‘Talent’ Finals, ‘Miracle Workers’ Finale, ‘Once Upon a Time in Queens,’ Bear’s Back in ‘You vs. Wild’

Season Finale

8/7c

The ball’s in America’s court as the final 10 acts perform, with a winner announced during Wednesday’s live show receiving $1 million and a Las Vegas headlining show. As usual, the roster of talent is eclectic, to put it mildly, including the inevitable baby opera singer (Victory Brinker, 9), but also refreshing novelties like quick-change artist Léa Kyle and the Northwell Nurse Choir, comprised of New York frontline nurses. For the first time, two comedians make the final cut: Josh Blue, whose cerebral palsy features into his act, and Latina stand-up Gina Brillon. There’s also an aerialist (Aidan Bryant), a magician (Dustin Tavella), martial-arts masters (World Taekwondo Demonstration Team) and vocalists (Brooke Simpson, Jimmie Herrod).

Season Finale

10/9c

In the mock Western’s finale, the settlers finally reach their destination—only to discover that the odious Todd (Jon Bass), who’s become Oregon’s new governor, is ruling like Nero while the frontier bacchanalia burns. Will it be High Noon for outlaw Benny the Teen (Steve Buscemi) and his protégé daughter Trig (Quinta Brunson) in a classic showdown? No cliché is spared from being subverted by this slapstick spoof.

Special

Adventurer Bear Grylls returns to the streamer for a second interactive movie in which viewers choose the paths he takes toward survival. He’s in a real pickle this time, stranded in remote and icy mountains after a plane crash, dealing with amnesia as well as threatening local elements (including wildlife) as he attempts to find and save the pilot as well as himself. To do that, he’ll need your help, and how quickly he achieves his goal—Out Cold runs anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes—depends on which selection you choose.

Documentary Premiere

8/7c

A story so big it’s being told over two nights, 30 for 30 celebrates the legacy of the 1986 New York Mets in their yet-to-be-matched 1986 championship season. Once Upon a Time in Queens, directed by Ted Davis (Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived) and executive produced by Jimmy Kimmel, looks back at the team’s ignoble origins and its rise, along with that of New York City, in the 1980s, culminating in the Mets’ brief but bold reign, with such colorful players as Keith Hernandez, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Mookie Wilson, Lenny Dykstra and Kevin Mitchell all featured in new interviews. Queens concludes Wednesday at 8/7c and will be available to stream on ESPN+ and the ESPN App.

More sports-themed documentaries:

• Ticket Home (7/6c, ESPN2 and ESPN+): As a lead-in to Queens, the E60 series presents a special episode about how baseball, and the ’80s Mets, helped bring Barry Rosen, one of the Iran hostages held captive for 444 days until his 1981 release, closer to his family thanks to Major League Baseball’s gift of a lifetime pass.
• Level Playing Field (8/7c, HBO): The intersection of sports, politics and inequities in social policy is the subject of a timely half-hour four-part docuseries. The first episode, “Midnight Baseball,” looks at the athletic program started in 1986 in Maryland as an outlet for high-risk youths to curb violence and crime rates and how it became a contentious political lightning rod replete with racial stereotyping.

Inside Tuesday TV:

• OWN Spotlight: They Call Me Dad (9/8c, OWN, streaming on discovery+): Who needs Father’s Day to call attention to devoted celebrity fathers? The Spotlight special profiles four well-known Black dads—actors Derek Luke and Tristan Mack Wilds, gospel singer/songwriter and pastor Marvin Sapp, and music mogul Master P—as representatives of Black fatherhood, talking about the challenges and joys of parenting in today’s society.
• Frontline (10/9c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): In “Boeing’s Fatal Flaw,” the investigative news program takes a hard look at the Boeing 737 Max debacle, examining how market pressure and flawed oversight led to a software failure that doomed two flights of the popular aircraft in 2018 and 2019, claiming the lives of nearly 350 passengers and crew.
• Impeachment: American Crime Story (10/9c, FX): The tape rewinds (so to speak) as the docudrama reveals how Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein) meets and fatefully falls for President Clinton (Clive Owen), later sharing her hopeless romanticism with the absolute worst person imaginable: Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson).
• Only Murders in the Building (streaming on Hulu): The comedy-mystery’s plot thickens when Mabel (Selena Gomez) makes a connection with the mysterious “tie-dye guy.” But her partners in crime-solving, Oliver (Martin Short) and Charles (Steve Martin), have trust issues, so they begin shadowing her to learn what she’s hiding.