Bebe’s Back on ‘Frasier,’ ‘Fight Night’ Finale, Terrifying ‘Teacup,’ Ella Purnell Is ‘Sweetpea’

In a second season notable for guest appearances (Patricia Heaton, Amy Sedaris among the players so far), the sitcom reboot welcomes back one of its most outrageous characters: aggressively manipulative agent Bebe Glazer, played to the hilt by Tony winner Harriet Hansom Harris. Bebe would do anything to get her star client Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) to return to his lucrative TV talk-show gig. When he meets her daughter Phoebe (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rachel Bloom), whose eclectic tastes run far closer to his than those of his son Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), Frasier finds himself unexpectedly disarmed.

Series Finale

The colorful crime docudrama sets up quite the showdown in the limited series’ finale. Following a violent shootout, a desperate Chicken Man (Kevin Hart) tries to clear his name and protect his family while the mobster who orchestrated the Atlanta robbery on the night of Muhammed Ali’s 1970 comeback fight plots to turn the tables on New York’s “Black Godfather” Frank Moten (Samuel L. Jackson). Detective Hudson (Don Cheadle), who’s come to grudgingly respect the hustling Chicken Man, just wants to stop the body count and keep his civilian accomplice from being caught in the crossfire.

Series Premiere

The misleadingly benign title is a metaphor, which one hopes won’t dissuade horror fans from sampling this taut horror/sci-fi hybrid adapted from Robert R. McCammon’s 1988 novel. The excellent cast is led by Yvonne Strahovski (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Grey’s Anatomy’s Scott Speedman as a rural couple whose Georgia farm becomes Ground Zero for a mysterious and violent force that seems to have possessed their young son Arlo (an impressive Caleb Dolden). His whispered warning, “He says we need to hide,” creates chills. The eight-part series unfolds in brisk half-hour chapters, dropping two each Thursday through Oct. 31 (Halloween).

Series Premiere

8/7c

Ella Purnell, a rising star most recently showcased in buzzy series including Yellowjackets and Fallout, returns to her British roots for a darker-than-dark dramedy that plays like Carrie, substituting a sharp knife for telekinesis. She’s Rhiannon Lewis, an under-appreciated office worker first seen musing about the “people I’ve love to kill” — the list is long — but she’s such a timid and invisible-to-all wallflower that she represses her rage within a veneer of wide-eyed and lonely sad-sack pathos. That inner killer won’t stay dormant for long, and when she’s finally pushed beyond the brink, watch out. After tonight’s premiere, episodes will air on Fridays starting Oct. 18.

Special

9/8c

“The Amazon is the heart of the planet, and all these rivers are the veins of this heart,” exults one of the National Geographic Explorers who act as guides during a fascinating one-hour special that travels through different sections of the Amazon ecosystem to check its pulse. The journey begins with the river’s source at the peak of the icy Andes, where scientists install equipment to measure the glacier melt. They also explore the mangrove forests and waters to track the migration of Andean tree-climbing bears and the health of pink river dolphins.

9/8c

In advance of next week’s official premiere week, CBS repeats the pilot episode (shown last month as a sneak peek) of the crafty not-quite-reboot of the legal drama from the 1980s and ’90s. As we noted in September, Kathy Bates makes a triumphant return to TV as Madeline “Matty” Matlock, a folksy but cunning 70something who charms her way into an associate’s job at a posh New York law firm. Though much is made of Matty’s surname, “like the old TV show,” there’s more to it — and to her — than meets the eye. New episodes begin Oct. 17.

INSIDE THURSDAY TV:

• SpongeBob SquarePants (7/6c, Nickelodeon): In “Kreepaway Kamp,” a 25th anniversary Halloween special, SpongeBob and pals gather for a reunion at Kamp Koral, where one by one the campers mysteriously begin to disappear.
• WNBA Finals (8 pm/ET, ESPN): No. 1 seed New York Liberty seeks its first championship title as the finals kick off against No. 2 seed Minnesota Lynx, which hopes to become the first franchise to win five championships (this is the team’s first finals since 2017).
• Law & Order (8/7c, NBC): SVU’s Capt. Benson (Mariska Hargitay) makes a surprise appearance, as a witness for the defense, after the creator of an A.I. dating app is murdered. On Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (9/8c), Carisi (Peter Scanavino) is challenged to bring charges in a long-dormant case after a woman’s repressed memories resurface upon finding an old notebook.
• 9-1-1 (8/7c, ABC): Athena (Angela Bassett) is back in Supercop mode when she’s forced to wing it and land the damaged passenger plane on which she’s unfortunate enough to be flying. Followed by Doctor Odyssey (9/8c), with Gina Gershon guesting as the ship owner’s wife, coming aboard during Plastic Surgery Week.
• Velvet (9/8c, PBS): A Spanish-language (with subtitles) drama, set in 1950s Madrid, tells the love story of fashion house heir Alberto Márques (Miguel Angel Silvestre) and seamstress Ana (Paula Echevarría).
• Found (10/9c, NBC): While the hunt goes on for the escaped Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and his kidnapped prey Lacey (Gabrielle Walsh), Team Gabi gets back to work to find a snatched and very sick infant. Michael Cassidy begins a recurring role as Christian, a grief counselor with inside knowledge that could help Gabi (Shanola Hampton) in her search.
• The Old Man (10/9c, FX): Reunited and reeling from tragedy, Chase (Jeff Bridges) and Zoe (Amy Brenneman) head to London to find Hamzad’s lawyer, their link to the Russian oligarch behind all of the mayhem.
• The Hunt for the Chameleon Killer (10/9c, SundanceTV): A three-part true-crime docuseries tracks Elaine Parent, a serial killer who led authorities on a 12-year manhunt while stealing multiple identities.

 ON THE STREAM:

• Outer Banks (streaming on Netflix): The treasure-hunting adventure returns for a fourth season, with the Pogues enlisted to search for Blackbeard’s fortune. The first five episodes will be followed by five more on Nov. 7.
• Roller Jam (streaming on Max): From Magnolia Network, a roller-skating dance competition is hosted by American Idol winner Jordin Sparks, with Olympian Johnny Weir and roller-skate pro Terrell Ferguson as judges.
• Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (streaming on Netflix): Agent Carter’s Hayley Atwell is the voice of the adventurous video-game heroine in an animated series.
• Citadel: Diana (streaming on Prime Video): The international spy franchise presents its second installment, set in Milan eight years after the spy agency Citadel was destroyed by the notorious crime syndicate Manticore. Matilda De Angelis stars as Diana, a Citadel mole who’s on her own behind enemy lines.
• All and Eva (streaming on Viaplay): A Swedish romcom follows the misadventures of Eva (Tuva Novotny), who at 40 uses a sperm donor to become pregnant, only to make things more complicated when she tracks down the donor (Joachim Fjelstrup), who falls for her without realizing she’s carrying their baby.
• Fleeting Lies (streaming on Hulu): Pedro Almodóvar produces a Spanish-language dramedy about a beauty executive (Elena Anaya) who’s accused of corporate espionage when she was expecting a promotion.
• Caddo Lake (streaming on Max): Dylan O’Brien stars in a moody film produced by M. Night Shyamalan and set among the cypress forest and marshes of Texas, where the disappearance of an 8-year-old girl unearths a family’s tragic secrets.