1) “Unforgotten” (shown here) season-opener, 9 p.m., PBS. Last season ended with the death of Cassie Stuart, the intense leader of this cold-case unit. Now Jessica James takes over – but gets a sharp jolt in her own life, less than an hour before work begins. She’s in a funk and a fog as Sunny Kahn, the No,. 2 detective, tries to forge ahead. Both are needed, in a compelling, six-week story with vivid characters.
2) “Professor T” and “Van der Valk” season-openers, 8 and 10 p.m., PBS. While others laxk new, scripted episodes, PBS has three each Sunday. “T” has a prof who is short on people skills, but brilliant at crime-solving. This first hour is fairly good; some of the ones that follow are superb. “Van der Valk” is set in Amsterdam, with intense stories, each spread over two weeks. The first starts with the murder of an idealistic “freerunning” champion.
3) “Dark Winds” season-finale, 9-10:10 p.m., AMC. For five previous episodes, Joe Leaphorn has chased the killer who terrorized the Navajo Nation … and who, years earlier, killed Joe’s son. He caught the guy – but as last week ended, a prisoner-transport vehicle had crashed; officers weere dead and the villain was loose. That sets up the finish to a richly emotional and well-crafted story.
4) “Yellowstone,” 10 a.m., Paramount Network. The modern-cowboy tale continues its reruns. Today, it starts late in the second season; the third starts at 1 p.m., the fourth at 11.
5) ALSO: After loaning its spot to “The Challenge: USA” for three weeks, “Equalizer” returns at 9 p.m. on CBS. Fox’s cartoon reruns are also back, starting with “The Simpsons” at 8. And with pro-football starting next week, colleges offer a few Sunday games. CBS has Northwestern and Rutgers at noon ET and Oregon State (ranked No, 18) and San Jose State at 3:30. At 7:30, ABC has the week’s best match-up — LSU (No. 5) and Florida State (No. 8).
— Mike Hughes, TV America