Christmas Goes Country, ‘Accused’ Finale, Hard Knocks with the AFC North, ‘St. Denis’ Pink Slip

CMA Country Christmas

As we’ll say a lot this month, ’tis the season — in this case, for musical holiday specials, with Amy Grant and Trisha Yearwood hosting the 15th annual showcase for country music stars covering Christmas classics. Among those performing in Nashville before a live audience: the hosts singing “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “Sing Your Praise to the Lord,” with Grant soloing on “Tennessee Christmas” and Yearwood delivering a medley of familiar tunes. They’re joined by KING + COUNTRY with Carin León (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”), Cody Johnson (“White Christmas” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”), Ashley McBryde and Brittney Spencer (“Man with the Bag”), Jon Pardi (“400 Horsepower Sleigh”) and gospel great CeCe Winans with “Joy to the World.”

Accused

The legal anthology wraps its second season with the weakest and the strangest episodes to date. In the first, with a bizarrely one-sided courtroom presentation, The Masked Singer’s Ken Jeong plays a naïve jeweler in what he believes to be a fairy-tale marriage, who veers into tragedy when he tries to save his beloved wife (Jamie Chung) after her shady past makes an unwelcome return. The second is a futuristic cautionary tale of an ambitious music executive (Star Trek: Discovery’s Sonequa Martin-Green) who outsources her I’m-too-busy sex life to a sexbot (Kiara Barnes) that seduces her initially AI-resistant husband (Evil’s ridiculously hunky Mike Colter).

Hard Knocks In Season

There’s a first time for everything, and after more than two decades, the Hard Knocks franchise mixes up its usual format of focusing on a single NFL team by covering an entire division, the AFC North, during the last six weeks of the season as they head to the playoffs and potentially the Super Bowl. Featured teams include the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have never been featured in a Hard Knocks season, the Baltimore Ravens (the first team ever to take the spotlight in the Hard Knocks training camp series in 2001), the twice-featured Cincinnati Bengals (shown in 2009 and 2013) and the Cleveland Browns, making their second appearance after a season in 2018.

St. Denis Medical

The droll medical mockumentary presents its most relatable character, supervising nurse Alex (Allison Tolman), with a challenge to step up and go against her always-nice persona when her boss Joyce (Wendi McLendon-Covey) orders her to fire a well-liked but bumbling co-worker. While her hemming and hawing only makes the situation worse, ER doc Ron (David Alan Grier) clashes with Bruce (Josh Lawson) after the cocky surgeon takes the last NutRageous bar — Ron’s daily comfort food — from the vending machine. And newbie nurse Matt (Mekki Leeper) goes too far when trying to bond with a patient who he helped revive but is showing precious little gratitude.

INSIDE TUESDAY TV:

• FBI (8/7c, CBS): The search is on for a serial killer when women’s bodies are discovered all over the city, while Maggie (Missy Peregrym) juggles her duties as little Ella’s guardian. Followed by FBI: International (9/8c), with the Fly Team off to Morocco to find American aid workers kidnapped from a hijacked bus; and FBI: Most Wanted (10/9c), where Philadelphia is the destination for the Fugitive Task Force after a beauty queen is killed on live TV.
• Night Court (8:30/7:30c, NBC): Expect some trash talk in the courtroom when a sanitation strike makes things messy at work.
• The Voice (9/8c, NBC): Find out who makes it to next week’s live finale when the votes are tallied, with four singers earning a spot and a fifth selected when the remaining contestants perform for the last slot in the Instant Save.
• Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (9/8c, ABC): The 1970 stop-motion animated perennial, narrated by Fred Astaire, tells the origin story of Kris Kringle (Mickey Rooney). Beware the Burgermeister Meisterburger.
• The Irrational (10/9c, NBC): In the fall finale, Alex (Jesse L. Martin) learns more about Rose’s (Karen David) past when they investigate the murder of a K-Pop superfan.

 ON THE STREAM:

• As1One: The Israeli-Palestinian Pop Music Journey (streaming on Paramount+): A four-part docuseries profiles the groundbreaking band as1one (pronounced “as one”) comprised of young Jewish and Palestinian men from Israel. Formed in 2020, they arrived in L.A. to record their first album on the eve of the October 7 terrorist attacks that launched the Israel-Hamas war and turned the musicians into unexpected symbols of musical unity.
• Jack in Time for Christmas (streaming on Prime Video): British comedian Jack Whitehall (The Afterparty) stars as himself in a comedy feature that follows his slapstick attempts to get home from the U.S. with only four days until Christmas. Celebs including Jimmy Fallon, Michael Bublé, Rebel Wilson, and Dave Bautista appear in cameos.
• Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story (streaming on Peacock): A three-part docuseries goes inside the sexploitation video franchise from the late 1990s and early 2000s, marketed heavily by creator Joe Francis in late-night informercials, which led to allegations of sexual exploitation involving underage females. The series features what’s said to be the first in-depth on-camera interview with Francis from his exile in a Mexican compound.
• Fortune Feimster: Crushing It! (streaming on Netflix): The outrageous comedian delivers her third Netflix stand-up special.