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. Read more…
1) College football. The first full Saturday of the season is stuffed with games, none of them pitting two nationally ranked teams. That starts at noon ET and continues into primetime, with 7:30 p.m. games on NBC (West Virginia at Penn State, which is ranked No. 7) … ABC (North Carolina, shown here, No. 21, at South Carolina) … and CBS (Texas Tech at Wyoming). There’s much more, plus baseball on Fox. Read more…
1) “Family Law” season-finale, 8 and 9 p.m., CW. For two seasons, this Canadian drama has offered a pleasantly adequate blend of court cases (some of them lightweight) and lawyers’ personal dramas (some quite serious). Tonight’s first hour finds a Britney Spears-type star fighting a conservatorship. The second has Abby (Jewel Staite, foreground) trying to help her half-sister (right) get legal status as a baby’s parent; and as her probation ends, Abby ponders leaving the firm her dad (left) runs. Read more…
1) Football, 8 p.m. ET, Fox. Tonight starts the first full weekend of the college season … which makes it sort of the start of the fall TV season. With most of the new, scripted shows blocked strikes, networks depend on sports. This weekend has primetime college games Saturday on ABC, CBS and NBC … and even Sunday on ABC. Today’s game has Nebraska (shown here, 4-8 last season) at Minnesota, which went 9-4, including a Pinstripe Bowl win. Read more…
1) “Archer” season-openers, 10 and 10:30 p.m., FXX; rerunning hourly until 3:30 a.m. The 14th and final season of this animated action-comedy finds Sterling Archer still convinced he’s the world’s greatest spy. In this two-parter, however, he’s working with a woman who matches him in skill, beauty and ego. (They’re shown here.) Meanwhile, Lana is the boss, worrying about budgets, human-resource issues and a skeleton in the office wall. That result is erratic, but entertaining. Read more…
1) “Justified: City Primeval” finale, 10 p.m., FX. This started as a light, bright tale, then turned brutal. Now the manic Mansell is pitted against Raylan (Timothy Olyphant, shown here), the stoic U.S. marshal who is sleeping with Mansell’s lawyer. Both men have been hauled away by mobsters, while cops are framing someone else for Manseill’s murders. It’s a complicated story that seems to end early, then re-starts, then DOES end early, leaving room for some warm surprises. Read more…
1) “Claim to Fame” finale, 8 and 9 p.m., ABC. There have been plenty of wrong guesses this year, most aimed at Chris (shown here, left). Despite obvious clues – teen idol, puppy love, Utah, many-colored dreamcoat — people guessed he was related to Elvis Presley, Elton John and Billy Idol. They also linked Karsyn with the wrong race-car driver, Jeff Gordon. Now both remain, with Gabriel (shown here, right) and Monay. One person is ousted the first hour, two more in a fun finale. Read more…
1) “Running Wild With Bear Grylls,” season-finales, 8 and 9 p.m., National Geographic Channel. For eight seasons, Grylls has taken celebrities to harsh places. Now he has takes Daveed Diggs to a desert and then Tatiana Maslany (“Black Orphan”) to rappel down a mountain. Before that, the rest of the season reruns. Starting at 2 p.m., it will be Rita Ora, Russell Brand, Troy Kotsur, Cynthia Erivo, Benedict Cumberbatch and Bradley Cooper (shown here). Read more…
1) College football, 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC. For most schools, the season starts next weekend. Each year, however, two historically Black colleges gets a one-week jump. This time, South Carolina State (3-8 last year) faces Jackson State, which was 12-0 in the regular-season (with an average score of 38-11), before losing a bowl game. Now its coach (Deion Sanders) and its star quarterback (his son Shedeur, shown here) have switched to Colorado. Read more…
1) “Great Performances,” 9 p.m., PBS. Each year, PBS wraps up its summer with this elegant Vienna concert. This year, Yannick Nezet-Seguin (shown here at a previous concert) conducts, opening with numbers from “Carmen” – the first show he led at the Metropolitan Opera. Elina Garanca sings beautifully … then returns for two more numbers. Things slow down at times, but close with “Bolero” – beautifully illustrated by silhouette dancers –and, as always, a Strauss waltz. Read more…
