1) Christmas classics, 8-10 p.m. Here are three of the best holiday films — each made for theaters, not TV. “A Christmas Story” (1983), on TNT, alternates between nostalgia and cynicism, as a boy (Peter Billingsly, shown here) struggles with a 1940s holiday. “Scrooged” (1988), on the Paramount Network, is a satire, with Bill Murray as a cold-hearted TV executive. “Elf” (2003), at 8 and 10 on AMC, has a guy (the 6-foot-3 Will Ferrell) realizing he’s not really an elf.
2) “Lopez vs. Lopez,” 8 p.m., NBC. In some other time (the 1970s, perhaps), this might have been popular. It’s loud and loose, with a sledge-hammer humor. Comedies are scarce right now, so this one – with George and Mayan Lopez as father and daughter, which they are in real life — is semi-welcome and has now been given a full-season pickup. In an OK episode tonight, she learns he wasn’t the sole reason for her childhood pain.
3) “Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?” Disney +. “I’ve had a lot of ups and downs,” Menzel says here. She jumped from being a wedding singer to a star of “Rent,” the hottest show on Broadway. She faded for six years, bounced back with “Wicked” and “Frozen” and more. This film follows her en route to her Madison Square Garden debut in 2018. It traces her life well, shows her talent skimpily. We get snippets of a great voice.
4) “Emancipation,” Apple TV+. On the same day that HBO has Will Smith’s Oscar-winning work in “King Richard” (5:35 p.m.), Apple debuts his next film. Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”) directed a story of an escaped slave joining the Union army. Also streaming today, Amazon Prime’s romantic comedy “Something From Tiffany’s” and Netflix’s anime series “Dragon Age: Absolution.”
5) “SWAT,” 8 p.m., CBS. This will be the last time for the next few weeks that all three Friday dramas have new episodes. That starts with a cartel desperate to recover a large drug shipment, Then “Fire Country” has a crisis that causes Vince to flash back to his daughter’s death, And on “Blue Bloods,” Danny comes across a suspect from a previous case.