‘Lone Star’s Fiery Return, College Football Championship, ‘Traitors’ in Prime Time, ‘Gone’ to New Zealand

9-1-1: Lone Star

The first-responder spinoff resumes its final season with a last batch of episodes (the series finale is scheduled for February 3), in which Capt. Owen (Rob Lowe) questions Judd’s (Jim Parrack) sobriety after his buddy walks into danger while bullets fly in an armory on fire. In a less alarming subplot, Marjan (Natacha Karam) introduces her parents to her boyfriend (John Clarence Stewart) over dinner, leaving a sour aftertaste. Followed by Rescue: Hi-Surf (9/8c), with an undercurrent of romantic tension on the Hawaiian lifeguard squad, who respond to an ATV accident.

College Football Playoff National Championship

The inaugural 12-team playoffs have led to an exciting championship match-up between No. 8 Ohio State and No. 7 Notre Dame. The game, from Atlanta’s Mercedez-Benz Stadium, is enhanced by nearly 100 cameras and new technology, including MindFly body cams on three of the officials on the field — umpire, center judge, head linesman — offering close-up shots of decisive plays. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit call their 11th championship game as a team, with Holly Rowe and Molly McGrath reporting from the teams’ sidelines.

The Traitors

No, Peacock’s Emmy-winning reality competition hasn’t made the jump from streaming to broadcast TV. (If only.) As the networks like to do from time to time, the programmers are teasing viewers with a taste of one of their signature streaming hits in hopes of luring more eyeballs to the platform. NBC turns over the entire night to the first two episodes (airing back-to-back starting at 8/7c) from the current Season 3 of the cheeky mock murder-mystery game, with Emmy-winning host Alan Cumming impishly hosting the devious shenanigans from a remote Scottish castle. The premise, for the uninitiated: Clandestine “traitors” plot against “faithful” game players who hope to expose the schemers before they’re “murrrdered.” This season’s reality-starry cast features two-time Survivor champ Tony Vlachos, Vanderpump Rules’ notorious Tom Sandoval, WWE Hall of Famer Nikki Garcia, various Bachelor/Bachelorette and Real Housewives alums, Big Brother veterans, and at least two Bobs, The Biggest Loser’s Bob Harper and RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen.

The Gone

Grey’s Anatomy alum Richard Flood (Dr. Cormac Hayes from 2019-22) stars in an exotic mystery series as Theo Richter, an Irish detective transplanted to New Zealand, where he teams with a local Kiwi cop, detective sergeant Diana Huia (Acushla-Tara Kupe), after a young Irish couple disappears from a rural North Island town. With a local reporter (Carolyn Bracken) following their every move, the investigation finds connections to a series of murders from the community’s dark past.

Murdoch Mysteries

Milestone alert: The period mystery marks its 300th episode, with Detective Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) and Ogden (Hélène Joy) reunited at an elegant inn in the British countryside where a gathering of businessmen provides a wealth of suspects when a flirty gold-digger is found dead in a pond. Murdoch is intrigued by an American detective who denies his identity while Ogden encounters a philanthropist she nannied during her med school days.

INSIDE MONDAY TV:

• I Am MLK Jr.: Celebrating a Leader and a Legacy (8/7c, The CW): In acknowledgment of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, a repeat of last year’s biographical profile of the late civil-rights leader, with interviews and footage filmed in the churches where he famously preached.
• Kids Baking Championship (8/7c, Food Network): In a tie-in with the upcoming animated film Dog Man, the young bakers team up to make two-tiered cakes—one tier for the dog head, one for the human bottom — with bacon as the special ingredient.
• Antiques Roadshow (8/7c, PBS): The appraisers wrap up their visit at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Next stop: Las Vegas.
• The Curious Case of … (10/9c, Investigation Discovery): “The Girl Who Died Twice” relates the missing persons case of 13-year-old Mary Day, who vanished in 1981 and was presumed murdered until a woman who says she’s Mary emerges decades later, prompting suspicion that she could be an imposter.