1) “MacGyver” season-opener, 8 p.m., CBS. There’s an action surplus on CBS; “MacGyver” finally returns, nine months after its last new episode. Now the team can again tackle an impossible mission: At an elegant party (shown here), it team must slip off, find crucial information and transmit a copy without being noticed. There’s no Phoenix Foundation to help; our heroes are working with a quirky British ex-spy, played, by Henry Ian Cusick of “Lost.”
2) “Hawaii Five-0,” 9 p.m.; CBS. Sliding back an hour (with “Magnum” resting for a while), “Five-0” has an episode co-written by Chi McBride and directed by Ian Anthony Dale. Grover (McBride) learns that his niece is missing from the police academy and that her boyfriend is an undercover member of of the Yakuza crime family. Now Adam (Dale) may be the only person who can rescue her.
3) Debate, 8-11 p.m. ET, ABC. It’s been a cross-country week for politics – caucuses Monday in Iowa, the State of the Union on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., and now a debate in New Hampshire. Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren qualify, along with Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klochubar, Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang.
4) “Country Music,” 9-11 p.m., PBS. As the Vietnam War persisted, life was changing, even in tradition-bound country music. This terrific segment (the sixth of eight) sees 1968-72, when the Byrds and Bob Dylan did some Nashville work and Kris Kristofferson symbolized the era. A general’s son, he was an Army captain and helicopter pilot in Germany and then a janitor in Nashville, showing some brilliant songwriting. He was a hippie-looking star; so were the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band guys, who linked generations for “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”
5) “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet” debut, any time, Apple TV+. The stars of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” keep doing extra comedies in their spare time. Now it’s Rob McElhenney’s turn; he co-created and stars in this show, about a videogame company. Also streaming today is Netflix’s “Locke & Key; in their new home, kids find keys that unleash powers … and tempt a demon. On Thursday, CBS All Access offered a new “Picard” episode and started “Interrogation,” based on a real California case that stretched for decades.
– Mike Hughes, TV America