Best-bets for Jan. 9: big night for football and “NCIS”

1) Football, 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN2. The college season finally ends, four months (or was it four years?) after it began. Georgia – still undefeated and top-ranked, after barely surviving the semi-finals – faced Texas Christian (shown here). The “GameDay” show starts at 5 p.m., with a pre-game show at 7. Read more…

1) Football, 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN2. The college season finally ends, four months (or was it four years?) after it began. Georgia – still undefeated and top-ranked, after barely surviving the semi-finals – faced Texas Christian (shown here). The “GameDay” show starts at 5 p.m., with a pre-game show at 7.

2) “NCIS,” “NCIS: Hawaii” and “NCIS: Los Angeles,” 8-11 p.m.. CBS. For the first time, all three shows link into one perilous night. That starts when the three units converging on Washington for an event. Soon, one person is dead, two have been kidnapped and another is simply missing. The mystery spreads to Hawaii and ends in California, with a battle on the Mojave desert.

3) “Fantasy Island,” 8 p.m., Fox. After a too-predictable season-opener last week, the show bounces back with an hour that keeps us guessing. A young woman is desperate to meet her biological father; at the same time, three guys arrive for a bachelor party. The show playfully drops some “Mamma Mia” hints, then detours. It’s a good hour that finds strong spots for its supporting players, Ruby and Javier.

4) “Alert,” 9 p..m., Fox. For the first time in years, this divorced couple is sort of together and sort of happy. By the end of Sunday’s opener (spoiler alert), they felt they’d found the son who disappeared years ago. Also, Devon (Scott Caan) had joined Philadelphia’s missing-persons, which Nikki (Daniela Ramirez) leads. Now they tackle a new case that starts with fierce violence, then has a smart ending; we also see hints of trouble ahead.

5) “Will Trent,” 10 p.m., ABC. If you missed the series-opener, catch this quick rerun. Trent is a Georgia Bureau of Investigation detective, short on people skills and long on brains and observation. He put some crooked cops in prison; now the Atlanta cops hate him … except for Angie Polaski, who occasionally loves him. This is the first half of a two-part kidnapping story (concluding Tuesday) that makes him confront his brutal childhood.

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