Christmas Series, Movies and Cookies, A Younger ‘Rebus,’ Remembering Pat Tillman, Jay Goes Bro on ‘Ghosts’

Unwrapping Christmas: Tina’s Miracle

The Yule Log: Thanksgiving may be three weeks away, but Christmas bells are ringing all over the TV landscape. Case in point: the Hallmark+ romance Unwrapping Christmas, a four-week series of holiday love stories featuring the employees of a gift-wrapping store named All Wrapped Up. The opener focuses on the shop’s owner, Tina (Natalie Hall), who makes a connection with Michael (Alec Santos) just in time for them to save the town’s annual Christmas Gala from an estate owner who’s threatening to sell the venue. On Hallmark Mystery: Five Gold Rings (8/7c) stars Teen Wolf’s Holland Roden as a painter from New York City who receives an odd bequest from her late grandmother in Minnesota: find the owners of five gold rings and return them to their rightful place by Christmas, with the help of a local private eye (Nolan Gerard Funk).

More holiday diversion on BET+ in A Christmas Miracle, wherein a family comes together to raise funds and make merry for the local community center’s Christmas Jubilee. And if all of this leaves you hungry for more, Food Network complies with the Season 8 premiere of Christmas Cookie Challenge (9/8c), with hosts Ree Drummond and Eddie Jackson welcoming four cookie craftspeople with farm-inspired challenges, including making an edible 3D Christmas tractor that includes a farm-grown herb.

Rebus

It has been a long wait for new episodes of Outlander — Season 7 finally resumes November 22 — but one of its stars can be seen in a very different and darker light in a gritty crime drama inspired by Sir Ian Rankin’s best-selling novels. Richard Rankin (no relation), best known as the time-traveling Roger MacKenzie, channels an impressive tough-guy vibe in the Russell Crowe/Liam Neeson mode as Scottish detective John Rebus, seen here as a Detective Sergeant before earning his promotion to Inspector (a character played in earlier versions by John Hannah and Ken Stott). In the six-part series, Rebus juggles an unhappy personal life as a divorced dad with a case involving rival gangsters — one of whom has a beef with Rebus’s estranged brother Michael (Brian Ferguson), an ex-soldier who recklessly stole from drug dealers and now has a target on his back.

E60

Pat Tillman: Life. Death. Legacy. (7 pm/ET, ESPN, streaming on ESPN+): A special edition of E60, in acknowledgement of Veterans Day, recalls the legacy of Pat Tillman, who left his lucrative NFL position with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army after 9/11, only to be killed tragically by friendly fire 20 years ago while serving in Afghanistan. The episode, reported and hosted by Jeremy Schaap, investigates the delayed military response to Tillman’s death, featuring interviews with Tillman’s mother, his fellow platoon members, former Secretary of the Army Pete Geren and the athlete’s former teammates and coaches.

Ghosts

“Nothing prepares one for the sheer boredom of endless purgatory,” sighs Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky), who teams with Sasappis (Román Zaragoza) to start a mean rumor about Pete (Richie Moriarty) to alleviate the ennui. We beg to differ. There’s always something going on with these ghosts, and there’s never a dull moment in this delightful comedy. This week’s spotlight shines on Trevor (Asher Grodman), the late stockbroker bro, who has secretly put himself back in the game, working remotely online under a fake name with a group of obnoxious financial analysts. When they gather at Woodstone for a retreat, demanding to meet the new guy in person, Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) steps in, pretending to be one of the bros while Sam (Rose McIver) feeds him Trevor’s words. What could go wrong?

The Midwich Cuckoos

Keeping those Halloween shivers alive, this chilling British series (adapting John Wyndham’s sci-fi classic) gets scarier by the week, especially now that the town’s creepy children — all born the same day after inexplicable “miracle” pregnancies — have grown enough to exhibit hive-mind and mind-control abilities. Cross them at your peril. When family therapist Susannah Zellaby (Keeley Hawes), grandmother to spooky Evie, investigates a particularly disturbing incident, she becomes their latest target.

INSIDE THURSDAY TV:

• 9-1-1 (8/7c, ABC): The 118 scrambles to save a toddler trapped in a pipe.
• Law & Order (8/7c, NBC): Detectives Shaw (Mehcad Brooks) and Riley (Reid Scott) investigate a prep school’s toxic policies when the dean is murdered. Followed by Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (9/8c), with a hunt for whoever’s responsible for assaulting a woman at a campground.
• Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage (8/7c, CBS): Happy Endings’ Casey Wilson guests as a newly divorced waitress who befriends Mandy (Emily Osment) at the diner.
• Doctor Odyssey (9/8c, ABC): A bridezilla causes turmoil on the ship when it’s chartered for a weeklong wedding cruise.
• Elsbeth (10/9c, CBS): Vanessa Williams, soon to open on London’s West End in a musical version of The Devil Wears Prada as Miranda Priestly, taps into her Ugly Betty Wilhelmina persona as a spoiled socialite whose plot to rob an exclusive jewelry store ends in murder. Costars include the delicious Jenn Lyon as her BFF and Becky Ann Baker as a disgruntled employee and accomplice.

 ON THE STREAM:

• Outer Banks (streaming on Netflix): The treasure-hunt adventure series, just renewed for a fifth and final seasons, returns to close out Season 4 with five episodes.
• Countdown: Paul vs. Tyson (streaming on Netflix): A three-part docuseries follows Jake Paul and Mike Tyson as they prepare for a heavyweight boxing match to be livestreamed on November 15.
• Citadel: Honey Bunny (streaming on Prime Video): The high-octane spy franchise goes Bollywood with a six-episode thriller set in India, about a stuntman (Varun Dhawan) who recruits a wannabe actress (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) for a dangerous side gig. Years later, they reconnect to protect their young daughter, Nadia (a kid version of the character played by Priyanka Chopra Jonas in the first series).
• Frasier (streaming on Paramount+): Patricia Heaton returns as the bartender Holly, who thinks Frasier’s (Kelsey Grammer) misadventures are a hoot. Then she becomes part of one when she accompanies him to Olivia’s (Toks Olagundoye) murder-mystery party.
• Until I Kill You (streaming on BritBox): Anna Maxwell Martin (Line of Duty) stars in a true-crime docudrama as Delia, who runs afoul of an abusive murderer (Endeavour’s Shaun Evans) who keeps evading justice.
• Eat Slay Love (streaming on Peacock): A three-part reality docuseries follows R&B singer Nivea, actress-model Eva Marcille, reality-TV personality Tammy Rivera and comedian London Hughes on a soul-searching trip to Vietnam.