September 29 – October 5
Emma is ‘Cruella,’ Brits rock, ‘Family Guy’ turns 22 & Milla fights monsters!
FRIDAY, Sept. 29
Gen V
What happens at a college especially for young adults who want to become superheroes? Find out in this zingy new series (below) connected to The Boys and starring Jensen Ackles, Patrick Schwarznegger and Lizzie Broadway (Prime).
The New York Times Presents: How to Fix a Pageant
Investigative docuseries digs into the Miss USA and Miss Universe organizations, a recent scandal, and how the “beauty pageants” are struggling to remain successful, relevant and significant in the modern world (10 p.m., FX).
Brits Rock!
Cool! This block of programming celebrates the music and legacies three iconic British rock artists: The Beatles, Adele and David Bowie (All Arts TV).
Reptile
Benicio del Toro, Justin Timberlake (above) and Alicia Siverstone star in this new network original movie about the brutal murder of a young real estate executive and a hardened detective who attempts to uncover the truth in a case where nothing is as it seems (Netflix).
Flora and Son
Eve Hewson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt star in this original drama about a mom, her rebellious teenage son (Orén Kinlan) and how the transformative power of music brings them together in newfound harmony (AppleTV+).
SATURDAY, Sept. 30
Hot Dish with Franco
World-class chef Franco Noriega puts his Peruvian and Italian roots down in the kitchen for some hot-stuff, flavorful dishes in this new culinary series (12 p.m., Food Network).
READ ALL ABOUT IT
It’s never too early to think about Christmas! The Christmas Book (Phaidon) is a treasure trove of the traditions, lore, rituals and spirituality of “the most wonderful time of the year” with photographs, paintings and other pop-cultural artifacts. Santa, Scrooge, snow, nutcrackers, silent nights, nativity scenes—it’s all here, and more!
Fans of ‘80s rock will groove to Police Diaries (Rocket88), drummer Stewart Copeland’s firsthand account of the early days of The Police, the British trio that took over the charts with “Every Breath You Take,” “Roxanne,” “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” and many more hits. Packed with photos from Copeland’s deep personal archive, “it’s a big, noisy book about one heckuva ride.”
We know the ocean is big, it’s deep and it’s the stuff of folklore and legend. But Helen Czerski’s The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works (WW Norton) reminds us how the vast sea is a massive aquatic engine, constantly churning with energy, life and raw materials. Read it and marvel anew—and raise your awareness of how this ancient, gravity-defying feature of the Earth’s topography, now faces new, modern environmental threats.
Take an armchair trip to some of the world’s most scenic getaways in The Alps (Phaidon), with hundreds of photos of winter-playground places in France, Switzerland, Italy, AAustria and Germany. Here, you don’t have to be a celebrity—or a wealthy international traveler—to enjoy the views.
SUNDAY, Oct. 1
Family Guy
Seth McFarlane’s classic animated sitcom for grownups returns for season 22 tonight. Meg’s having a baby, Peter takes flight and Stewie gets his rock-star on! (9:30 p.m., Fox).
Jack Osborne’s Night of Terror
Ozzy’s son launches another season of spine-tingling paranormal investigations (below), kicking off with a trip to a haunted hotel in Santa Paula, Calif., accompanied by his mom, Sharon (10 p.m., Travel Channel).
MONDAY, Oct. 2
Spin’s 100 Greatest Rock Stars Since That Was a Thing
You wanna rock? Then tune in for this new docuseries, spotlighting all the greats—Elvis, Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Grace Slick, and many more, with commentary from Dee Snider, Stewart Copeland, Carnie Wilson and other musical icons. Rock on! (8 p.m., AXS).
The Partridge Family
C’mon, get happy! All 96 episodes of the classic ‘70s TV musical sitcom series (below), about a peppy “family band” of rock musicians (led by Shirley Jones and David Cassidy), return to TV beginning today as part of the network’s new “Retro Binge,” which also includes The Monkees (9 p.m., AXS).
TUESDAY, Oct. 3
The Found
Shanola Hampton—she played Veronica Fisher in Shameless—now stars in this new weekly series as a foster care professional searching for a missing 14-year-old, but the case becomes much more complicated than she first imagined (10 p.m., NBC).
Cruella
Emma Stone plays a young villainess-in-making (who’d grow up to be Cruella Deville of 101 Dalmatians) in this feisty, fab-fashion live-action 2021 remake of the Disney classic (7:50 p.m., Freeform).
BRING IT HOME
Get ready for Halloween with some of the greatest ghouls of all time: Universal Classic Monsters (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment), the new eight-disc set of restored, 4K versions of The Invisible Man, The Mummy, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera and The Creature From the Black Lagoon. Plus, an accompanying book is filled with rare pix, and trivia.
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 4
Monster Hunter
Not many people saw it when it was released theatrically in the early days of the COVID pandemic. Not you can watch it twice, back to back, as model-turned-sci-fi-actress Milla Jovovich kicks some serious monster butt in a futuristic, apocalyptic world, all based on a popular video game (7:20 p.m., FXM).
Quantum Leap
Season two of the sequel series to the 1989-93 TV drama stars Raymond Lee as a physicist who discovers many wrongs to right after his “unauthorized” leap into the past. Plus, he has a sweetie (Caitlin Bassett) he left behind (9 p.m., NBC).
THURSDAY, Oct. 5
Our Flag Means Death
Season two of the high-seas pirate comedy sets sail tonight, with filmmaker/actor Taika Waititi in the lead role of this swashbuckling tongue-in-cheek tale loosely based on real-life 18th century would-be buccaneer Stede Bonnet (Max).
Accused: Guilty of Innocent
What happens when someone is formally charged with a crime and sent to the courtroom? New season of the true-crime series picks up tonight with more inside stories of people facing the wheels of justice for serious crimes they are alleged to have committed. But did they? (10 p.m., A&E).
The Media Tourist 