TV’s Best Bets – Mansfield News Journal
Sunday, Aug. 8
Olympics finale. It’s time for more spectacle, complete with pomp and people, plus (we’ll assume) dancers and fireworks and more. You can catch the closing ceremony live at 7 a.m. on Peacock or on tape at 8 p.m. on NBC. In between, there are tapes of finals: At 9 a.m., USA has women’s basketball; from 1-6 p.m., NBC has women’s volleyball and handball and men’s water polo, plus cycling and group rhythm gymnastics. It also has a wrap-up at 7.
“Unforgotten,” 9 p.m., PBS. Cassie just wanted to retire early, due to emotional stress. Instead, she must stay three months or lose her pension. Now she’s obsessed with a 30-year-old murder that may have involved several police-academy grads, two of them still on the force. Weary and short of sleep, she nears some answers; then a jolt sets up next week’s finale. It’s an excellent episode, followed by a fairly good “Professor T,” as the stoic prof connects with a key witness who has Down’s syndrome.
“UFO” debut, 9 p.m., Showtime. J.J. Abrams has been a master of scripted science-fiction, producing TV’s “Alias,” “Lost” and “Fringe” and directing “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” movies. Now he moves to the documentary side, for this four-part series. It starts with the New York Times’ 2017 story about the government’s longtime interest in UFO’s. That’s followed at 10 by the season-opener of “The L Word: Generation Q,” a scripted series about gay friends in Los Angeles.
Baseball, 7 p.m., ABC. This seemed like a fine idea at the time: ABC — which had only carried one game (a wild-card playoff) in the past 25 years — would try another. It would be in historic Wrigley Field, with a classic rivalry — the White Sox and, as ABC put it, “Kevin Bryant and the Chicago Cubs.” Except by the time ABC announced the game, the Cubs had had an 11-game losing streak. Now Bryant is gone; so are most of the other top Cubs — Rizzo, Baez, Kimbrel, more — and much of the fun.
“Family Game Fight” debut, 10:30-11 p.m., NBC. Here’s a half-size look at a show that will get an hourlong slot Wednesday. Kristen Bell and her husband, Dax Shepard, will join opposite teams for fast-paced games. Those games are quite good … but only about 30 percent as good as the screeching crowd and contestants seem to think. Amid the cacophony, it’s hard to appreciate the clever parts.