1) “A Song for Cesar,” 10-11:30 p.m., PBS. Cesar Chavez (shown here), friends says, loved to dance. He savored jazz and comedy; he was “this guy with an urban soul.” So his farmworkers’ movement rippled with music – from the back of flat-bed trucks, then in arenas. This vibrant film offers brief bursts of music. Much of it is way too brief; still, it’s fascinating to see the show bounce between a white-haired musician and his young self, almost 60 years ago.
2) “Hispanic Heritage Awards,” 9-10 p.m., PBS. Leslie Grace almost had a big one-two movie burst. She co-starred (playing a Stanford student, visiting home) in the terrific “In the Heights,” then starred in “Batgirl.” Corporate types, alas, buried the latter film to get a tax write-off. Now she hosts this ceremony and also sings. Two honorees (Omar Apollo and Cafe Tacva) also perform and Tito Puente Jr. leads a 100th-year tribute to his late father.
3) Miss USA pageant, 8-10 p.m., CW. It’s been a tough ride for this show, which used to get 20 million viewers each year on CBS. It had 5.6 million in 2015 on NBC … which dumped it after comments by its then-owner, Donald Trump; a cable telecast fell below a million. The ceremony bounced to Fox briefly, then returned to cable obscurity. Now comes its first broadcast-network turn in four years. Keltie Knight and Adrienne Bailon-Houghton host.
4) “New York Times Presents,” 10 p.m., FX. The timing s odd: This film probes inequities in last year’s Miss USA pagent, yet airs the moment this year’s show ends. Also, it drifts deep into the hour, before telling what those problems were. They’re substantial, actually: The person running the pageant had a business preparing some contestants, who then dominated. Also, her husband wedged into contestants’ lives. Slowly, this becomes an intriguing tale.
5) “Secret Celebrity Renovation” season-finale, 8 p.m., CBS. Elle King’s father is former “Saturday Night Live” actor Rob Schneider, but she’s a country star who grew up with her mother near Wellston, Ohio, population 5,400. Now she returns to renovate the home where her grandfather has lived for almost 50 years. That’s followed by reruns of “Fire Country” (the last one for quite a while) and “Blue Bloods.”
— Mike Hughes, TV America