New Home for Golden Globes, ‘All Creatures’ and ‘Miss Scarlet’ on PBS, Jon Hamm in ‘Grimsburg,’ Spoiled Cooks

Special

SUNDAY: Now owned and operated by Dick Clark Productions—the disgraced Hollywood Foreign Press Association is no more—the Golden Globes finds a new home on CBS (where it hasn’t aired since 1982), kicking off the 2024 awards season. Comedian Jo Koy is the first-time host, and if Globes history is any guide, he’ll have his hands full wrangling a boozy and unruly crowd of film and TV stars. Barbie and Oppenheimer are the most-nominated movies, favored to win in their respective Musical/Comedy and Drama categories. HBO’s Succession leads the TV nominations with nine, followed by The Bear and Only Murders in the Building with five.

Season Premiere

9/8c

SUNDAY: Arriving just in time to warm viewers’ hearts amid winter’s chill, the hit Masterpiece drama (based on James Herriot’s books) about a rural veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales returns amid the winds of World War II in 1940. In the Season 4 opener, James (Nicholas Ralph) and a tobacco-deprived Siegfried (Samuel West) are missing Tristan (Callum Woodhouse), who’s been called into service. And as they deal with emotional cases involving a lonely farmer and an impoverished lad with a sickly dog, their housekeeper Mrs. Hall (Anna Madeley) has her own agenda: filing for divorce from her long-absent husband.

Season Premiere

8/7c

SUNDAY: Also back for a fourth season, the Victorian light mystery finds Eliza Scarlet (Kate Phillips) running the Nash & Sons detective agency—into the ground, given that the entire staff walked out, choosing not to work under such a headstrong female boss. Their loss. While she scrambles for work, Detective Inspector William “Duke” Wellington (Stuart Martin) is overwhelmed with cases as Scotland Yard expands its territory without adding resources. Once again, they’ll have to put aside their professional pride—and that unmistakable sexual tension—to work on a delicate case, the latest involving the shooting of a government minister (Grantchester’s Al Weaver) at a well-connected brothel.

9:30/8:30c

SUNDAY: Once you get past the disconnect of hearing Jon Hamm’s voice come out of gone-to-seed Detective Marvin Flute, the gruff antihero of an animated send-up of murder-mystery clichés, you’ll realize there’s a puzzle Grimsburg needs to solve. Namely, how to find the sweet spot of hilarious parody without going over the edge of tiresome silliness. In a sneak-peek premiere—the show won’t begin airing regularly until Feb. 18—we’re introduced to a town permanently cursed by bloody mayhem, breeding serial killers and other villains, providing fodder for the emotionally stunted Flute to disappear into a dream state he calls his “crime mind” and crack the case. Spoofing serial killers, and in future episodes such tropes as summer-camp slashers and murder-mystery parties, has an inherent appeal. But with supporting characters including an ex-wife TV reporter (Erinn Hayes) who was raised by bears and a neglected son (Rachel Dratch) haunted by an imaginary skeleton, Grimsburg is often guilty of trying too hard.

8/7c

SUNDAY: The cooking competition I can best relate to returns with chef Anne Burrell joined by Tiffany Derry, forming teams comprised of unseasoned cooks who’ve never had to prepare a meal for themselves. Until now. The boot camp opens with a two-hour premiere, introducing 16 hapless recruits who try their hand at recreating a favorite take-out dish, then attempting to recreate the chefs’ version of a steak and potato dinner. How hard can that be?

INSIDE WEEKEND TV:

• The Incredible Dr. Pol (Saturday, 9/8c, Nat Geo WILD): The rural Michigan veterinarian is back for a 24^th season, launching with a “DOCumentary” look at the personal lives of the staff including the new vet, Dr. Olivia. Followed by the premiere of a spinoff, The Incredible Pol Farm (10/9c), in which three generations of the Pol family work to transform a 350-acre tract into a functional family farm.
• I Am Chris Farley (Saturday, 8/7c, The CW): A biographical documentary profiles the Saturday Night Live comedian and film star who died too young at 33.
• Love on the Right Course (Saturday, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel): Romcom fore-play is the thing in the story of pro golfer Whitney (Ashley Newbrough), who retreats to her family’s Budapest golf course to reassess her career with the help of the laid-back new golf pro (Marcus Rosner).
• OWN Spotlight: Oprah & Taraji P. Henson (Saturday, 10/9c, OWN): In the first of three Spotlight specials in conversation with stars from the new The Color Purple movie, Oprah Winfrey chats with the former Empire star about rediscovering her musical voice. (Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks join Oprah on successive Saturdays.)
• 48 Hours (Saturday, 10/9c, CBS): In “The Suspicious Death of Megan Parra,” a Louisiana father refuses to believe his 29-year-old daughter’s gunshot death was suicide, with suspicion falling on her husband, Dustin.
• Home Town (Sunday, 8/7c, HGTV): As Season 7 of the home renovation show opens, Ben Napier is recovering from shoulder surgery, so he and wife Erin recruit a few friends to help redo a place for a family of six trading Canada’s cold winter for some Southern comfort.
• The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper (Sunday, 8/7c, CNN): C.B. “Sully” Sullenberger recalls the emergency landing 15 years ago this month when he successfully landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, saving all 155 people on board. Also interviewed: Sully’s wife Lorrie and several passengers on the flight.
• Extreme Airport Africa (Sunday, 9/8c, Smithsonian Channel): Following the return of Air Disasters (8/7c), a new docuseries depicts aerial activity in the wilds of Southern Africa, including a segment on helicopter pilots who fly low to protect rhinos from poachers.
• Funny Woman (Sunday, 10/9c, PBS): A six-part British comedy, based on Nick Hornby’s novel, stars Gemma Arterton as a 1960s small-town beauty queen who leaves Blackpool for London in hopes of becoming a TV sitcom star.