‘Slow Horses’ Revs Up, Christmas at Rock Center and Graceland, New Cop in ‘Shetland,’ Dr. ‘Dodger’

Slow Horses

The third season of the British spy thriller, featuring a motley team of disgraced spies operating from the rundown Slough House (hence: “slow horses”), gets off to a shocking start when long-suffering office manager Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) is inexplicably kidnapped by a former Istanbul security head (Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù). While young rogue agent River (Jack Lowden) risks his neck and career by breaking into MI5 headquarters to help arrange Catherine’s freedom, their hilariously unruly boss Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) tells the rest of his crew what he thinks of them: “You guys are about as much use as a paper condom.” And yet we trust Lamb to know where the bodies are buried as secrets are revealed and the horses get to work to rescue one of their own.

Christmas in Rockefeller Center

The centerpiece of the live holiday special is, as always, a mammoth tree—this year’s an 80-foot-tall, 12-ton Norway Spruce from upstate New York. At the climax of the two-hour entertainment special, the tree will be illuminated with 50,000 LED lights of many colors. But first, there will be music. Hosted by Kelly Clarkson, the roster includes holiday duets featuring David Foster and Katharine McPhee, Adam Blackstone and Keke Palmer, Liz Gillies and Seth MacFarlane, with Cher performing solo and in a duet with Darlene Love. And it wouldn’t be Christmas without the neighboring Radio City Rockettes to be on hand to kick up a storm.

Christmas at Graceland

NBC moves from the heart of Manhattan to the legendary Memphis estate that will forever be associated with Elvis Presley. The first live televised concert from Graceland features special appearances by Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough (Daisy Jones & The Six), who’s an executive producer, and a lineup including John Legend, Alanis Morrisette, Kacey Musgraves, Kane Brown, Lainey Wilson, Lana Del Rey, Post Malone and The War And Treaty. They’ll perform from inside Graceland, offering viewers an intimate look at the estate and never-seen broadcast footage of Elvis.

Shetland

Ashley Jensen (Ugly Betty), who most recently was solving crimes with humor as Agatha Raisin, plays it mostly straight, with equal aplomb, as DI Ruth Calder, the new lead in the long-running British crime drama, inspired by Ann Cleeves’ best-sellers. She arrives following the departure last season of DI Jimmy Pérez (Douglas Henshall) from the rugged Shetland isles, with DS Tosh (Alison O’Donnell) temporarily in charge. As Season 8 opens, a frightened witness to a London gangland murder flees to Shetland, prompting Calder to make a reluctant trip back to the land of her unhappy childhood. “I couldn’t wait to get away,” she growls as she works with the locals to locate the witness before the murdering goons on her trail. Calder brings with her plenty of baggage of the personal variety, including an ex (Jamie Sives) who’s thrilled to see her, and a minister brother (Steven Miller) who’s a bit more ambivalent.

The Artful Dodger

Though set in the mid-19^th century, the music and the raucous tone are all too contemporary in a hectic sequel of sorts to Dickens’ Oliver Twist. The rascally master pickpocket Artful Dodger (aka Jack Dawkins) has grown up (played by The Queen’s Gambit’s Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and somehow evolved through Navy experience into a skilled surgeon in training, living in the rowdy colony of Australia’s Port Victory amid other not-quite-reformed scamps. His road to respectability is complicated by the arrival of his former mentor, the unscrupulous Fagin (a hammy David Thewlis), but he may find the perfect ally in the progressive-minded Lady Belle (Good Trouble’s Maia Mitchell), daughter of the Governor and a would-be surgeon herself. It’s all a bunch of lively nonsense.

INSIDE WEDNESDAY TV:

• Survivor (8/7c, CBS): A reward challenge in a treacherous maze could win someone a night in the sanctuary. Followed by The Amazing Race (9:30/8:30c), where teams travel from Slovenia to Sweden, where a skydive awaits 10,000 feet above the Baltic Sea.
• The Masked Singer (8/7c, Fox): Disco band The Trammps performs on “Disco Night,” with a double elimination looming for Group A.
• The Spencer Sisters (9/8c, The CW): Life imitates fiction when the actress who starred as the heroine of movies based on Victoria’s (Lea Thompson) mystery novels is accused of murdering a co-star.
• Sex Sells (10/9c, Fuse and streaming on Fuse+): Sex-positive podcaster Weezy returns for a third season of exploring new trends in sexual health and wellness, starting with a look at how AI is transforming the industry.

ON THE STREAM:

• Pretty Hard Cases (streaming on Freevee): The Canadian crime dramedy presents its third and final season (all available for binge-watching), with a reunion after months apart of detective partners Samantha Wazowski (Baroness Von Sketch Show’s Meredith MacNeill) and Kelly Duff (Orange Is the New Black’s Adrienne C. Moore), juggling relationship issues with a case involving a gang peddling a deadly synthetic drug.
• American Symphony (streaming on Netflix): A moving documentary follows Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste as he works to compose a symphony at the peak of his career while supporting his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad, during her grueling cancer treatment. Also on Netflix: a three-part true-crime docuseries Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife, telling the story of medical fraud Paolo Macchiarini (soon to be dramatized in a new season of Peacock’s Death), and more episodes of Squid Game: The Challenge with the conclusion set for next week.
• The Buccaneers (streaming on Apple TV+): At Christmastime, the gang heads to Scotland for a getaway, where Lord James’ (Barney Fishwick) bizarre behavior becomes more pronounced.