‘True Detective’ Goes Dark, NFL Wild Card Playoffs, Clive Owen Is ‘Monsieur Spade,’ ‘Belgravia’s Next Generation

Season Premiere

9/8c

SUNDAY: Afraid of the dark? You might think twice before delving into the riveting new season of the mystery anthology, set in a remote Alaska town that has just plunged into months of perpetual darkness. Jodie Foster is excellent as the abrasive local police chief Liz Danvers, who teams with an equally uncompromising former partner, now state trooper Evangeline “Angie” Navarro (former pro boxer Kali Reis), when a bizarre mass murder connects to the killing of an Indigenous activist who protested the mine that locals accuse is poisoning the town. When missing scientists in a research facility are found naked and frozen in the ice in a gruesome tableau, showrunner Issa López’s acknowledged debt to John Carpenter’s The Thing is made chillingly clear. (See the full review.)

SATURDAY: For the first (though probably not last) time, a wild card playoff game will be presented exclusively on streaming, with Peacock airing the Miami Dolphins at Kansas City Chiefs (Saturday, 8 pm/ET) in a calculated bid to get more sampling for the sports-heavy platform. Earlier on Saturday, Cleveland Browns play the Houston Texans on NBC (4:30 pm/ET). Sunday’s games are on CBS (Pittsburgh Steelers at Buffalo Bills, 1 pm/ET), Fox (Green Bay Packers at Dallas Cowboys, 4:30 pm/ET) and NBC (Los Angeles Rams at Detroit Lions, 8 pm/ET).

Series Premiere

9/8c

SUNDAY: Immortalized by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, the classic private eye Sam Spade (created by Dashiell Hammett) goes Gallic in an evocative mystery series from Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit) and Tom Fontana (Homicide: Life on the Street). With world-weary and rapier wit, Clive Owen brings a rugged charisma to Spade, who’s somehow become a widower with a vineyard in a scenic French village circa 1963. “I’m allergic to other people’s business,” he insists, which doesn’t stop him from getting involved after a grisly massacre of nuns at a nearby convent where his precocious teenage ward, Teresa (Cara Bossom), is being schooled. Soon enough, Spade is confronting spies and snipers in a town scarred by WWII treachery and the more recent Algerian conflict. (See the full review.)

Series Premiere

9/8c

The first chapter of the costume drama based on Julian Fellowes’ (Downton Abbey) novel aired nearly four years ago, back when the channel was known as Epix. The setting is still the same—the posh London neighborhood of a gilded age of gentry—but a time jump takes us 30 years ahead to 1871, when Frederick (a solemn Benjamin Wainwright), the third Lord Trenchard, pursues a romantic future despite having been emotionally scarred by an unloving upbringing. (His father never got over the fact that Frederick was the result of an extramarital affair.) After Frederick weds new-to-the-scene Clara Dunn (Harriet Slater) following a whirlwind courtship, his psychological issues threaten the happiness of their union. And does her sister Emily (Hannah Onslow) have eyes for the handsome Reverend James (Toby Regbo), who happens to be Frederick’s estranged brother? It’s a small if elegant world in Belgravia.

Season Finale

10/9c

SUNDAY: The finale of this excruciating series goes up, up and away into a realm of inexplicable weirdness. It’s a bizarre finish, even by the hip “cringe” standards of this thuddingly obvious satire about “white saviors” Whitney (a superb Emma Stone) and Asher (Nathan Fielder), whose ridiculous HGTV show about transforming an ethnic enclave of California into an oasis of expensive “passive homes” only exposes their toxic narcissism. (The best gag, besides an extended cameo by TV host Rachael Ray, who seems to have nothing but contempt for their eco-project, is that their fictional Green Queen show has been relegated to HGTV GO, where understandably few are watching.) On the plus side, you’ve probably never seen a twist like the one that dominates most of this supersized anticlimax.

INSIDE WEEKEND TV:

• Happy Days (Saturday, 11 am/10c, Catchy Comedy Network): Nostalgia begets nostalgia, with an 86-episode binge to celebrate the hit comedy’s 50^th Episodes air through Monday at 6 am/ET.
• Let’s Make a Deal: 60 Years of Deals (Saturday, 1 pm/ET, BUZZR): Another anniversary of note, as the classic game show marks its 60^th year with two-hour blocks of vintage episodes, hosted by Monty Hall, airing through Wednesday.
• A Scottish Love Scheme (Saturday, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel): When Lily (Erica Durance) reconnects with childhood friend Logan (Jordan Young) on a family trip to Scotland, neither realize they’re being set up by their respective mothers.
• Girl in the Video (Saturday, 8/7c, Lifetime): Cush Jumbo, currently appearing in the Apple TV+ series Criminal Record, stars in the latest “ripped-from-the-headlines” Girl in thriller as the widowed mother of teenage Krissy (Tia May Watts), who falls victim to online catfishing and is abducted by a man who exploits her for money on the dark web.
• I Am Paul Walker (Saturday, 8/7c, The CW): A two-hour documentary profiles the Fast and the Furious franchise star who died in a 2013 car accident at 40.
• 48 Hours (Saturday, 10/9c, CBS): If this week’s case sounds familiar, involving the 2018 shooting murder of Austin jeweler Ted Shaughnessy, it may be because it was also the subject of Friday’s Dateline NBC.
• 60 Minutes (Sunday, 7/6c, CBS): Back from a two-week hiatus, reports include Jon Wertheim exploring the crisis in commercial real estate thanks to the rise in hybrid workplaces, and in a two-part segment, Sharyn Alfonsi spotlighting a new approach to brain surgery that could aid in the treatment of Alzheimer’s and drug addiction.
• The 29^th Annual Critics Choice Awards (Sunday, 7/6c, The CW): Chelsea Handler hosts the film and TV awards from Santa Monica’s Barker Hanger, with Harrison Ford (nominated for Shrinking) accepting the Career Achievement Award and America Ferrera receiving the SeeHer Award (presented by Barbie co-star Margot Robbie).
• All Creatures Great and Small (Sunday, 9/8c, PBS): With the veterinary practice in disarray and drowning in paperwork, Siegfried (Samuel West) hires a strict bookkeeper who needs to learn that whatever the cash-flow problem, the animal always comes first. Upstairs, James (Nicholas Ralph) and Helen (Rachel Shenton) continue their debate on whether wartime is the best time to start a family.
• Yellowstone (Sunday, 8/7c, CBS): CBS kicks off Season 3 of the hit contemporary Western with three back-to-back episodes, introducing Lost’s Josh Holloway as Roarke Morris, the latest burr in the Duttons’ saddle.