Worth Watching: Katie Couric in ‘Jeopardy!,’ Winter ‘9-1-1’ Finales, ‘Neighborhood’ Rocks Out
A selective critical checklist of notable Monday TV:
Jeopardy! (Syndicated, check local listings): After six weeks of impressive guest-hosting by Jeopardy! GOAT Ken Jennings, and two with executive producer Mike Richards filling in, the parade of celebrity guest hosts begins with longtime TV news personality Katie Couric making history as the quiz show’s first female guest host. She and the others will keep the game going for two-week stints (each taped over two days earlier this year), with the equivalent of all the money earned during their tenure going to charity. (Which means that players, the real stars of the show, gotta play.) She’ll be followed by Dr. Mehmet Oz starting March 22 and the NFL’s Aaron Rodgers (a 2015 Celebrity Jeopardy! winner) starting April 5, with more to come.
9-1-1 (8/7c, Fox): With two months of original episodes under its belt, the hit rescue series takes a pause with a winter finale that finds people pushed to the brink — including a flight attendant fed up with her passengers, and a couple at their wits end during quarantine. On the winter finale of spinoff 9-1-1: Lone Star (9/8c), T.K.’s (Ronen Rubinstein) celebration of being sober for a year is clouded by strife in his parents’ (Rob Lowe and Lisa Edelstein) relationship. The Shield‘s Benito Martinez guests as the Texas Ranger father of Carlos (Rafael Silva), who ends up working a case with his dad.
The Neighborhood (8/7c, CBS): There’s not a lot of harmony when Tina (Tichina Arnold) steps up after Dave’s (Max Greenfield) garage dad band loses its lead singer. Seems her standards are higher than theirs. Elsewhere on the home front, Marty (Marcel Spears) finds himself in an uncomfortable odd-couple situation after letting his needy boss (Freaks and Geeks‘ Samm Levine) crash at his new place.
Debris (10/9c, NBC): What is this space junk up to? The mystery continues in the second episode when agents Bryan (Jonathan Tucker) and Finola (Riann Steele) head to an evacuated town from whence some of the superpowered debris is dragging metal away for reasons unknown. Bryan’s already distracted by not being able to share with Finola what he’s learned about her long-thought-dead father.
Inside Monday TV: A mother-son relationship sours on CBS’s Bob Hearts Abishola (8:30/7:30c) when Abishola (Folake Olowofoyeku) forbids a rebellious Dele (Travis Wolfe, Jr.) to go to Nigeria with his father… HGTV’s Rock the Block (9/8c) returns for a second season with host Ty Pennington overseeing the efforts of four teams of celebrity designers who have six weeks to overhaul identical suburban homes. The teams include Mike Holmes with Alison Victoria, Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent, David Bromstad, and Tiffany Brooks, and Brian and Mike Kleinschmidt… Who’s The Good Doctor (10/9c)? This week it might just be gruff Dr. Glassman (Richard Schiff), who’s inviting the residents to join him in the OR for a complex spinal surgery.
The Neighborhood where to stream
