"Jules Verne's Mysterious Island," 5 and 8 p.m., Hallmark Channel. Patrick Stewart is captaining again and no one does it better. Stewart has been Captain Picard in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and Captain Ahab in the "Moby Dick" remake. Now he's Capt. Nemo and again brings precision and passion. Without him, this would be just another movie about big bugs and pirates. The Thailand setting — ravaged by a tsunami two days after filming ended — is beautiful, but the Jules Verne story is weak. It's sort of "Lost" turned silly. Kyle MacLachlan plays a Civil War officer who leads an escape party by floating away on a balloon; they end up on a Pacific island, facing bugs and pirates. MacLachlan makes few attempts at emoting while playing a stiff hero. During one gun battle, hundreds of pirate bullets miss him — yet with four shots, he has four kills. The show is saved, however, when Stewart is there. His Nemo (originally from Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea") is obsessed and compelling.

OF NOTE

"College Football," 2 p.m., CBS. Florida hosts Tennessee.

"Gaither Gospel Hour," 6 p.m., Pax. This special moves earlier than first scheduled to make room for football. Tonight's hour focuses on the music of Guy Penrod.

"Armageddon" (1998), 7 p.m., ABC. With an asteroid streaking toward Earth, a motley crew of oil drillers is sent to plant a nuclear bomb on it. Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Affleck star.

"Saturday Night Live," 10:30 p.m., NBC. Paul Giamatti hosts, with music by Ludacris and Sum 41.

"The Terminal" (2004), 11:10 p.m., HBO Family. What do we like about "The Terminal?" Tom Hanks' low-key funny portrayal of Viktor Navorski, a visitor from a fictional European country who becomes a stranded resident of a New York airport terminal when the outbreak of war in his country erases it from existence mid-flight and voids his passport. What don't we like? The yahoo whose idea it was to cast the gorgeous Catherine Zeta-Jones as an unlucky-in-love flight attendant who — in a plot device about as unlikely to happen in the real world as gas prices dropping below two bucks a gallon again — sort-of falls for Viktor's shabby, homeless-guy charms.

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.