Worth Watching: HBO Has a ‘New Pope,’ the ‘Good Doctor’ Triangle, College Football Championship
A selective critical checklist of notable Monday TV:
The New Pope (9/8c, HBO): Not to be confused with the Netflix movie The Two Popes, this fancifully subversive follow-up to 2016’s The Young Pope series picks up nine months after the capricious Pope Pius XIII (Jude Law) fell into a coma. (He still mischievously haunts most of the characters.) With scandals, an anti-Christian jihad and other challenges besieging the Vatican hierarchy, the search is on for a new pontiff. While wily Secretary of State Voiello (the marvelous Silvio Orlando) would love to ascend to the post, it’s clear at the conclave that this isn’t likely to be his destiny. And when their first hasty choice doesn’t work out, leading to more calamity, the path will eventually lead to a British peer, Sir John Brannox (John Malkovich). He’s only briefly glimpsed in the opening episode, so stay tuned for more lavish and possibly even holy intrigue.
The Good Doctor (10/9c, ABC): Maybe what Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) needs most is a good relationship doctor. In the wake of his traumatic visit to his father’s deathbed in December’s midseason finale, during which he got intimate with nurturing roomie Lea (Paige Spara), Shaun must now deal with the repercussions when it comes to his romance with infinitely patient and long-suffering girlfriend, Carly (Jasika Nicole).
Manifest (10/9c, NBC): Just about everyone’s obsessed with the so-called “death date” — for the record, it’s June 2, 2024 — as the heroes of Flight 828 embark on their Heroes-like mission to “Save the Passengers.” The latest fellow traveler in need of saving is a college student who crosses Ben’s (Josh Dallas) path just before being accused of murder. While Ben is determining the young man’s guilt or innocence, Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh) keeps trying to free Zack (Matt Long), insisting the shooting wasn’t his fault. On a more personal note, Grace (Athena Karkanis) gets a sign about her baby’s paternity, but it comes in a way no one is expecting.
College Football Playoff National Championship (8/7c, ESPN): Many eyeballs will be glued to the showdown between the last two college teams left standing. No. 1 LSU faces No. 3 Clemson at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans in what’s being called the “Tiger Bowl,” since both teams are the Tigers. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit call the championship game, with Ton Rinaldi reporting on LSU and Maria Taylor keeping tabs on Clemson.
Inside Monday TV: You know when you’ve made it when you can land Queen of Talk Oprah Winfrey on your show. That’s the big get on Tamron Hall (syndicated; check local listings) when the host joins Oprah in St. Paul, Minnesota, on a stop of her “Oprah’s 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus” tour… Examining current events in a way few on TV can equal, PBS’s Frontline presents a two-part report, “America’s Great Divide: From Obama to Trump” (9/8c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org), charting the nation’s growing and now-calcified partisan polarization through two embattled administrations… Smithsonian Channel revisits the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn (8/7c) in a history special tracing the events that led to the bloody conflict, then revealing how tabloid coverage of the battle fueled cultural stereotypes about Native Americans that linger to this day… E! launches what it’s calling a “new reality sitcom,” Meet the Frasers (10/9c), following Rhode Island’s cut-up psychic medium Matt Fraser and his pageant-queen girlfriend Alexa Papigiotis.
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R
Manifest for sure!
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R
No new Worth Watching page today?
I'll be watching both FBI shows on CBS and ABC's Emergence.
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R
DVR tonight:
America's Got Talent...was AMAZED by Heidi's Golden Buzzer...Angelina Jordan...last week...
The Good Doctor...perplexing...(to me)...why Freddie Highmore isn't nominated...for every TV Awards show...
Manifest...seems to have a new plot twist...every week...
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T
Neighborhhod is on break, which means Manifest is the only thing on for me tonight.
NCIS LA was kind of boring last night. The ending was the only real interesting thing!
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J
My only Monday show, All Rise, is a repeat tonight, which is fine with me. I need to catch up on some sleep!
E! is one of those networks that I can't figure out why people watch. People have the right to watch whatever shows they like, but nothing on that network is anything that sounds the least bit interesting (or reasonably sane). That show mentioned above, about the "psychic" and pageant queen. sounds like a 180 from anything that anyone I know would watch. (Sorry, I'm trying to be nice, lolol.)
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J
And once again, no caption to the photo above. Yes, it's pretty obvious which show is featured in it, but that's not the point.
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R
Is it just me or there no Worth Watching page today?
Anyway, I'll be watching both FBI shows on CBS and Emergence on ABC.
I watched NBC's Lincoln Rhyme- Hunt for the Bone Collector and loved it. Based on the books and the 1999 movie starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.
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J
Today's Worth Watching must have been posted rather late, if you didn't see it 8 hrs ago.
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R
Agree about your E! comment. But there are millions out there that love the Kardashians, I believe their reality shows still air there.
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J
I know, millions of people do watch some show or other on E!, and they have every right to do so. And I know there are people who may think some of the shows *I* watch are stupid. But almost every "reality" show is scripted, which means manipulated, and thus not "real" at all.
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