Man vs. Machine in ‘Miracle Workers’ Finale, ‘Futurama’ vs. Robot Santa, New Cases for ‘The Chelsea Detective,’ US Open Begins
An invasion of killer robots interrupts the happy ending of Miracle Workers: End Times’ season finale. On Futurama, an evil Robot Santa threatens the holidays. Adrian Scarborough is The Chelsea Detective in a new season of feature-length British mysteries. The U.S. Open begins, setting up a possible rematch of Wimbledon finalists Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.
Miracle Workers
Season Finale
Spoofing Mad Max and Terminator-style post-apocalyptic cinema in its fourth season, the comedy anthology goes out with many bangs in a final battle between man and machine. When 100 killer robots led by NeuralNet (Lolly Adefope of the U.K. version of Ghosts) invade Boomtown, retired and newly pregnant warlord Freya (Geraldine Viswanathan) snaps back into action, while her mate Sid (Daniel Radcliffe) goes disturbingly feral. Can they preserve what’s left of suburbia, and is it even worth it?
Futurama
Machines are also a menace on the animated comedy, which finds the holidays in jeopardy thanks to the evil Robot Santa. “Get ready to sleep in heavenly peace!” crows the monstrous machine, as first Professor Farnsworth, and later the Laurel-and-Hardy team of Bender and Zoidberg, use the prof’s time-travel device to try to take down the metal Scrooge.
The Chelsea Detective
Season Premiere
Killing Eve’s Adrian Scarborough is Detective Inspector Max Arnold, an unorthodox but refined bloke who lives on a houseboat and rides his bike to work. In a second season of feature-length mysteries, Max begins a partnership with Detective Sergeant Layla Walsh (Vanessa Emme), who’s a fast learner when a case plunges them into the world of art galleries, dealers and unscrupulous collectors. Max’s ex, Astrid (Anamaria Marinca), runs her own gallery and shares helpful insight about the East German canvases that went missing during what appears to be a botched robbery-murder.
US Open Tennis
Coverage begins of the year’s final tennis Grand Slam, from the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens. All eyes will be on returning champ Carlos Alcaraz from Spain, who could eventually meet his Wimbledon rival Novak Djokovic (who sat out last year’s Open because of Covid vaccination issues) in the finals.
INSIDE MONDAY TV:
- America in Black: March on Washington 60 Years Later (8/7c, BET): The newsmagazine’s season finale marks the 60th anniversary of the iconic rally in Washington, D.C., featuring an interview with Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson about a new generation of civil-rights leaders, a segment on “Mothers of the Movement” and music from PJ Morton.
- Stars on Mars (8/7c, Fox): The simulated outer-space reality competition ends with the final three “celebronauts” fielding trivia questions from the habitat manual, then building a satellite tower to send a message to Earth.
- Claim to Fame (8/7c, ABC): The celebrity-adjacent reality game wraps its second season with back-to-back episodes.
- Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland (9/8c, PBS): In five hours over three nights, a docuseries chronicles Northern Ireland’s Catholic-Protestant conflict, “The Troubles,” from the 1960s to the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. The series opens with an account of 1972’s Bloody Sunday and how punk rock emerged as a unifier of youth.
- Rewind the ’90s (9/8c, National Geographic): The nostalgic docuseries ends with two episodes, the first covering the rise of “Girl Power” in the 1990s, and the finale depicting a “Decade of Disruption” with Madonna’s Truth or Dare and TV breakouts including In Living Color and Ellen making new strides in diversity.
