and events you can always count on seeing.

This year, skip them.

Instead, here are some suggestions for those of us who really don’t care about NBC stars schmoozing with Al Roker or feel shame watching pro football.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday: a primer

Railroad Alaska: Real Time Train Ride, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, Destination America: How can anyone resist a TV special that bills itself as the “slooooooowest holiday special ever” and a “snoozefest”? For five solid hours, follow along as a train slowly makes its way up the 500-mile Alaskan railroad. No dialogue. No plot. Just mile after excruciating mile of snow, trees and the occasional wildlife. It’s like the “yule log” video but without the potential of an exciting house fire.

Then at 2 p.m., it repeats. That’s right: five more hours of a train ride.

“The Godfather” trilogy marathon, 9 a.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday, AMC: Spend your holiday with the Corleones, albeit in a heavily-edited and commercial-laden form. The marathon is uniquely scheduled, with the first movie running at 9 a.m. and again at 5:30 p.m. and the second squeezed in between at 1 p.m. and then at 9:30 p.m.

The black sheep of the family, “The Godfather, Part III,” is rightfully relegated to the 2 a.m. Friday slot.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Turkey Day marathon, noon Thursday, shoutfactorytv.com: Original host/creator Joel Hodgson and Shout! Factory, who teamed up to bring the Turkey Day marathon back in 2013 as an online feature, are repeating the feat this year with six more classic episodes. Once again, Joel has recorded new interstitial bits, almost some of which will be used to promote the Kickstarter-backed MST3K revival.

"Rifftrax: The Wizard," rifftrax.com: It’s not particularly Thanksgiving related, but the crew at Rifftrax — the MST3K off-shoot started by Mike Nelson, Kevin “Tom Servo” Murphy and Bill “Crow T. Robot” Corbett — are offering their riffed version of “The Wizard” as a video-on-demand file for just $10. What this means is you don’t have to bother syncing up an .mp3 audio file with your own copy of the 1989 “classic” starring Fred Savage that was secretly a feature-length commercial for Nintendo.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 6 a.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday, BBC America: Captain Picard, Riker and the rest are here in all their first-season glory. Riker hasn’t yet “grown the beard,” Tasha Yar was still around in a non-alternate universe form and Wesley, well, is Wesley. The marathon will air the first 18 episodes of the first season (up until midnight) and then repeat the first six episodes until 6 a.m. Friday.

James Bond marathon, 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Syfy: The strangest Thanksgiving Day marathon starts with "Dr. No" before jumping 33 years to show Pierce Brosnan's four outings of "Goldeneye," "Tomorrow Never Dies," "The World is Not Enough" and finally "Die Another Day." It gets weird on Friday when Syfy repeats the last three Brosnan films before running Daniel Craig's "Casino Royale" (4 p.m.) and "Skyfall" (7 p.m.). Saturday's minimarathon is all Daniel Craig, with his three non-"Spectre" films — yes, even the maligned "Quantum of Solace" — running in order.

Call Star online editor Channing King at (317) 444-8073. Follow him @ChanningKing.