1) Academy Awards, 8 p.m. ET, ABC. For the second straight year, here’s no host. Last year was salvaged by music from Queen and Lady Gaga, but it was still dull and humorless. This year? The music is promising again, with nominated songs done by Elton John, Randy Newman, Chrissy Metz and the immensely talented Idina Menzel and Cynthia Erivo. Viewers will recognize some of the nominated films (“Joker,” “Ford v. Ferrari,: “Once Upon a Time in America,” shown here with Brad Pitt) and actors (Pitt, Tom Hanks, Renee Zellweger, Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino).
2) “Homeland” season-opener, 9 p.m., Showtime. Speaking of award-winning actors, Claire Danes is back and brilliant. She already has two Emmys and three more nominations as Carrie, the bipolar CIA agent who’s faced horrors. After months of captivity and torture, she’s been rescued and thrust quickly into a new mission … while unsure of her own mind and memories. It’s a great start to the final season.
3) “Kidding” season-opener, 10 and 10:30 p.m.,, Showtime. This had a shaky first season, plunging Jim Carrey deep into despair. He plays a sweet-spirited kid-show host who crumbled with the death of one of his twin sons. Now divorced and secretly living next door to his wife and son, he ended the season by smashing her new lover with his car. Now “Kidding” offers a ray of hope … then snatches it away. The second episode does have some great scenes, including glimpses of his tenuous relationship with his dad, who is the kid-show producer.
4) “Sanditon,” 9 p.m., PBS. While others (CBS, NBC, Fox) retreat into reruns, PBS booms ahead. This episode, the sixth of eight, finds a crisis. Miss Lambe, the young heiress, has been abducted; Charlotte rushes to London to find her; also, as Miss Denham turns ill, the step-siblings scheme to inherit her fortune. It’s a terrific episode, ranging far from the Jane Austen fragments that started the story. For more on Austen and her era, catch the start of “A Very British Romance,” Lucy Worsley’s non-fiction series, at 8 p.m.
5) And earlier: The E channel goes big on Academy Awards day. It starts its previews at 1 p.m. ET, reaches the red carpet at 5, has an “after party” at 11:30 p.m., then reruns the red carpet from 1-4 a.m. ET.. ABC has its own red-carpet coverage from 3:30 to 5 p.m. ET. But the day also has another big build-up: Starz is rerunning the entire, six-season run of “Power.” That leads to the series finale from 8 to 9:23 p.m., rerunning at 10:46 p.m. and 1:32 a.m.