What’s On: Amazingly, The Race is Finally On. And Will Three be a Crowd When Raj Moves in With Penny and Leonard on ‘Big Bang?’
The Amazing Race (10/9c, CBS): Fueling fears that the multiple Emmy-winning reality competition had been canceled, CBS reduced Race’s footprint to one running this season (with its future still currently in limbo)—but at long last, the round-the-world challenge is back for the 29th time, with a new twist. For the first time, all 11 teams will be comprised of complete strangers, who won’t even know each others’ names until the first challenge determines the pairings based on first impressions alone. Then they’re off, from Los Angeles to Panama City, the teams getting to know other on the literal fly. Let’s hope the experiment pays off with good TV, and that enough viewers find the show on its new night and time so we can keep traveling the globe from our living rooms, rooting on our favorites.
The Big Bang Theory (8/7c, CBS): Who could possibly have thought it wise for Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny (Kaley Cuoco) to take in Raj (Kunal Nayyar) as a new roomie? Get ready for lots of told-ya-so’s from across the hall.
Grey’s Anatomy (8/7c, ABC): Ellen Pompeo puts down the scalpel to go behind the camera as director of an episode that aims at the heartstrings, as Maggie (Kelly McCreary) faces a family crisis as her mom’s (LaTanya Richardson Jackson) health declines and the docs of Grey Sloan debate her treatment.
Inside Thursday TV: A hunt for a werewolf takes a serious turn on The CW’s Supernatural (8/7c) when Claire (Kathryn Love Newton) is bitten, and the Winchester boys work to save her before things get too hairy. … ABC’s Scandal (9/8c) looks at the events leading up to that fateful election night from the POV of the ever-ambitious Abby (Darby Stanchfield). … The title of CBS’s Mom (9/8c) now also applies to Jill (Jaime Pressly), who’s learning the ropes of foster parenting with the help of Christy (Anna Faris).
