Rocking With Wham!, Patti LaBelle Raises ‘The Wonder Years’ Roof, Exploring the ‘Human Footprint,’ ‘Riverdale’s Last Musical?

WHAM!

They met as kids—Andrew Ridgeley was 12, George Michael 11—and went on to live their dream as global pop stars in the brief but blazing heyday of Wham! in the early 1980s. A new documentary from director Chris Smith (FYRE) borrows from candid personal archives, with rare and familiar footage reliving Wham!’s glory days, with impressive hair, high spirits and classic hooks on songs like “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.”

The Wonder Years

Another music legend, R&B diva Patti LaBelle, guests on the reimagined sitcom reboot as “Sister” Shirley, Dean’s (Elisha “EJ” Williams) grandma—and, more to the point, Lillian’s (Saycon Sengbloh) mother-in-law, who leads the church choir and welcomes Lillian into the group as a replacement when a longtime member suddenly passes. Well, “welcome” may be too strong a word, considering the chilly reception Lillian gets from her fellow singers, not to mention Shirley’s tyrannical leadership style. (A sample critique during choir practice: “If Jesus hadn’t already died for your sins, that last number would have killed him.”)

Human Footprint

Biologist Shane Campbell-Staton, a Princeton University professor, travels the planet in a six-part science docuseries that explores the impact humanity has had on our globe and its ecosystem, for better or worse, and what our actions reveal about ourselves. In the opener, Shane wrangles with a python, Hawaiian pigs and a sucker-punching carp as he debates the nature of invasive species.

Riverdale

Having tackled such edgy musicals as Next to Normal, Heathers, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Carrie: The Musical in past seasons, the revisionist Archie series turns to an original musical for its retro-1950s final year. Kevin (Casey Cott) and Clay (Karl Walcott) have written the new material, with rehearsals causing Archie (KJ Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica (Camila Mendes) to do some soul-searching.

Platonic

Three is once again a crowd in this delightful buddy comedy’s penultimate episode, with good-guy Charlie (Luke Macfarlane) giving wife Sylvia (Rose Byrne) the cold shoulder for turning to her pal Will (Seth Rogen) instead of him after her workplace disaster. “I don’t like feeling like the second most important man in your life,” Charlie laments. But when he temporarily transgresses, Sylvia gives Charlie a taste of his own punitive message, with predictably calamitous results. Elsewhere, Will has his own workplace issues, forcing an ultimatum on his brewpub business partners. Maybe it’s time for everyone to grow up?

INSIDE WEDNESDAY TV:

• The A-Team (noon/11c, H&I): Pity the fool who neglects the 1980s action series (which made Mr. T a star) when it joins the channel’s lineup, with five consecutive episodes each Wednesday.
• Shark Below Zero (9/8c, National Geographic): A SharkFest special tracks white sharks as far north as Newfoundland. Then things get hot in Sharkano: Hawaii (10/9c), which explores sharks’ attraction to Hawaii’s volcanoes.
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (10/9c, FXX): The gang that never grows up decides to relive their childhood by paying a visit to their once-favorite joint: Risk E. Rat’s, a bizarro version of Chuck E. Cheese that has since cleaned up its act, to everyone’s dismay. Naturally, mayhem ensues.
• grown-ish (10/9c, Freeform): Doug (Diggy Simmons) gets Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals to play at his party, while Andre (Marcus Scribner) and Annika (Justine Skye) eagerly anticipate their “first time.”

ON THE STREAM:

• Hijack (streaming on Apple TV+): In the third hour of the real-time suspense thriller, officials on the ground begin to spread the alarm that Kingdom Air 29 has been hijacked. In the sky, Sam (Idris Elba) tries to calm the panic among the passengers, but with a diabetic in need of insulin and rumors that the hijackers’ guns may be loaded with blanks, chaos escalates into a first-class cliffhanger.
• Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire (streaming on Disney+): An animated anthology enlists artists from Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa to conjure 10 vignettes of fantasy and science-fiction, leaning into the continent’s diverse culture and history.
• The Clearing (streaming on Hulu): In the Australian thriller’s finale, Freya’s (Teresa Palmer) search for her son Billy (Flynn Wandin) leads to a private island where she finds creepy cult leader Adrienne (Miranda Otto) relaunching The Kindred.
• CMA Fest: 50 Years of Fan Fair (streaming on Hulu): A 75-minute special looks back at a half-century of country-music stars interacting with their fans, growing from a modest Fan Fair in 1972 with 5,000 attendees to the epic four-day event it has become, drawing some 80,000 a day. The special features archival footage and new interviews with country royalty including Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, Vince Gill, Wynonna Judd and many more.