A Strike on Mars in ‘Mankind,’ ‘Home for the Holidays’ Turns 25, Jennifer Grant Salutes Father Cary on TCM, Disney+ Asks ‘What If’

For All Mankind

“Space is a business,” insists Helios Aerospace founder Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi)—think a less annoying Elon Musk type—when he arrives on Mars in the middle of a contentious labor strike among his on-the-ground blue-collar workers. (Bet you never saw an outer-space series going there.) Their disruptions cause unintended tragic consequences but also threaten the international mission to capture the “Goldilocks” asteroid and mine its precious minerals. As Dev works with Commander Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) to make Happy Valley more harmonious, newly arrived scientist Kelly Baldwin (Cynthy Wu) confronts her combative adoptive dad Ed (Joel Kinnaman) over his “Norma Rae” tactics. Back on Earth, Margo (Wrenn Schmidt) gets an assignment from her icy Russian boss Irina (Svetlana Efremova) that reignites her complicated feelings about having defected from the U.S.

A Home for the Holidays

A milestone anniversary special revisits some of the families previously featured on the uplifting annual program that raises awareness of children in foster care awaiting adoption, said to have inspired tens of thousands of adoptions. Katharine McPhee hosts and performs with David Foster on “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” with more music from Pentatonix, Lauren Daigle, Gavin DeGraw and CeCe Winans.

The Bishop’s Wife

Jennifer Grant joins the monthlong tribute to her movie-star father when she appears as a special guest host with TCM’s Dave Karger to introduce more of his beloved films. The evening kicks off with 1947’s The Bishop’s Wife (later remade with Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington), with Grant as a dapper angel covertly helping a bishop (David Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young) through tough times. Followed by the 1957 romantic classic An Affair to Remember (10/9c) the 1952 family comedy Room for One More (12:15 am/11:15c), co-starring Grant’s third wife, Betsy Drake, and overnight, Penny Serenade, In Name Only and Destination Tokyo.

What If…?

Turns out there are multitudes of possibilities within the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s multiverse, and over nine nights, the animated series that asks “what if” returns with new alternative stories involving MCU heroes. The Watcher (voiced by Westworld’s Jeffrey Wright) introduces the animated vignettes, starting with “What If … Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?”, featuring the blue-skinned Guardians of the Galaxy character (Karen Gillan) as she joins the Nova Corps to escape her adoptive father Thanos’ shadow in a world where Ronan deposed Thanos long before the events chronicled in the “Infinity War.” Future episodes revolve around fan favorites including Thor, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Happy Hogan and Captain Carter.

Reacher

Few people fill out a suit quite as fully as the man-mountain Reacher (Alan Ritchson), who travels with his team to Boston, where they encounter a familiar friendly face—and, inevitably, a vicious team of bikers that makes the fateful mistake of trying to take them on. Stubborn as ever, Reacher refuses to believe that an MIA member of his former Army investigative unit went dirty as a security director for the New Age defense contractor—but the situation gets murkier when they discover a project called “Little Wing” that could have serious implications for global warfare.

INSIDE FRIDAY TV:

• Homes That Make You Go Wow (9/8c, HGTV): My Lottery Dream Home’s David Bromstad is a tour guide through the channel’s most impressively renovated homes, each worthy of an exclamation point!
• The UnXplained (9/7c, History Channel): The Season 6 finale of the speculative series investigates “Monsters Among Us,” suggesting that with 18,000 new animal species discovered each year, maybe a few are worth worrying about. Followed by The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd (10/9c), which explores “Weird Weapons” like robot assassins and war dolphins.
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (streaming on Apple TV+): As we learn more about May’s (Kiersey Clemons) backstory before she got caught up in the monsterverse, my favorite line comes from Monarch deputy director Verdugo (Mirelly Taylor), who snarks at the kid heroes: “Are we done playing Goonies now?” Let’s hope.
• Saltburn (streaming on Prime Video): Emerald Fennell’s provocative follow-up to Promising Young Woman begins streaming little more than a month after its theatrical premiere.