1) “The Traitors: New Blood” debut, 8 and 9 p.m., NBC. The Peacock version and Alan Cumming (shown here) have already won three straight Emmys for best reality show and best host. Now we get the network version, with strangers (including “killers”) in a Scottish castle. This one skips celebrities; instead, it has a doctor, a nurse, a pilot and two lawyers, plus a rodeo guy, an ironworker, a dog groomer and more. Read more…
1) “Nation’s Dumbest” finale, 9 p.m., Fox. A fun season ends with two bright people (shown here) who never quite win. Chase Hudson, 24, from a family of Berkeley grads, spent much of his youth as a Tik-Tok star and online student. Hilaria Baldwin, 42, the daughter of a doctor and a lawyer, has dyslexia, ADHD and seven children. Their final round is a delight. Read more…
1) “Dancing With the Stars” opener, 8-10 p.m., ABC; continues Wednesday. Some people start this with no dance experience. Others? Jenna Dewan and Julia Stiles have starred in dance movies; Dewan (shown here in “Step Up”) is a trained dancer; Stiles had two months of intense training. Now they’re in an interesting line-up, alongside Paralympic champ Ezra Frech and more. Read more…
1) Emmy awards, 8 p.m. ET, NBC. Mariska Hargitay (shown here). not known for comedy, is this year’s host. Maybe there will be fun moments from the presenters, including Amy Poehler and Marcello Hernandez of “Saturday Night Live,” Keke Palmer, Dan Levy, Niecy Nash-Betts and Alan Cumming. Others include Sally Field, Macaulay Culkin and Zendaya. Read more…
1) “Best of VMAs: Iconic Vanguard Performances,” 9:30 p.m., CBS. In 1984, the Video Music Awards started the Video Vanguard Award. Early ones went to the Beatles, David Bowie (shown here) and Michael Jackson; lately, eight in a row have gone to women … a string that will be broken Sept. 27, when Nirvana is honored. First, here are past performances by Vanguard winners. Read more…
1) Emmy awards, 8 p.m. ET today, NBC. Mariska Hargitay hosts, after winning two Emmys in advance, for her documentary about her mother, Jayne Mansfield. She’s had eight acting nominations (and one win), but none in the past 15 years. Instead, the Emmys are now a streaming stronghold: NBC has 29 nominations; HBO Max has 122. At least, NBC can root for the Peacock version of “Traitors” (shown here with Tara Lipinski) to win, three days before the network version (see No. 3) debuts. Read more…
1) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. The new season is only two weeks away and we can get in the mood with this rerun. Ryan Gosling hosted on March 7 (shown here), shortly before his “Project Hail Mary” opened to box office success. It was his fourth time hosting and the first for Gorillaz — which originally had “virtual” band members — as music guest Read more…
It will be a different sort of season-opener for “Saturday Night Live” this fall: No movie star, no comedian … but, instead, a basketball player.
That’s Jalen Brunson (shown here), who led the Knicks to the championship. He’ll host on Sept. 26, with Katseye as the music guest.
That will be followed by more-traditional hosts — a movie star (Dakota Johnson), a comedian (Shane Gillis) and — appropriately, on Halloween — a horror-film star (Inde Navarrette). Details, at 11:29 p.m. on NBC, are: Read more…
1) 9/11 events. At 8:30 a.m. ET, ceremonies in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksvillle, Pa., will mark the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks (shown here). Networks and news channels will be there; CBS, for instance, plans coverage from 7-10 a.m. Then coverage continues throughout the day.
Read more…
Apparently, we don’t have to wait until next month to get really, terribly, awfully frightened.
October is when Freeform has its “31 Days of Halloween” (with fairly gentle tales) and others — AMC, Syfy, etc. — have variations. But Paramount+ now helpfully tells us about the horror films it already has.
That includes all three “A Quiet Place” films, all four “Pet Semetary,” all seven “Paranormal Activity: and all eight “Scream” (depicted here). Horror movies seem to have lots of sequels. Read more…
Best-bets for Sept. 17: “Traitors” and lots of laughs 
Best-bets for Sept. 16: two titles, one unwanted 
Best-bets for Sept. 15: two openers and a near-finale 
