‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie,’ Wake Up with ‘Morning Show,’ Late Night with ‘Ted Lasso’s Coach Beard, McQueen Documentaries, Charlamagne’s ‘Truth’

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

When’s his turn on RuPaul’s Drag Race? Jamie (Max Harwood) is a teen from a blue-collar British town with fabulous dreams of someday becoming an out and proud drag queen. In this uplifting and high-energy musical based on the acclaimed London stage hit, Jamie comes of age and into his own with the help of a supportive mom (stage and TV veteran Sarah Lancashire) and Miss Loco Channelle (scene stealer Richard E. Grant), a local drag legend. Watch this and you’ll be talking and maybe singing about Jamie, too.

The Morning Show

The slick dramedy about the inner conflicts and unending scandals plaguing a morning TV show returns for a second season. Diva co-anchors Alex Levy (a brittle Jennifer Aniston) and Bradley Jackson (flinty Reese Witherspoon) are seemingly destined to be forced back on air together, months after exposing their network’s toxic workplace culture. Their boss, newly promoted CEO Cory Ellison (Emmy winner Billy Crudup), continues manipulating lives and careers with reptilian glee. New to the cast (but not in the premiere): Julianna Margulies as prime-time anchor Laura Peterson, who’ll muddy the waters in this fishbowl of piranhas professionally and personally.

Ted Lasso

After the humiliating defeat against Manchester City in the semi-finals, how does gruff-but-mostly-silent Coach Beard (Emmy nominee Brendan Hunt) shake it off? That’s the focus of a standout episode that follows one of the show’s more enigmatic characters on a long, dark, surreal and weirdly funny night on the town. Under Beard’s fierce glare lies a melancholy spirit and an aching and vulnerable heart. As endearing as he can be intimidating, Beard (and Hunt) shines in an episode that finally lets us in on his secret: “I listen more than I talk.”

Uprising

Revisiting provocative themes from his acclaimed Small Axe dramatic anthology, Oscar-winning filmmaker and executive producer Steve McQueen delivers three powerful and topical documentaries about Black activism in the U.K. Uprising comprises three hourlong reports on pivotal events in 1981: the New Cross Fire that killed 13 Black youths, the Black People’s Day of Action, the first organized protest by Black British citizens that drew more than 20,000 people, and the Brixton riots. Black Power: A British Story of Resistance tells how the Black Power movement grew in the late 1960s. Subnormal: A British Scandal tells of an education scandal in the 1960s and ’70s when it was revealed that Black children were being sent to schools for the “educationally subnormal” in disproportionate numbers.

Hell of a Week with Charlamagne Tha God

The outspoken radio and TV personality most commonly known as Charlamagne tha God, dubbed “the hip-hop Howard Stern” by Rolling Stone, enters the late-night space with a weekly half-hour take on society, politics and culture. Joined by fellow South Carolina native Stephen Colbert (on whose The Late Show he has often appeared) as executive producer, McKelvey promises deep dives, sketches and social experiments as he brings his unfiltered perspective to Colbert’s previous network.

Great Performances

The Hans Christian Andersen tale The Red Shoes that became an enduring 1948 film classic is now an innovative dance production from visionary director-choreographer Matthew Bourne. Great Performances presents this parable of obsession, featuring Ashley Shaw and Adam Cooper and set to a score of golden-age Hollywood music.

The New York Times Presents

The Emmy-nominated documentary series returns with an eighth installment, with reporters clearing the smoke around e-cigarette manufacturer Juul. Created by two Stanford grad students whose mission was to help millions of smokers kick the habit, Juul instead became a lightning rod for government officials and researchers who argued that Juul’s marketing had instead addicted an entirely new generation.

Inside Friday TV:

• Soul of a Nation: Corazón de América—Celebrating Hispanic Culture (8/7c, ABC): A new edition of Soul of a Nation celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month in an hourlong special hosted and directed by actor Benjamin Bratt and his brother, Peter. Segments include a monologue by John Leguizamo and Cecilia Vega’s interview with 91-year-old civil-rights legend Dolores Huerta. The finale features Reggaeton singer-songwriter Ozuna, interviewed by Gio Benitez before singing his hit “La Funka.”
• Burden of Truth (8/7c, The CW): In the legal drama’s series finale, Joanna (Kristen Kreuk) believes her career as a lawyer is over and starts making new plans. Never say never, Joanna.
• On the true-crime beat: ABC’s 20/20 (9/8c) examines the investigation into three 1970s murders of Stanford University students and how DNA technology linked two university employees to the crimes. Dateline NBC (10/9c) puts out a call for viewers’ help and tips as Josh Mankiewicz reports on the still-unsolved 1989 kidnap-murder of 10-year-old Amy Mihalevic in Ohio.
• Cry Macho (streaming on HBO Max): Also premiering in movie theaters, this drama stars and is directed and produced by the indefatigable Clint Eastwood (now 91). He plays a former rodeo star hired by his former boss (country star Dwight Yoakam) to travel to Mexico to bring back his son (Eduardo Minett).
• Sex Education (streaming on Netflix): In the third season of the bawdy comedy, sex therapist Jean Milburn (the ever-versatile Gillian Anderson) is pregnant, adding more complications to adolescent son Otis’ (Asa Butterfield) own journey as he operates an underground sex clinic for his peers. Girls’ Jemima Kirke joins the cast as the new headmistress, and Jason Isaacs shows up as Mr. Groff’s (Alistair Petrie) more successful older brother.
• Chicago Party Aunt (streaming on Netflix): Superstore’s Lauren Ash voices the outrageous title character of Diane Dunbrowski in an animated comedy based on a popular Twitter feed. Diane is a blue-collar Auntie Mame to nephew Daniel (Rory O’Malley), who puts off going to college to hang with his favorite aunt.
• The Amber Ruffin Show (streaming on Peacock): The acclaimed and Emmy-nominated late-night show, starring the Late Night with Seth Meyers writer-performer, wraps its first season. But we won’t have to wait long for a second round, which begins Oct. 8.