Worth Watching: ‘Chasing the Cure,’ ‘Two Sentence Horror Stories,’ Next to Last ‘Elementary’

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Jeff Neira/CBS

A selective critical checklist of notable Thursday TV:

Chasing the Cure (TNT, TBS): Ann Curry returns to TV as anchor and executive producer of the latest emotionally charged exercise in live TV-with-a-purpose. Cure brings together people suffering from mysterious maladies as they consult a panel of doctors in real time. In an interactive crowd-sourcing twist, viewers will be able to respond instantly with their own ideas and analysis through social media and Facebook pages and online at ChasingTheCureLive.com. Sort of the opposite of “don’t try this at home.”

Two Sentence Horror Stories (9/8c, The CW): Sadly, these back-to-back suspense vignettes don’t stop at two minutes. The gimmick is to set up a spooky situation in a single sentence — the opener starts with, “She was stiff and cold in my arms” — with the second sentence arriving at the end as a macabre kicker. It’s all about as thin as it sounds, and not as shivery as it would like to be, although the twist in the opening “Gentleman” episode is a pretty good one. “Gentleman” starts off like your typical serial-killer stalker/slasher episode, when a single mom (Nicole Kang) runs afoul of a sinister suitor (True Blood‘s Jim Parrick) whose M.O. is punishing anyone he sees as a bad parent. The second episode, “Squirm,” about an office worker who fears the worst after she wakes naked from a holiday party, might as well be called “Yawn.”

Elementary (10/9c, CBS): With only one week until the series finale, Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) and Watson (Lucy Liu) must work fast to get the goods on tech billionaire Odin Reichenbach (James Frain). As luck would have it, the villain accidentally provides a lead that could help the team produce evidence to bring about his comeuppance.

Inside Thursday TV: Returning to CBS daytime soap The Young and the Restless (check local listings) for the first time in 17 months, Dukes of Hazzard diva Catherine Bach is back as Anita, the con-artist mom to Chelsea (Melissa Claire Egan), with a special delivery bound to raise plucked eyebrows in Genoa City… CollegeHumor’s streaming service Dropout sends up foodie culture in the six-part parody Gods of Food, in which real-life celebrity chefs (including Top Chef alums Richard Blais and Hugh Acheson) provide mock commentary on the excesses of fictional culinary superstars… Also streaming: the acclaimed fifth and final season of Jane the Virgin, now on Netflix. Watch and weep with joy, and consider reliving the telenovela fun all over again from the start.