Lil Rel Howery in ‘The Mill,’ Jane Seymour Returns as ‘Harry Wild,’ ‘Critch’ Finale, Remembering Matthew Shepard

The Mill

We’re used to seeing Lil Rel Howery playing comic relief, including in his breakout role in Get Out, so the biggest shock in this psychological thriller (on which he’s a producer) comes in watching him play it mostly straight. For most of the 90-plus minutes, he’s the only person on screen as Joe, a rising businessman in a mega-corporation known as Mallard (with a duck logo) who wakes in a mysterious grist mill where he’s instructed to push a stone wheel in a Sisyphean loop for hours on end, meeting an arbitrary coda under threat of permanent “termination.” A dark parable of work-life balance taken to its extremes, spoofing the notion of the daily grind, The Mill has its own moments of tedium, but as the tension builds to an 11^th-hour twist, you might also be reminded at times of Apple’s even more mind-blowing Severance.

Harry Wild

Fans of cozy mysteries will go wild again as Jane Seymour flashes her wit and charm in the role of retired literature professor-turned-sleuth Harry Wild, solving crimes with her young P.I. sidekick Fergus (Rohan Nedd). Launching Season 2 with two episodes, Harry and Fergus threaten to upstage her Dublin Garda detective son Charlie (Kevin Ryan) as they solve a murder, then investigate a woman’s disappearance from a small village that may be into devil worship. Also on Acorn TV: The Season 1 finale of Mrs. Sidhu Investigates.

Son of a Critch

The 1980s-set nostalgic family comedy from Canada ends its first season with young Mark (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) nursing a broken heart. He’s finally expressing his feelings for Fox (Sophia Powers) when he learns she’s been hanging with his best bud, Ritche (Mark Rivera). His dad Mike Sr. (played by the real Mark Critch) is also stressed, in his case professionally, with an uncertain future for his radio station prompting him to try DJ’ing on for size—at Mark’s end-of-term school dance. Another Canadian family comedy, Run the Burbs (9:30/8:30c), also wraps its first season. (Season 2 for both shows will begin airing October 26 when the comedy block moves to Thursdays.)

The Matthew Shepard Story: An American Hate Crime

The shocking 1998 murder of 21-year-old gay Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard continues to resonate 25 years later, now seen as a turning point in inspiring hate-crime legislation. A two-hour documentary explores the legacy of this young man and the terrible crime that took his life, featuring interviews with those who knew Shepard and celebrity activists who rallied to his cause, including Rosie O’Donnell, Andrew Rannells and Adam Lambert.

INSIDE MONDAY TV:

• The Talk (CBS, check local schedules): With talk shows resuming now that the WGA strike is over, The Talk opens its 14^th season with Star Trek: Picard’s Sir Patrick Stewart, discussing his memoir Making It So.
• Monday Night Football (8 pm/ET, ABC and ESPN): Once again, the big game is simulcast on broadcast and cable, with a marquee matchup of the Green Bay Packers at Las Vegas Raiders.
• The Price Is Right at Night (8/7c, CBS): Phil Keoghan guests as the game show adopts The Amazing Race as its theme, with a special “The Amazing Rat Race” game awaiting fans, competing as teams of two for Race-appropriate prizes including exotic trips, flights for a year and an “Express Pass” to the showcase.
• The Nanny (10/9c, COZI TV): Newly visible as the outspoken president of the striking SAG-AFTRA union, Fran Drescher is best known to TV viewers as Fran Fine, the title star of this sitcom, celebrating its 30^th anniversary with a “Still 29” marathon of six episodes a night. The marathon opens with the 1993 pilot, when a frazzled Fran arrives at the posh household of Mr. Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy). Just try to get Ann Hampton Callaway’s catchy theme song out of your head.
• The Irrational (10/9c, NBC): When a commercial flight goes down into the Potomac with the dead pilot under immediate suspicion, Alec (Jesse L. Martin) seeks an unbiased view of the pilot to make his assessment. His query: “Why would he crash a plane in a way that would let half the passengers survive?”