What’s Worth Watching: ‘Dancing With The Stars’, ‘Mars’, ‘Search Party’, ‘Supergirl’ and more for Monday, November 21

DANCING WITH THE STARS
Eric McCandless/ABC
DANCING WITH THE STARS - “Episode 2310” - The five remaining couples advance to the Semi-Finals in one of the show’s tightest competitions ever, on “Dancing with the Stars,” live, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14 (8:00-10:01 p.m. EST), on the ABC Television Network. LAURIE HERNANDEZ, VALENTIN CHMERKOVSKIY, MAKSIM CHMERKOVSKIY

Dancing With the Stars (8/7c, ABC): By the end of tonight’s performance finals, when another couple is eliminated, we’ll know if Tuesday’s season finale will be an all-athlete match-up. Odds favor a sports celebrity taking home the mirrorball trophy: “America’s sweetheart” Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez (the likely favorite), Indy car racer James Hinchcliffe (a surprise charmer) and the charismatic NFL star Calvin Johnson Jr. The spoiler: country star Jana Kramer, whose sizzling chemistry with pro Gleb Savchenko brought the season some serious sex appeal. In the final round of competition, teams will dance a redemption routine and the all-important freestyle. As a special treat, a routine from the highly anticipated new movie musical La La Land (out in December) will be performed.

Mars (9/8c, National Geographic Channel): In the second chapter of this intriguing science fiction/documentary hybrid, tensions run high in 2033 as the international crew of the Daedelus trek across treacherous terrain to reach base camp while tending to an injured captain. This fictional story plays out against the present-day account of NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly’s year-long mission aboard the International Space Station, an experiment testing the effects of long-term space travel. His adventure ended well. About the fate of the Daedelus, we’re not so sure.

Search Party (11/10c, TBS): Of possible interest only to the tragically hip, this 10-part series—being shown in back-to-back episodes through Friday, perhaps to get it over with more quickly—reminds us to be aware of anything billed as “darkly comic,” which often means pretentiously unfunny. Arrested Development‘s Alia Shawkat stars as a morose millennial who becomes inexplicably immersed in the mystery of a missing former college classmate neither she nor her obnoxiously self-obsessed friends seems to have known that well. I really tried with this one, but gave up at the midpoint after spending too much time with characters I loathed, played with varying degrees of commitment, in service of a plot that never catches fire.

Inside Monday TV: HBO’s documentary Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing (8/7c) relives the terror of the 2013 Boston Marathon attack from the perspective of survivors, first responders, government and investigative officials and Pulitzer-winning journalists from the Boston Globe. … The CW’s Supergirl (8/7c) goes to battle against Cyborg Superman while trying to save Mon-El (Chris Wood). … NBC”s Timeless (10/9c) strands its time-traveling heroes in an unusually remote time: 1754.