Salute to Bob Barker, ‘Shadows’ Finale, an Interactive Romcom, ‘One Piece’ Manga Comes to Life

Special

8/7c

Bob Barker, who passed away Saturday at 99, was the epitome of a game-show host: dapper, unflappable, with a special charm that put the most excitable contestants at ease. A daily presence in the lives of generations of fans, Barker hosted The Price Is Right for 35 years, earning 14 Daytime Emmy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award. His successor, Drew Carey, hosts a prime-time tribute honoring Barker, with clips of his most memorable moments of fan interaction among other highlights. The celebration also acknowledges his outspoken advocacy for animal rights and his ascension to the status of pop-culture icon, including his infamous appearance in Happy Gilmore. (That film’s star, Adam Sandler, is shown reading his poem “An Ode to Bob Barker.”) The special will also air next Tuesday in The Price Is Right’s regular daytime slot.

Season Finale

10/9c

The fifth season of the outrageously funny supernatural comedy has been building to a Grand Guignol climax—and that’s what we get in pivotal back-to-back episodes that confront two ongoing storylines: Guillermo’s (Harvey Guillén) uneasy transition into vampirehood, fearing the day his sire Nandor (Kayvan Novak) will learn of his betrayal; and the Guide’s (Kristen Schaal) growing feeling of isolation as her adopted vampire gang continues to take her for granted. The fun begins when all are invited to a weekend at the grand estate of the legendary Perdita Morrigan, “the grande dame of vampiric high society in the New World,” who dates back to the Mayflower. All, however, is not as it seems, and the fallout in the finale may change the dynamics in the Staten Island haunted house forever.

Romcoms are the ultimate in TV comfort food, most playing out on a track that is predictable by design. But in the interactive Choose Love, the viewer gets to decide the destiny of Cami (Laura Marano), a romantic soul who finds herself in a love quadrangle. Using the remote at key moments in the story, we guide Cami as she makes crucial choices regarding the men in her life: Paul (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Scott Michael Foster), her steady boyfriend; Jack (Jordi Webber), the dashing world-traveling ex, “the one who got away”; or possibly Rex (Avan Jogia), the British rock star who’s getting awfully flirtatious in the recording studio where she works. And if you don’t like how it all turns out, consider starting over and making different choices.

Series Premiere

First a best-selling manga series, then a popular Japanese anime series, the global phenomenon comes to life in a lavish and relentlessly propulsive live-action adventure series suitable for family viewing. The spirited Iñaki Godoy dons the straw hat of rubbery wannabe pirate Monkey D. Luffy, who gathers a crew of devoted friends in his quest to become the King of the Pirates and discover a fabled lost treasure.

INSIDE THURSDAY TV:

• As Luck Would Have It (8/7c, LMN): In light whodunits airing on Thursdays through September 14, Jackée Harry stars as Gabbi Luck, a retired criminology professor who becomes the local Jessica Fletcher when it comes to solving murders. In the first film, Murder 101, she helps her detective daughter (Mea Wilkerson) work a case when her former Dean of Criminology is murdered.
• Fight to Survive (8/7c, The CW): It’s been a full first week of hardship in the grueling reality competition, and hunger pangs lead to aggression.
• The Challenge: USA (10/9c, CBS): Who could have seen this coming? A showmance breaks out between two contestants who are former Big Brother housemates.

ON THE STREAM:

• Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (streaming on Max): The animated fantasy spins off into an alternate universe, following new versions of Finn and Jake as they take on a new enemy.
• Spellbound (streaming on Hulu): Forget Emily. It’s 15-year-old Cece’s (Hailey Melody Romain) turn to visit Paris, eager to begin training at the elite Paris Opera Ballet School—only to discover she’s part of a line of powerful witches and now has to learn to master magic as well as dance.
• The Pact (streaming on Sundance Now): The British anthology thriller launches a second season, starring BAFTA winner Rakie Ayola as a social worker whose family is rocked when a stranger arrives who’s a doppelgänger of her deceased son.
• Face to Face (streaming on Viaplay): Ahsoka’s Lars Mikkelsen stars in an intense Scandinavian drama as a mogul desperate to discover who murdered his protégé, with each episode built around a single interrogation.