‘Bosch’ in Search Mode,’ Reloading ‘Upload,’ a Spymaster Speaks, Bill Burr and Other ‘Old Dads’

Season Premiere

Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), the seasoned ex-LAPD detective turned private investigator, is not the sort who can stay still when someone he loves is at risk. “F**k policy! I can’t do nothing,” he growls when he finds himself on the outside looking in at the police handling of his rookie cop daughter Maddie’s (Madison Lintz) kidnapping by a serial rapist (a chilling David Denman). Leave it to Harry to work all of his contacts, including former partner Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector) and lawyer Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers), to get in front of the search for Maddie. Season 2 of the Bosch spinoff launches with two episodes, with two more dropping each week.

Season Premiere

Also in a two-episode-a-week cycle, Season 3 of the sci-fi comedy picks up (after a year-and-a-half break) with Nathan (an appealing Robbie Amell) downloaded from his virtual afterlife into a cloned body. This lets him pursue an actual physical relationship with his handler Nora (Andy Allo)—as long as his head doesn’t explode. (There are still kinks in the downloading system once one’s consciousness is removed from the utopian Lakeview virtual afterlife program.) This may sound confusing, but it’s great fun as Nathan and Nora uncover a conspiracy involving Lakeview’s parent company, Horizen, while back in the Lakeview fantasyland, a backup copy of Nathan is activated.

Documentary Premiere

“I see my own life as a succession of embraces and escapes,” says a cagey John Le Carré, the internationally acclaimed spy novelist (1931-2020), in what’s billed as his final interview—seen in an absorbing documentary profile from Oscar-winning filmmaker Errol Morris (The Fog of War). As Morris interrogates the former British Intelligence agent (real name David Cornwell) about his life and career, with dramatized scenes from his novels and life, we sense that Cornwell’s own story is at least as fascinating if not more so than Le Carré’s fictions.

Movie Premiere

Netflix fan fave Bill Burr (F Is for Family, numerous stand-up specials) channels his combative brand of comedy as co-writer (with Ben Tishler), director and star of a movie about three middle-aged dads—Bobby Cannavale and Bokeem Woodbine are his charismatic co-stars—adjusting to change as best they can after selling their company to a millennial. Are they pleased to learn they’re now part of a “gender-neutral, carbon-neutral, 21^st-century lifestyle brand?” Might help if they understood what any of that meant.

A pivotal episode of the inspired comedy-drama (based on the Bonnie Garmus bestseller) is shown largely from the perspective of Elizabeth’s (Brie Larson) beloved goldendoodle named Six Thirty (poignantly voiced by The Office’s B.J. Novak). In the wake of a personal tragedy and an unexpected turn of fate, a frustrated Elizabeth transforms her kitchen into an “industrial grade chemical lab,” which captures the attention of her firebrand neighbor, Harriet (the vibrant Aja Naomi King), who becomes a much-needed ally and friend.

The young “supes” at Godolkin University are still processing the betrayal of one of their own—that mind-manipulator Cate (Maddie Phillips) is somehow in cahoots with the evil Dean Shetty (Shelley Conn)—when several of our heroes get stuck in Cate’s head. As they look for a way out, confronting their own darkest moments among other surprises, Shetty’s secret development of a sinister virus takes a grisly leap forward.

INSIDE FRIDAY TV:

• Checkin’ It Twice (8/7c, Hallmark Channel): The channel’s “Countdown to Christmas” gets underway with the romance of a pro hockey player (When Calls the Heart’s Kevin McGarry) who moves into the backyard of a real-estate agent (Kim Matula) after he’s traded to her hometown.
• Shark Tank (8/7, ABC): Among this week’s pitches: a portable outdoor game that combines the ever-popular pickleball with Spikeball.
• True Crime Watch: Marriages turn deadly on this week’s newsmag crime blotter. ABC’s 20/20 (9/8c) features Nightline co-anchor Juju Chang’s report on the 2017 murder of Illinois wife and stepmother Katrina Smith, whose husband Todd has spent years trying to overturn his conviction. NBC’s Blayne Alexander reports for Dateline NBC (9/8c) on the 2010 death in Minnesota of 25-year-old Heidi Firkus in what husband Nick claimed was a home invasion. More than a decade later, he was charged with her murder.
• Next at the Kennedy Center (9/8c, PBS): Diversity and interconnectedness are the themes of “Embracing Duality: Modern Indigenous Cultures,” featuring R&B’s Martha Redbone, performance artist Ty Defoe and electronic music’s The Halluci Nation as they demonstrate how Indigenous elements have been infused into many contemporary musical genres.

ON THE STREAM:

• Big Mouth (streaming on Netflix): The raunchy cult animated comedy sends its hormonally tormented middle-schoolers into high school for Seven 7, where the stakes and pressures are only more intense.
• Elite (streaming on Netflix): Also back for a seventh season: the sexy Spanish soap set at a private school in Madrid.
• Taking on Taylor Swift (streaming on Max): First shown last December on CNN, a FlashDoc special revisits the 2017 lawsuit when songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler alleged the superstar had appropriated part of their song “Playas Gon’ Play” for the chorus of her hit “Shake It Off.”
• If You Were the Last (streaming on Peacock): The Afterparty’s Zoë Chao and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s Anthony Mackie are the charming stars of a sci-fi comedy as two astronauts stranded in deep space on a faulty space shuttle, debating whether to take their relationship to the next level.
• Surviving Paradise (streaming on Netflix): The latest sadistic reality-TV twist involves sending 12 hotbodies to a luxurious villa, where they’re quickly banished to the wilderness and will have to scheme their way back into the clifftop retreat to compete for a $100,000 prize.