1) Rose Parade, 11 a.m. ET today, NBC, ABC and RFD-TV (which repeats it at 1 p.m.). The new year gets off to a bright, brassy start. There’s a music theme and 19 marching bands; the grand marshal is Audra McDonald, a Broadway star with 10 Tony nominations and six wins, half of them in musicals. There are also 18 horse units and about 39 floats. The parade (shown here in a previous year) is a Pasadena event that goes back to 1890; a football game (now the Rose Bowl) was added in 1902.
2) Bowl games. These are the big ones, with the national championship at stake. At 5 p.m. ET, it’s Michigan and Alabama in the Rose Bowl, on ESPN; at 8:30, it’s Washington and Texas in the Sugar Bowl, also on ESPN. The winners collide a week later for the title. There are three more games earlier – Wisconsin and Louisiana State at noon on ESPN2, Iowa and Tennessee at 1 p.m. on ABC and Oregon and Liberty at 1 on ESPN.
3) “All Creatures Great and Small” season-opener, 9 p.m. Sunday, PBS An excellent season begins quietly, with James fretting about a scraggly dog. Bigger issues are ahead: Tristan has left for World War II and James may be next. There will be new hires – a bookkeeper big on details, a veterinarian big on book-learning. Helen will try to help her dad and some new farmers; Mrs. Hall will face turning points. It’s all done with warmth and intelligence.
4) “America’s Got Talent: Fantasy League” debut, 8-10 p.m. today, 9 p.m. Tuesday, NBC. This starts with 40 acts that have previously been on “AGT,” or its spin-offs in Britain, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia and the Ukraine. There are lots of singers and dancers, of course, but there’s also an animal act, a sand artist, a contortionist, clairvoyants and hand balancers. The judges – Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel and Mel B – will draft teams.
5) “Only Murders in the Building” opener, 9-11 p.m. Tuesday, ABC. Over four Tuesdays, the first season of this Hulu gem will rerun. A once-famous actor (Steve Martin) and a never-famous director (Martin Short) eye a murder in their apartment building. They join a suspect (Selena Gomez) for a podcast. The result is smart, funny, sometimes warm. For brasher comedy, NBC has a noisy new “Night Court” at 8 p.m. and a funny “Extended Family” at 8:30.
6) “Magnum P.I.” finale, 9 and 10 p.m. Wednesday, NBC. “Magnum” often leaps between two stories, a sleek crime tale and a clumsy drama. That’s true in the first hour, with a clever crime scheme sharing time with a flat phone-hotline one. But the second hour handles personal stories briskly and focuses mostly on the crime. With one flaw – this guy was foolish to hire Magnum – it’s a winner. The show hasn’t been renewed, so this works well as a series finale.
7) “The Conners” reruns, 8:30 and 9 p.m Thursday., CW. Here’s a first: A show will have new episodes on one network and primetime reruns on another, alongside new (to the U.S.) shows. “The Conners” start its season Feb. 7 on ABC, but it reruns episodes on CW, sandwiched by “Son of a Critch” and “Children Ruin Everything.” The reruns start with two excellent ones – one after Roseanne’s death, then one with David (Johnny Galecki) visiting.
8) “Greatest @Home Videos,” 8 p.m. Friday, CBS. As the award season begins, Cedric the Entertainer has his second annual Cedy Awards. He picks videos from around the world, settles on the top two and lets viewers vote. Max Greenfield, who stars with him in “The Neighborhood,” shows up as “verifier of the results of stuff.” That’s followed by reruns of “Fire Country” (which was missing for months) and “Blue Bloods,” with season-openers still six weeks away.
9) “Grimsburg” debut, about 8 p.m. ET Sunday (after football), Fox. Jon Hamm comes in all forms these days. In “Fargo” (10 p.m. Tuesday, FX), he’s a nasty sheriff; in this animated show, he’s a pot-bellied ex-cop, being brought back to solve a tough case. That puts him next to his ex-wife (an intense TV reporter), a son he keeps forgetting and colleagues who don’t trust him. It’s a fairly good opener, followed at 8:30 by “Krapopolis” and more.
10) Golden Globe awards, 8-11 p.m. ET Sunday, CBS. After some shaky years, the show has jumped to CBS. It hired comedian Jo Koy to host and expanded its voters pool and its nominees; there are new categories (standup comedy and box-office hit) and six nominees instead of five. For movies, “Barbie” dominates the comedies; in dramas, “Oppenheimer” faces “Maestro,” “Past Lives,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Zone of Interest” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.”