‘Ghosts’ Finale, ‘Flight Attendant’ Buckles Up for Intrigue, ‘Picard’ Meets Mulder, ‘Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper in Hungary

Season Finale

8:30/7:30c

I’m tempted to complain “Gone so soon?”, but the 18 episodes in the first season of this delightful hit comedy is as many as the original U.K. version has produced over three seasons. Quantity did not affect quality in this Americanized remake, an ensemble charmer that ends with Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) still on the cusp of opening the B&B in their haunted inherited estate. Two problems: their snooty neighbors (sitcom vet Mark-Linn Baker and Kathryn Greenwood) threaten to upstage the couple with their own inn, and Viking ghost Thorfinn (Devan Chandler Long) reveals he put a Norse curse on the project. The only way to reverse the curse could put Sam in an existential bind, while Revolutionary War ghost Isaac (Brandon Scott Jones) faces his own identity crisis as he prepares to open his heart to Redcoat ghost Nigel (John Hartman). I’m going to miss these colorful spirits until they return in the fall.

Season Premiere

Emmy nominee Kaley Cuoco is back for a second season of the colorful caper comedy-mystery, which opens as flight attendant Cassie Bowden is about to celebrate her first full year of sobriety with her also-in-recovery hot photographer boyfriend (Star Trek: Picard’s Santiago Cabrera) and loyal brother (T.R. Knight) there for support. But it’s her side gig as a civilian CIA asset that could send her spiraling again. A routine surveillance assignment in Berlin goes sideways when Cassie defies “do not engage” orders, and while playing amateur spy, she begins to suspect there’s a lookalike pretending to be her. No longer haunted by the Season 1 ghost of a murder victim, she’s now seeing the drunk version of herself in her visions. That can’t be good.

Santiago Cabrera’s dashing character of pilot Cristobal Rios remains shipbound aboard La Sirena for this pivotal episode, during which his discovery about the Borg Queen currently possessing the body of Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) causes more alarm among Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) team in 2024 Los Angeles. While scary Borg Agnes wreaks havoc, enlisting a new ally, Picard and Younger Guinan (Ito Aghayere) find themselves in the custody of an FBI agent (The Shield’s Jay Karnes) whose obsession with extraterrestrials recalls a certain X-Files icon. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and if they can’t succeed in getting Jean-Luc’s ancestor Renée Picard aboard the Europa, the future could be broken forever.

Special

11/10c

The title, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Globe—Hungary for Democracy, may be a mouthful, but few satirists are as bold, clever and far-reaching as Jordan Klepper, who heads to “partly free” authoritarian Hungary in the middle of their recent election, in which Putin ally Viktor Orban was re-elected as prime minister. Klepper’s goal: to explore with biting humor the similarities between that government’s crackdown on civil liberties and threats to our own democracy.

10/9c

Another provocative episode of Donald Glover’s offbeat comedy finds bitter humor in rapper Paper Boi’s (Brian Tyree Henry) latest brush with the pitfalls of fame, when he’s invited to join a famous white designer’s Diversity Advisory Board after an incident of cultural appropriation. Elsewhere in London, Darius (LaKeith Stanfield) regrets introducing a PR maven to his favorite obscure Nigerian restaurant, and Earn (Glover) has an unexpected reunion that only adds to his sense of dislocation.

On the Stream:

• Julia (streaming on HBO Max): In the latest chapter of this delightful dramedy about Julia Child’s (Sarah Lancashire) early days as TV’s French Chef, a glitch forces her and the team to do a reshoot, while husband Paul (David Hyde Pierce) and book editor Judith (Fiona Glascott) toil endlessly to perfect the art of French bread. I get hungry just thinking about it.
• Marlon Wayans Presents: The Headliners (streaming on HBO Max): The comedian acts as M.C. at L.A.’s Belasco Theatre, welcoming five rising stand-up stars to take the stage, including niece Chaunté Wayans, D.C. Ervin, Tony Baker, Sydney Castillo and Esau McGraw.
• Captive Audience (streaming on Hulu): A three-part true-crime docuseries spans generations, beginning with the 1972 abduction of 7-year-old Steven Stayner near Yosemite. He miraculously returned seven years later, but the intense media coverage of the ensuing kidnapping trial guaranteed this would have anything but a happy ending. Flash forward two decades to a series of murders that puts the Stayner family back in the spotlight.
• The Wonder List with Bill Weir (streaming on CNN+): The fourth season moves to the news channel’s new streaming platform with four new episodes, as chief climate correspondent Bill Weir travels to Montana, Hawaii, Charleston and Greenland to explore the challenges of climate change, tourism and modernization on these environments.
• Les Norton (streaming on Crackle): The free streamer imports an Australian comedy-drama featuring Rebel Wilson. Alexander Bertrand stars as Les, newly arrived from the Queensland outback to Sydney, where his job as a casino bouncer leads to a web of criminal intrigue.

Inside Thursday TV:

• Latin American Music Awards (7/6c, Telemundo): Among the musical highlights of the ceremony from Las Vegas: a gathering of dozens of Latin stars, joined by Ukrainian pop and R&B singer NK to deliver a message of solidarity to the wartorn nation.
• When Worlds Collide (7/6c, Nickelodeon): Stars from six Nickelodeon series participate in a special crossover event, when cast members of Side Hustle, Danger Force, That Girl Lay Lay, Tyler Perry’s Young Dylan, and Warped! join forces to thwart Henry Danger villain Frankini’s (Frankie Grande) latest world-domination scheme.
• Young Sheldon (8/7c, CBS): Georgie (Montana Jordan) drops his bombshell on the family when they invite his girlfriend Mandy (Emily Osment) to dinner.
• Ultimate Cowboy Showdown (8/7c, INSP): The rugged competition’s third season welcomes 14 contestants (including two women) to Wyoming to tackle challenges and an unyielding Mother Nature, with the winner taking away a herd of cattle and bragging rights that might even impress the rough riders of Yellowstone. Trace Adkins hosts.
• Windy City Rehab (9/8c, HGTV): Home-renovation and design expert Alison Victoria returns with new episodes that go beyond her home base of Chicago to Atlanta and L.A.
• Fast Foodies (10/9c, truTV): The comedic cooking contest wraps its second season by welcoming back Season 1 guest Joel McHale, who shocks the expert chefs when he asks them to put their own fast-food spins on his mother’s specialty, spaghetti carbonara. Things are going to get messy fast.