Chippendales Drama, Marlee Matlin on ‘New Amsterdam,’ Shuttle Excavation, ‘Our Universe’

Series Premiere

Come for the dirty dancing, stay for the lurid drama. Silicon Valley’s Kumail Nanjiani stars in this engrossing eight-episode docudrama series as Chippendales founder Steve Banerjee, who fancied himself the next Hugh Hefner as his male strippers’ club became a phenomenon. But a toxic psychological stew of jealousy, greed and paranoia would lead to murder, arson and suicide. With a fine supporting cast including Murray Bartlett (The White Lotus) as the choreographer who becomes the face of the brand, Annaleigh Ashford as Steve’s crafty accountant wife and Juliette Lewis as the designer of those breakaway pants. (Premieres with two episodes, with the rest airing weekly through Jan. 3.)

9/8c

Signing off until January with back-to-back episodes, the final season of the hospital drama welcomes Marlee Matlin as a mentor and now patient of deaf surgeon and oncologist Dr. Elizabeth Wilder (the terrific Sandra Mae Frank), who receives an offer that has her weighing her professional goals and her obvious affections for medical director Max (Ryan Eggold). Other key subplots involve the relationships of Iggy (Tyler Labine) and his estranged spouse Martin (Mike Doyle), Lauren (Janet Montgomery) and her addict sister Vanessa (Kathryn Prescott) and Floyd (Jocko Sims) and his bipolar father Horace (John Earl Jelks).

Series Premiere

10/9c

This six-part docuseries made headlines when a team of underwater detectives discovered a 20-foot segment of the wreckage of the Space Shuttle Challenger off the coast of Florida, outside the so-called Bermuda Triangle. This find will be chronicled in the series, which devotes much of its efforts to identifying some of the many ships and planes wrecked within the notorious region.

Series Premiere

Morgan Freeman narrates a wide-ranging and visually ambitious six-part natural history series, weaving wildlife footage with animated segments depicting the origins of the solar system. Episodes link the power of the sun, stars, even gravity to more grounded observations of animals including the cheetah, sea turtle, an Alaskan brown bear, a herd of elephants and two king penguins.

Inside Wednesday TV:

• The Voice (8/7c, NBC) Coaches Camila Cabello and Blake Shelton perform with their teams for the first time as the Top 9 are revealed, with the bottom four competing in an Instant Save.
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On (9/8c, PBS): American Masters profiles the indigenous Cree musician and pacifist activist who rose through Greenwich Village’s folk music scene in the 1960s, appeared regularly on Sesame Street for years (including a memorable breastfeeding segment) and won an Oscar for co-writing “Up Where We Belong” (for An Officer and a Gentleman).
• Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (10/9c, HBO): The sports newsmagazine updates its report on the controversy surrounding Qatar’s exploitation of workers in the build-up to the World Cup. Correspondent David Scott also investigates why major sports federations including FIFA and the IOC use Switzerland as their home base.
• The Rookie: Feds (10/9c, ABC): Crossover action between the Rookie shows, when a hostage crisis disrupts everyone’s Thanksgiving plans, sending Simone (Niecy Nash-Betts) undercover while LAPD detective Angela Lopez (Alyssa Diaz) shows up to help rescue her husband, Wesley (Shawn Ashmore).
• FBI: Most Wanted (10/9c, CBS): Another FBI team has to put Thanksgiving on hold to investigate a shooting at a Buddhist temple that may be a hate crime. And it’s decision time for Task Force chief Remy Scott (Dylan McDermott) and Judge April Brooks (Wendy Moniz).
• Trevor Noah: I Wish You Would (streaming on Netflix): In his third Netflix comedy special, filmed at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, California, the outgoing Daily Show host riffs on politicians, modern communication and how he learned to speak German.
• Dangerous Breed: Crime. Cons. Cats. (streaming on Peacock): A three-part docuseries with Tiger King ambitions evolves from a would-be reality show about Teddy Hart, a pro wrestler and Persian cat breeder, into a missing-persons mystery when filmmaker Frederick Kroetsch discovers multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and the disappearance of a former protégé and girlfriend.