Celebrating Female Comedians, ‘Good Doctor’ Daddy Issues, ‘Keeping Faith’ Finale, HBO’s ‘Crime of the Century’

Lifetime Presents Variety’s Power of Women: The Comedians

A gala special honors the careers of some of TV’s leading lights of humor, each also featured in Variety’s annual Power of Women issue. The roster is beyond impressive: Maya Rudolph, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sofia Vergara, Michaela Cole, Mindy Kaling and Kate McKinnon. Each is interviewed by a close colleague or family member, including Saturday Night Live’s Aidy Bryant and Bowen Yang. Fellow SNL veteran Tina Fey pays tribute to legendary original cast member Gilda Radner and the charitable foundation for cancer patients named in her honor: Gilda’s Club Metro Detroit.

The Good Doctor

Autistic Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) is always on a learning curve, and that’s especially true now that he’s about to become a first-time father. When Lea (Paige Spara) experiences complications with her pregnancy, Shaun must balance his instincts as a doctor who seems to know all with the uncertainties of a man who needs to be there for his partner’s emotional needs.

The Crime of the Century

Concluding Tuesday, this two-part documentary from Alex Gibney (The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley) and The Washington Post enlists whistleblowers and insiders to expose the machinations of Big Pharma and political operatives that allowed the over-production and distribution of synthetic opiates including Oxy Contin and fentanyl that have led to a half-million fatalities in the last 20 years. The report features first-person accounts from first responders, survivors and family members affected by this crisis of addiction fueled by corporate greed and government corruption.

Breeders

In the penultimate episode of the parenting dramedy’s second season, the tension between Paul (Martin Freeman) and his anxiety-ravaged son Luke (Alex Eastwood) comes to a head at the worst possible moment: during a blackout at the golden-wedding anniversary of Paul’s parents, Jim and Jackie (Alun Armstrong and Joanna Bacon). It’s no laughing matter, and this intense episode carries a viewer-discretion advisory. Showrunner/writer Simon Blackwell explains in a statement: “The closing minutes of Episode 209 of Breeders contains a pivotal piece of action that the entire second season was built around. … The one definite thing I knew I wanted to happen was for 13-year-old Luke to reach a very particular dramatic point with his dad, a shocking moment that redefines their entire relationship in a second. The whole of the series arc then grew out of that moment: where it would happen within the season, the emotional build-up to it, and its unsteady resolution.”

Keeping Faith

The suspenseful crime drama starring Torchwood’s Eve Myles as Faith, a harried lawyer and divorced mother of three, reaches an intense climax after three seasons. In the series finale, Faith’s greatest adversary turns out to be her estranged and ruthless mother, Rose (Better Things’ Celia Imrie), who uses her own granddaughters as leverage to get her way. Not everyone will survive their final showdown. In other life-and-death news, young Osian’s (Keogh Kiernan) fate is revealed after his risky surgery.

Also new to Acorn:

Blinded—Those Who Kill: A grim eight-part Danish crime drama (with English subtitles) about the unsolved murders of three young men. Criminal profiler Louise (Natalie Manueño) is personally entreated by one of the victim’s mothers, Alice (Solbjørg Højfeldt), to find her son’s killer before she succumbs to terminal cancer.

Inside Monday TV:

• 9-1-1 (8/7c, Fox): Everyone’s on alert after a mystery writer dies, leaving chaos in his wake when the city goes crazy hunting for buried treasure he left behind. On spinoff 9-1-1: Lone Star (9/8c), things get heated when Owen (Rob Lowe) becomes the unlikely prime suspect in the serial-arsonist case, while son T.K. (Ronen Rubinstein) and Carlos (Rafael Silva) are trapped in a fiery dilemma.
• The Voice (8/7c, NBC): After the winner of the four-way Knockout is revealed, the Top 17 perform for the coaches in hopes of making it to the Top 9. (What’s with these odd numbers?)
• Bob Hearts Abishola (8:30/7:30c, CBS): While the son’s away, can the mom just play? That’s the question as Abishola (Folake Olowofoyeku) adjusts to Dele (Travis Wolfe, Jr.) being away in Nigeria, giving her more free time than usual. So fiancé Bob (Billy Gardell) enlists Gloria (Vernee Watson) and Kemi (Gina Yashere) to help her remember how to loosen up.
• Through the Night (10/9c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): In a special edition of POV, Loira Limbal’s feature-length documentary observes a 24-hour daycare center in New Rochelle, N.Y., where the lives of three working mothers overlap: an essential worker at a pediatric hospital, a women holding down three jobs to support her kids, and the child-care employee who has spent more than 20 years looking after other women’s children.