Eddie Murphy on Eddie, Reacher’s ‘Playdate’ Buddy Comedy, ‘Golden Bachelor’ Finale, Return to ‘Palm Royale’

Being Eddie

“I started so young,” reflects Eddie Murphy, the comedy superstar who launched into Saturday Night Live stardom right out of high school and never looked back. Conquering the stand-up stage and the movies, from Beverly Hills Cop onward through The Nutty Professor, the donkey in Shrek, and his Oscar-nominated role in Dreamgirls, Murphy’s career is, in the words of admirer Jerry Seinfeld, “a miracle.” Murphy invites cameras into his home as he discusses his life and work in a documentary directed by Oscar winner (for film editing) Angus Wall. Contemporaries including Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Jamie Foxx, Pete Davidson, and Tracee Ellis Ross are among the celebs marveling at Eddie’s many accomplishments.

Playdate

Action heroes can be funny. (Just ask Arnold “Twins” Schwarzenegger.) Following that playbook, brawny Alan Ritchson, the breakout star of Reacher, lightens up as Jeff, an oddly gregarious and extremely buff stay-at-home dad who immediately befriends newly unemployed accountant Brian (Kevin James). The playdate they arrange for their young sons quickly goes sideways when armed mercenaries enter the picture, and what seemed like an innocent pizza party becomes a full-fledged chase adventure. Good times.

The Golden Bachelor

It’s never too late to rediscover love, but is this the way to do it? We’ll find out when retired NFL star Mel Owens, 66, makes his choice in the season finale between retired firefighter and bomb tech Peg Munson, 62, and retired biomedical engineer Cindy Cullers, 60. In the two-hour finale, which includes an “After the Final Rose” recap, Mel’s family joins him and the ladies in Antigua for a meet and greet. Then all is revealed before a studio audience as Mel and the final two women reunite to watch things play out.

Palm Royale

There’s lots to unpack as the second season of the late-1960s period comedy begins, with social-climbing Palm Beach wannabe Maxine (Kristen Wiig) in a bad way. “Dead. To society,” gloats her nemesis and aunt-by-marriage Norma (the great Carol Burnett), who’s harboring her own damaging secret while scheming to keep Maxine out of sight and out of (her) mind. Elsewhere, Linda (Laura Dern) is also locked up, wrongly, for the failed assassination attempt on Richard Nixon at the Beach Ball, which left bartender Robert (Ricky Martin) near death. (It’s a long and convoluted story.) Can Maxine get back in anyone’s good graces in this graceless, though glossy cesspool of greed? Though Palm Royale‘s balance of broad farce and satire is uneven, it’s almost worth it for the fashions, the hairdos, and the opportunity to hear Allison Janney scoff at even saying the word “humanity.”

Freakier Friday

The hit sequel to 2003’s Freaky Friday makes its streaming debut, once again plunging Jamie Lee Curtis (Tess) and Lindsay Lohan (Anna) into magical and farcical body swaps. This time, the complications embrace an even younger generation, when Anna swaps with her daughter Harper (Julia Butters) and grandma Tess with Lily (Sophia Hammons), Anna’s soon-to-be-stepdaughter, who loathes Harper and vice versa. Before long, the girls in adult bodies begin plotting to break their parents up. Let the confusion begin.

INSIDE WEDNESDAY TV:

• Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent (8/7c, The CW): Tim Rozon (Schitt’s Creek) guests as a charismatic radio host who’s a prime suspect in the murder of an employee whose body is found stuffed in a trunk.
• Chicago Med (8/7c, NBC): It’s fall finale time — already — for the Chicago procedurals, with Lenox (Sarah Ramos) crossing a line to protect a patient. Followed by Chicago Fire (9/8c), where Violet (Hanako Greensmith) invites a firefighter into the ambulance for a shift, and Chicago P.D. (10/9c), with Voight (Jason Beghe) getting an unpleasant blast from the past. See you all again in the new year.
• Survivor (8/7c, CBS): The idol play at the last tribal council inspires the remaining castaways to go on an idol search. Followed by The Amazing Race (9:30/8:30c), where the Express Pass comes in handy for two teams in Bucharest.
• Nature (8/7c, PBS): Head to Costa Rica for a visit to “Jaguar Beach,” where a resurgent population of the big cats coexists with nesting sea turtles.
• Body Cam (9/8c, Investigation Discovery): The docuseries employing police body-camera footage returns for a 10^th season, with segments including a high-speed pursuit and standoff in Colorado and a gun battle in Ohio. Followed by the Season 10 premiere of The Murder Tapes (10/9c), with a grisly case of an Arkansas grandmother whose head is found in a trash bag in a truck in a parking lot.
• Secrets of the Dead (10/9c, PBS): Shakespeare is back in the cultural news, with the Oscar contender Hamnet (starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley as William and Agnes Shakespeare) due in theaters later this month. In this installment of the historical docuseries, a British window washer investigates whether a painting hanging over his mantlepiece could be a long-lost official portrait of the playwright.

 ON THE STREAM:

• A Merry Little Ex-Mas (streaming on Netflix): Alicia Silverstone and Oliver Hudson star in a holiday romcom as Kate and Everett, a newly divorced couple whose first Christmas after the split becomes awkward when he invites his new girlfriend (The Good Place‘s Jameela Jamil) to the family festivities. Pierson Fodé co-stars as the hottie who takes a shine to Kate.
• Down Cemetery Road (streaming on Apple TV): The chase thriller based on Mick Herron‘s (Slow Horses) novel shifts into high gear, with Oxford suburbanite Sarah (Ruth Wilson) in hiding and on the run with mysterious soldier Downey (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), pursued by a loose-cannon hitman who even his boss wants to wipe off the map. Mayhem ensues.
• The Morning Show (streaming on Apple TV): With Bradley (Reese Witherspoon) in danger in Belarus, can Alex (Jennifer Aniston) enlist an old frenemy to make a deal to get the rogue reporter out of the country? A swank night at an opera concert provides the backdrop to tense negotiations in Season 4’s penultimate episode.
• Murdaugh: Death in the Family (streaming on Hulu): Buster (Will Harrison) reels from the murder of his mother and brother in the docudrama’s penultimate episode, while dad Alex (Jason Clarke) festers in a web of lies and addiction.
• Selling the OC (streaming on Netflix): In the reality series’ fourth season, Oppenheim Group co-founder Jason enlists real-estate agents from San Diego to help with the workload, but they probably shouldn’t expect a warm welcome from the OC’s OG sharks.