Farewell to ‘The Conners,’ Game Show Finales, Japanese ‘Bullet Train,’ Reality Star ‘Battle Camp’

The Conners

It all began back in 1988, with a blue-collar family sitcom led by Roseanne Barr exploding as a colossal hit when network TV comedy still reigned. After nine seasons, and a 20-year hiatus, Roseanne returned, only for its tempestuous title star to be fired after a racially incendiary Twitter tirade. Enter The Conners, a spinoff focused on the rest of the family minus its matriarch, said to have died of an opioid overdose. Fast-forward seven seasons, and the Conners take a final bow in a two-part series finale, with remarried widower Dan (John Goodman) facing an emotional deposition in a lawsuit against the big pharma company they blame for Roseanne’s death. Elsewhere, sisters Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and Becky (Lecy Goranson) deal with their romantic relationships, while Aunt Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) prepares to take a physical to get back on the Lanford police force. Few shows amplified the struggles of working-class families with the grit and humor of Roseanne and its offshoot, and for that we can be grateful.

Celebrity Jeopardy!

The final game pits comedians W. Kamau Bell and Robin Thede against entrepreneur David Friedberg as they play the expanded trivia game with a $1 million grand prize for the charity of their choice. The game play continues on Fox‘s The Floor (9/8c), with only nine players left on the 100-square grid for the season finale, where they go head-to-head in visual trivia battles to acquire more territory, with the last contestant standing winning $250,000.

Bullet Train Explosion

Hang on for dear life. Not to be confused with the Brad Pitt movie, this propulsive Japanese thriller is a remake (by Shin Godzilla director Shinji Higuchi) of a 1975 action film, The Bullet Train, which inspired the American 1994 hit nail-biter Speed. Cranking up the velocity, Explosion sets a 100 kph limit on a Tokyo-bound bullet train. If it goes below that speed, the train will explode, killing all of its many passengers.

Battle Camp

A 10-part reality competition brings together 18 veterans of the so-called Netflix Reality Universe — from shows including Love Is Blind, The Ultimatum: Queer Love, Perfect Match, Too Hot to Handle, Selling the OC, Cheer, and The Circle — to survive a grueling summer camp for the chance to win $250,000. Initially divided into three teams (the Wolves, Bears, and Eagles), the campers face off in extreme challenges, endure punishments and target each other in group votes, whatever it takes to keep their names from going onto a spinning wheel. Because if the wheel of misfortune lands on their name, out they go.

The Studio

The cringe comedy gets even cringier when studio head Matt (Seth Rogen) attends a medical charity gala with his girlfriend (Rebecca Hall), a pediatric oncologist, and almost immediately goes on the defensive about the “art” he produces. When told “movies are not as important as medicine,” he counters that “We make life worth living.” Fair. But what to do when a table of condescending anti-movie snobs contends, “You want art, you watch TV. … We stream everything now.” (Kind of hard to argue with that one.) Matt decides to show them up — which is typically a recipe for disaster.

INSIDE WEDNESDAY TV:

• Wild Cards (8/7c, The CW): Ellis (Giacomo Gianniotti) follows a new lead on his brother Daniel’s death to a jazz club, where Max (Vanessa Morgan) poses as a singer while her jailbird dad George (Jason Priestley) goes before the parole board. Followed by the new Sherlock & Daughter (9/8), where Amelia (Blu Hunt) ignores Sherlock’s (David Thewlis) instructions at her peril during the hunt for a stolen carriage.
• Survivor (8/7c, CBS): Will they never learn? The tribe gets suspicious when one of the players sneaks out on a midnight mission. Followed by The Amazing Race (9:30/8:30c), where teams traverse Bulgaria hoping to secure the Express Pass.
• Chicago Med (8/7c, NBC): Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson) clashes with charge nurse Maggie (Marlyne Barrett) during nurses’ union negotiations, testing their friendship. Followed by Chicago Fire (9/8c), where Severide (Taylor Kinney) investigates a 10-year-old house fire from Kidd’s (Miranda Rae Mayo) past; and Chicago P.D. (10/9c), with Cook (Toya Turner) working for the first time with a confidential informant on a case involving a prominent college athlete.
• Travel Queens (8/7c, BET Her): Pour Minds podcasters Lex P and Drea Nicole embark on a joyful travelogue, with the first stop in Cartagena, Columbia.
• Andor (10/9c, ABC and FX): The Season 2 premiere of the Star Wars/Rogue One prequel gets a one-time linear broadcast.
• Changing Planet: River Restoration (10/9c, PBS): The environmental docuseries returns to explore the restoration of California’s Klamath River, which involved the dismantling of dams, and the clean-up of the Seine in Paris ahead of the 2024 Olympics.

 ON THE STREAM:

• The Children of October 7 (streaming on Paramount+): Social media activist Montana Tucker, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, meets children who survived the October 7 attack in Israel by Hamas. The documentary also airs Thursday on MTV at 9/8c.
• Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney (10/9c, streaming on Netflix): The offbeat talk show welcomes paleontologist Dr. Luis Chiappe to discuss the night’s topic, “Are Dinosaur Fossils Put Together Correctly?”, with special guests Rita Moreno, Conan O’Brien, The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri, and music from Metz.
• The Quincy Avery Effect (streaming on Hulu): An inspirational documentary from Andscape and Religion of Sports profiles Quincy Avery, a celebrated coach who rose from homelessness to become a mentor to a new generation of Black quarterbacks in the NFL.
• Carlos Alcaraz: My Way (streaming on Netflix): A sports docuseries from Spain profiles the electrifying young tennis star, following him through the 2024 pro season.