Worth Watching: Alex’s Last ‘Jeopardy!’ Episodes, Discovery+ Launches, ‘Suitable Boy’ Finale, a New ‘Bachelor’

The Bachelor - Season 25 premiere with Matt James
ABC/Craig Sjodin
The Bachelor

A selective critical checklist of notable Monday TV:

Jeopardy! (Syndicated, check local listings): It will be both a poignant farewell and business as usual when the revered quiz show airs its final week of episodes with the beloved Alex Trebek as host. (These were originally scheduled for Christmas week, but wisely delayed until now out of concerns of holiday pre-emptions.) Trebek taped his last show 10 days before his November death, doing the job he loved while fighting the cancer he had faced publicly for a year and a half. Starting next Monday, renowned Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings will be the first in a series of interim guest hosts. The show goes on, but Trebek will never be forgotten.

Discovery+ (launching Monday): It’s official: Everybody wants to be in the streaming game. The newest entry brings together popular shows, offshoots and talents from Discovery, HGTV, Food Network, ID, TLC and more with 55,000 hours of exclusive and library content. Among the many premieres at launch: a topiary competition, Clipped, hosted by Michael Urie and Martha Stewart, plus 90 Days Bares All, Bobby and Giada in Italy, nature series Mysterious Planet and A Perfect Planet, Home Town: Ben’s Workshop, House Hunters: Comedians on Couches Unfiltered and the “Shock Doc” Amityville Horror House.

A Suitable Boy (streaming on Acorn TV): The gorgeous limited-series adaptation of Vikram Seth’s giant novel concludes with Lata (Tanya Maniktala) finally making her choice of a suitable soulmate. Also accepting his fate: her best friend Maan (Ishaan Khatter), who turns himself in to authorities after a tragic accident that leads to more heartache before redemption.

The Bachelor (8/7c, ABC): Weren’t we just here? Not even two weeks have passed since Tayshia wrapped her run as The Bachelorette, and here we go again for the apparently insatiable fans of this dating exhibition. Matt James returns to the franchise as the first Black male lead in the show’s 18-year history. The 28-year-old real-estate broker and entrepreneur will have a field of 32 willing and able women to choose from, including one who makes her entrance wearing only black lingerie and asking Matt to help pick her outfit. (I’m sure most men would just love doing that!) By the end of opening night, Matt will cull the herd to 24 with his first batch of roses. You can’t accuse this show of lacking dignity. OK, you can.

Inside Monday TV: CBS’s daytime The Talk (check local listings) brings on Amanda Kloots and Elaine Welteroth as new permanent hosts, taking over for Marie Osmond and Eve… The 25th season of PBS mainstay Antiques Roadshow (8/7c, check local listings at pbs.org), affected like so many other shows by the pandemic, opens with “American Stories,” as guests share how they acquired their historic treasures… CBS is all new in prime time, starting with The Neighborhood (8/7c), in which Dave (Max Greenfield) somehow convinces Calvin (Cedric the Entertainer) to join him in an escape-room experience… Anne Heche and Rick Fox guest star on CBS’s All Rise (9/8c), which enters the new year with Judge Lola (Simone Missick) expected to give birth at any moment. But first she has another courtroom dilemma involving a defendant (Isaiah Johnson) whom she pressured to take a plea deal. After learning that the jury was about to find him “not guilty,” will Lola clue him in?… HBO goes international with 30 Coins (9/8c), an eight-part Spanish horror series about an exorcist (Eduard Fernández) who’s assigned to a small remote town where demonic forces lurk.

Jeopardy! - Syndicated

Jeopardy! where to stream