Best-bets for Sept. 7: Reality shows near their finales

1) “MasterChef,” 8 and 9 p.m., Fox. A week from the finale, the show is down to five chefs. There’s Dara Yu (shown here), 20, who was runner-up in the first “MasterChef Junior,” and four people in their 30s – Emily Hallock, Shanika Patterson, Michael Silverstein and Christian Green. In the first hour, they try baked Alaska and lobster tortellini; in the second, the top four start the finals, with a studio audience. Read more…

1) “MasterChef,” 8 and 9 p.m., Fox. A week from the finale, the show is down to five chefs. There’s Dara Yu (shown here), 20, who was runner-up in the first “MasterChef Junior,” and four people in their 30s – Emily Hallock, Shanika Patterson, Michael Silverstein and Christian Green. In the first hour, they try baked Alaska and lobster tortellini; in the second, the top four start the finals, with a studio audience.

2) “America’s Got Talent,” 8 p.m., NBC. It’s time to wrap up the top 10 for next week’s finale. So far, the field includes four music acts, two magicians, a comedian and a special-effects group. On Tuesday, 11 semi-finalists performed; now we learn which two made it.

3) “Welcome to Wrexham,” 10 and 10:30 p.m., FX. In the first half of this four-week series, we saw Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buy a struggling Welsh soccer team. They lured (via money and/or persuasion) a top coach and a scoring leader, but trouble persisted. Tonight’s first episode has endearing portraits of a goalie and his young fan. Then, oddly, the show steps back, viewing efforts to save the 215-year-old stadium.

4) “Archer,” 10 p.m., FXX. Sterling Archer is adamant about this: He REALLY doesn’t like working on Saturday. That’s a day he carefully reserves for recovering from hangovers. Now he’s forced to help save a master negotiator who manages to make everyone angry. It’s a slick and funny episode.

5) “Soundies: A Musical History” (2007), 8 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies. Before music videos, movies had one-song films, short and black-and-white. They began in 1941, giving national exposure to the Black greats – Ellington, Basie, Armstrong, Calloway – and to some whites. Michael Feinstein narrates this look. It’s followed by five musical shorts at 9:30, the 1948 musical “Romance on the High Seas” at 10 and five more shorts at 11:45.

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