A Funereal Ambush for ‘Reacher,’ Awkward Homecoming in ‘Mankind,’ ‘Craft in America,’

Even a funeral isn’t safe for Reacher (Alan Ritchson) and his former Army buddies in another exciting episode of the hit series based on Lee Child’s books. The hulking hero gains new respect for the NYPD’s Det. Guy Russo (the hugely entertaining Domenick Lombardozzi) when Reacher sees how good he is with the son of their fallen comrade, but after they’re ambushed at graveside, Reacher is far less impressed by the officer’s driving skills. “I thought this was supposed to be a high-speed pursuit,” he grumbles as Russo tries to keep up with a fleeing shooter. Elsewhere, Neagley (Maria Sten) and Dixon (Serinda Swan) head to Denver to get intel on New Age Technologies, only to run across a violent hijacking of some very dangerous hardware.

Having defected to Russia for very complicated reasons, former NASA director Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt) isn’t surprised to get the cold shoulder from her former colleagues when she reluctantly returns to Houston to assist in the plans to retrieve a valuable asteroid. But she’s in for a real shock when an important figure from her past tracks her down. Up on Mars, disgruntled Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinneman) schemes with Helios founder Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi) to subvert the asteroid capture for their own benefit, risking anything and anyone to get what they want. With only two more episodes of the excellent Season 4 remaining, we can’t help but watch this subplot unfold with dread.

Season Premiere

9/8c

The Peabody Award-winning series devoted to the cultural significance of handmade objects and their creators returns with two episodes, including a close look at painstakingly detailed miniature crafts, featuring artists from Cuba and Mexico to Uzbekistan and the U.S. The hour includes a visit to Santa Fe’s International Folk Art Market and the New Mexico Museum of Art, where the late Gustave Baumann’s century-old marionettes are on display. An accompanying episode about the intersection of “Play” and art includes segments on distinctive piñatas, handmade puppets and cleverly repurposed items like a unicorn fashioned from Mardi Gras beads. It’s OK to try this at home.

8/7c

The docuseries about soccer’s potential to effect social change ends in Qatar. Narrator Trevor Noah covers how the world’s focus on the 2022 FIFA World Cup’s host country exposed the way it dropped the ball on human rights.

The painfully slow build of this fantasy thriller can be frustrating, but with signs pointing to another Godzilla-size catastrophe looming, Monarch sends the young heroes to Kazakhstan, site of the 1959 tragedy, where Shaw (Kurt Russell) plans to seal the portal to the underground where monsters dwell. “There’s a world down there,” he tells Cate (Anna Sawai), “and it’s not ours.” But somehow, these worlds always have a way of colliding.

BOWL MANIA:

• Heading into the New Year’s weekend, where playoff games at the Rose and Sugar Bowls will decide who’ll play in the National Championship Game in January, regional bowl games proliferate. The lineup includes the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl (noon ET, ESPN) in Jacksonville, with No. 22 Clemson vs. Kentucky; the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl (2 pm/ET, CBS) in El Paso, with No. 16 Notre Dame vs. No. 19 Oregon State; the AutoZone Liberty Bowl (3:30 pm/ET, ESPN) in Memphis, with Memphis vs. Iowa State; and the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic (8 pm/ET, ESPN) in Dallas, with No. 9 Missouri vs. No. 7 Ohio State.