‘Dancing’ Finale, Home Invasion on ‘Fargo,’ Geddy Lee Grills Fellow Bass Masters, ‘NCIS’ on the Rocks

Dancing with the Stars rewards the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy to the winning couple in the three-hour season finale. Fargo stages a harrowing home invasion, but the intruders aren’t prepared for Juno Temple. Geddy Lee, bass player for Rush, interviews other colorful musicians in a docuseries. NCIS: Sydney investigates a puzzling murder in Sydney’s Rocks region that implicates an MIA war hero from 50 years ago.

Alyson Hannigan and Sasha Farber on Dancing With The Stars
ABC

Dancing With the Stars

Season Finale

She may not be the best dancer in the Top Five competing for the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy in the expanded three-hour finale, but Alyson Hannigan has the season’s best and most classic Dancing with the Stars arc, improving weekly with a sparkling attitude. Having survived the cut in last week’s semifinals, when no one was sent home, she’ll perform a redemption dance and a freestyle routine with her partner Sasha Farber, competing against reality stars Ariana Madix (with Pasha Pashkov) and Charity Lawson (with Artem Chigvintsev), musician Jason Mraz (with Daniella Karagach) and Marvel youth Xochitl Gomez (with Val Chmerkovskiy). The season’s eliminated couples return for a group dance to “Young Hearts Run Free,” and hosts Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough join in for “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” Highlights include Mraz performing “I Feel Like Dancing” to a routine danced by the pros going on tour, and former champs Charli D’Amelio and Mark Ballas returning to dance to “Give It to Me Baby.” When the glitter and confetti bombs are swept away, one couple will take home the Mirrorball named after the judge who passed away in April.

Juno Temple in 'Fargo'
Michelle Faye/FX

Fargo

Expect to find echoes of Die Hard and Home Alone in the thrilling first 15 minutes of this week’s episode, when Dot (the remarkable Juno Temple) goes to extreme measures to protect her family from Gator (Joe Keery) and his goons as they invade their home. Over in North Dakota, the mythic boogeyman Ole Munch (Sam Spruell) leaves an ominous message in Sheriff Roy’s (Jon Hamm) home as worlds begin to collide and the Lyon family attorney, eye-patched Danish Graves (Dave Foley), informs the authorities, “With all due respect, we’ve got our own reality.” Do they ever.

Krist Novoselic and Geddy Lee in 'Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?' on Paramount+
Paramount+

Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?

Documentary Premiere

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bassist Geddy Lee from Rush, who wrote Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass, got to know other famed bass players while doing his research. In a four-part docuseries, he travels to the homes of fellow musicians to interview them and share their colorful stories, with an occasional jam session along the way. His subjects include Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Les Claypool from Primus, Metallica’s Rob Trujillo and Melissa Auf der Maur from Hole and Smashing Pumpkins.

Todd Lasance, Olivia Swann, and William McInnes in 'NCIS: Sydney' Season 1 Episode 4
Daniel Asher Smith/Paramount+

NCIS: Sydney

One of the strongest episodes to date of the Down Under spinoff is short on action, but reveals an unusually resonant account of the horrors of war during the investigation. It begins when a U.S. petty officer’s body falls from a window, meeting a grisly fate in Sydney’s historic Rocks region. As the team investigates, the discovery of a Navy Cross medal from a half-century ago points to a war hero who went off the grid back in the 1970s. Mackey (Olivia Swann) finds her take-no-prisoners attitude toward deserters being challenged as they get closer to the truth behind this tragedy.

INSIDE TUESDAY TV:

  • The Voice (9/8c, NBC): The results are in, with eight of the Top 12 voted through and the remaining singers performing for the Instant Save in hopes of one advancing to the live semi-final.
  • TMZ’s Merry Elfin’ Christmas Special (9/8c, Fox): The muckraking gossips of TMZ dish the highs and lows of 2023 with celebrity guests including Shaq, Tiffany Haddish, Bill Maher, Kyle Richards, Mark Cuban and Gavin DeGraw.
  • Frontline (10/9c, PBS): The current-affairs documentary series goes Inside the Uvalde Response in a collaboration with The Texas Tribune and ProPublica to reconstruct the tragic events of May 2022 when 19 students and two teachers were shot and killed, with criticism leveled at the action (or inaction) of the officers on the scene.
  • Great Photo, Lovely Life: Facing a Family’s Secrets (10/9c, HBO): Photojournalist Amanda Mustard turns her gaze on her own family in a personal documentary in which she confronts her grandfather, a former chiropractor, about his history of multiple sexual abuse.
  • Found (10/9c, NBC): While Gabi (Shanola Hampton) and her team revisit an earlier child-trafficking case, she confronts Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), the villain in her basement, about another of his possible victims.
  • FBI True (10/9c, CBS): A new episode recounts the 1996 manhunt for the serial bomber responsible for the explosion at the Atlanta Olympics.
  • A Murder at the End of the World (streaming on Hulu): Darby (Emma Corrin) confronts her billionaire host Andy Ronson (Clive Owen) about the secrets she has uncovered, but the more she questions him and other suspects, the more she feels “I have all the edges of the puzzle but nothing in the middle.” After another fatality, Andy poses the billion-dollar question to Darby: “Why is it wherever you go, death follows?”