Daily Best Bets

1) “Monarch,” about 8 p.m. ET (after football), Fox. Eight days before the new season starts, here’s the first arrival. It links good music (often soft and subtle) and bad soap opera (sometimes loud and blunt). Trace Adkins (shown here) and Susan Sarandon play the leaders of a Nashville dynasty. They have one daughter who looks like a star (Anna Friel) and one who sings like one (Beth Ditto), plus a business-like son. Then a big event changes everything. Read more…

1) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. Simu Liu, one of the newest members of the superhero universe, hosts this rerun, with Saweetie as music guest. Liu was born in China, but spent much of his childhood in Canada, where he did a TV comedy, “Kim’s Convenience.” But his fame came with the action film “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” (shown here); the character is expected to return in a sequel and in an “Avengers” movie. Read more…

1) Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, 9-10:30 p.m., PBS. Even in wartime, Ukrainians find room for music. Canadian-Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson leads a group that incliudes refugees plus Ukrainians who perform in their own country or abroad. The concert has Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony, the Seventh Symphony of Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov and a Chopin concerto with Ukrainian piano virtuoso Anna Fedorova (shown here). Read more…

1) Football, 8:20 p.m. ET, NBC. The colleges had their week in the spotlight, but now the pros take over. The season opens with the Los Angeles Rams (shown here) at home – the same spot where they won last year’s Super Bowl. The Rams (12-5 in the regular season) host the Buffalo Bills (11-6). The pre-game show starts at 7 p.m. ET, sometimes cutting to J Balvin’s nearby concert. Read more…

1) “MasterChef,” 8 and 9 p.m., Fox. A week from the finale, the show is down to five chefs. There’s Dara Yu (shown here), 20, who was runner-up in the first “MasterChef Junior,” and four people in their 30s – Emily Hallock, Shanika Patterson, Michael Silverstein and Christian Green. In the first hour, they try baked Alaska and lobster tortellini; in the second, the top four start the finals, with a studio audience. Read more…

1) “What We Do in the Shadows” season-finale, 10 p.m., FX. A terrific season ends just as we’d expect it to – with chaos, surprises and, at times, big laughs. The vampire nightclub was thriving until its boy singer (who emerged from the late Colin’s chest) kept aging quickly, while his manager (Laszlo) demanded more money. Guillermo (shown here, center) and Nadja have each hidden stacks of cash, but trouble – big and funny trouble – looms. Read more…

1) “The Bad Seed Returns,” 8 p.m., Lifetime. At 16, McKenna Grace (shown here) has great range. She’s been geniuses (in “Young Sheldon” and the movie “Gifted”) and a vengeful victim (“Handmaid’s Tale”). She was a cunning villain in the “Bad Seed” remake (2018), which reruns at 6 and 10:03 p.m. today. Now she’s co-written, co-produced and stars in this sequel; it’s beautifully done, if a bit repetitious. Read more…

1) “The Chi” season-finale, 9 p.m., Showtime. Otis Perry, the ex-mayor, keeps messing with other people’s lives. As this strong hour opens, he startles Victor, the earnest council candidate. Later, he ranges from tough-guy Bakari to Emmett, a good soul trying to run a business and to co-parent with his estranged wife Tiff. (Emmett’s shown here with her new boyfriend Rob.) The rough moments are early, but stick around for bits of season-ending joy. Read more…

1) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. Billie Eilish (shown here in a previous performance) is both the host and music guest in this rerun. She was one of only two people to do double duty this season; the other was Lizzo. (Some people who had hosted previously — Halsey, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry — were just music guests; Selena Gomez, who sings, was just hosting.) Eilish may seem shy or withdrawn at times, but not here; she was excellent as host, in sketches and, of course, with her music. Read more…

1) “America’s National Parks” finale, 9 p.m., National Geographic, rerunning at midnight. A splendid series (also on Disney+) concludes with its most spectacular hour. The Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (shown here) includes one volcano that erupted for 35 years; when it stopped, in 2018, it had buried a road under 100 feet of lava. The park also has 500-year-old carvings, 1,000-year-old trees and unique species, from larva-seeking beetles to a curved-beak woodpecker. Read more…