‘Chicago’ Crossover, ‘Criminal Minds’ Turns 300, TCM’s Horror Star of the Week
A critical checklist of notable Wednesday TV:
Chicago x 3: This didn’t take long. On only the second week when all three of Dick Wolf’s Chicago procedurals are stacked side by side on Wednesdays, a three-way crossover ties all of the ensembles together. It begins with Chicago Fire airing an hour earlier than the norm (8/7c), with the firefighters responding to a conflagration consuming a 15-story apartment complex, learning as they go that one of the victims may be tragically familiar. The action moves on to Chicago Med (9/8c), where the docs and nurses scramble to handle the overflow of patients from the fire, and Dr. Rhodes (Colin Donnell) is tasked to save one of Fire’s own. Batting clean-up is Chicago PD (10/9c), with Intelligence racing to discover who’s responsible for this tragedy, which affects Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) the most.
Criminal Minds (10/9c, CBS): Striding atop a pile of countless mutilated women and other grotesquely savaged victims, the darkest of CBS procedurals launches its 14th season with a milestone 300th episode/ This time, it’s two of the team — Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) — who are in jeopardy, kidnapped by mass murderer Benjamin Merva (Michael Hogan). While the rest of the BAU go on the hunt, they explore their own history to solve the latest race-against-time mystery.
Horror Stars on TCM: As Halloween approached, Turner Classic Movies will go deep into its horror vaults, starting with a weekly salute to Horror Stars for the next five Wednesdays, starting with silent-film master of makeup and disguise Lon Chaney. His masterful 1925 The Phantom of the Opera (9/8c) is the centerpiece of the lineup that also includes 1927’s The Unknown (8/7c) from director Tod Browning, featuring Chaney as a criminal hiding in a circus where he pretends to have no arms. A very young Joan Crawford is the object of his desire.
Greenleaf (10/9c, OWN): Recently renewed for a fourth season, the juicy drama about an embattled megachurch takes a pivotal step in an episode featuring guest star Patti LaBelle as motivational speaker Maxine Patterson. Her timing is perfect, because she arrives just as Lady Mae (Lynn Whitfield) and the Bishop (Keith David) prepare to announce their divorce to the congregation. Also guesting: life coach and OWN favorite Iyanla Vanzant.
Inside Wednesday TV: It’s still early days on CBS’s Survivor (8/7c), but a budding “show-mance” between Dan and Kara is already making them early targets on the “Goliath” tribe… On ABC’s The Goldbergs (8/7c), Adam’s (Sean Giambrone) girlfriend Jackie returns from a summer at NYC a changed person. So much so that she’s now being played by Alexis G. Zall… ABC’s A Million Little Things (10/9c) tugs the parental heartstrings, when newly fatherless Sophie (Lizzy Greene) needs a partner for an upcoming father-daughter dance recital. She asks Eddie (David Giuntoli), whose secret relationship with widowed Delilah (Stephanie Szostak) gives him understandable pause… This sounds ominous. Comedy Central’s South Park (10/9c), which hasn’t met a sacred cow it couldn’t barbecue, uncovers a “very special relationship” between Butters and the local parish priest. When both go missing, the town calls in the Catholic Church.
Chicago Fire where to stream
Chicago P.D. where to stream
