Daily Best Bets

1) “The Hammer,” 8-10 p.m., Lifetime. Here’s a surprise – a Lifetime movie that deftly juggles humor, mystery and a great character. She’s a circuit judge, quick with her gavel and her voice; she’s also a fictionalized version of a real judge who covers sprawling stretches of Nevada. Reba McEntire (shown here) plays her zestfully, with strong support from Melissa Peterman as her sister and Kay Shioma Metchie as her bailiff. Let’s hope for more “Hammer” movies or a series. Read more…

1) “Blue Bloods,” 10 p.m., CBS. After stuffing Christmas specials and reruns into six Fridays, CBS finally has new drama hours. “SWAT” (8 p.m.) has a random shooter; “Fire Country” (9) has a probe, after someone dies during a difficult rescue. Then “Blue Bloods” finds Joe Hill (shown here), Frank’s grandson, furious: Someone has insulted his father, who was killed during undercover police work. Read more…

1) “The Parent Test” (shown here) opener, 9 p.m., ABC. “Grey’s Anatomy” and other dramas won’t return until Feb. 23. Filling the gap is a non-fiction night – “Celebrity Jeopardy” at 8 p.m. (tonight with actors Michael Cera, Zoe Chao and Brianne Howey) and “The Chase” at 10. They sandwich this show, which had a one-shot preview last month. Varying parenting styles face fine-dining and home-alone challenges. Read more…

1) “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” debut, 8-10 p.m., Fox. In a torrid Jordan desert, 16 celebrities face military-style training (shown here). Some are athletes – Dwight Howard, Danny Amendola, Carli Lloyd, Nastia Liukin, Gus Kenworthy – but many aren’t. We’ll see reality stars (Kate Gosselin, Hannah Brown, Kenya Moore, Dr. Drew Pinsky), performers (Mel B., Jamie Lynn Sears, etc.), chef Tyler Florence and former Trump official Anthony Scaramucci. Read more…

1) “New Amsterdam” return, 10 p.m., NBC. Two weeks before its series-finale, the show has an hour that is both powerful and (at times) extremely upsetting. Helen is suddenly back in town and Max is reluctant to see her. (They’re shown here in a previous season.) Instead, he takes his hospital staff on an outdoor “retreat” – where new crises appear. One is physical and horrendous; another plays out in the mind of the psychiatrist. “New Amsterdam” is doing great work as it departs. Read more…

1) Rose Parade, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET , NBC, ABC, Peacock and RFD-TV. The New Year’s Day party begins — a day late. With Jan. 1 on a Sunday, the parade (shown here in a previous year) was delayed a day; now it booms through Pasadena, with 21 bands, including ones from Italy, Japan, Mexico, Panama and Taiwan. The theme is “Turning the Corner” and there are 40 floats … some of which, in the past, had trouble turning corners. Read more…

1) “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over,” 9 p.m. and midnight ET, CNN. Warwick (shown here) has had plenty of hits – a dozen in the top-10, 56 on Billboard charts, with 100 million records sold. We hear pieces of 40 songs here. But she did much more, this terrific film says. She confronted racists. She sang the anthem of HIV awareness … and nudged Ronald Reagan to finally say “AIDS.” She told “gangster rappers” to arrive at 7 a.m., for a lecture on misogyny; they were there at 6:52. Read more…

1) “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” 8-11 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. to 2 a.m., ABC. Fifty years ago, Dick Clark hatched this idea – live coverage at Times Square, entwined with taped performances in California. Now Times Square (shown here)  has its own performers, with Ryan Seacrest hosing; that includes Duran Duran, New Edition, j-hope (from BTS) and Jax. Billy Porter performs live in New Orleans; taped performers include Ciara, Shaggy, Ben Platt, Halle Bailey, Wiz Khalifa, Dove Cameron and more. Read more…

1) Orange Bowl, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN. We’re one day from the semi-finals, with the four teams that have a shot at the national championship. First, we see the teams that almost got there; this has Tennessee and Clemson (hown here), ranked No. 6 and 7 … which means the Orange Bowl has two teams with orange as their school color. (Alabama, at No. 5, is in the Sugar Bowl on Saturday.) ESPN has two more bowls, with Maryland-North Carolina State at noon and Notre Dame-South Carolina at 3:30; CBS has Pittsburgh and UCLA at 2. Read more…

1) “So Help Me Todd” (shown here), 9 and 10 p.m., CBS. A week before the season resumes, here’s a dandy way to get familiar wth this above-average show. First, the clever pilot film: A by-the-book lawyer (Marcia Gay Harden) and her ignore-the-book son Todd (Skyler Astin), whose detective license was suspended, scramble to find her husband. Then the second hour gets too silly at times, as Todd shirks his own case to work on hers, but is still sort of fun. Read more…