Olivia Colman and David Thewlis star in HBO’s offbeat true-crime drama Landscapers as an unassuming couple with a dark secret. C.J. Box’s contemporary Western mysteries featuring game warden Joe Pickett becomes a series starring For All Mankind’s Michael Dorman. Fox’s 9-1-1 goes on hiatus with a Christmas episode, while The Big Leap takes a final bow. NCIS Hawai’i marks the 80th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack with a cold case.
Stefania Rosini/HBO
Landscapers
A most unusual true-crime drama stars the sublime Olivia Colman and the endearingly forlorn David Thewlis as Susan and Chris Edwards, an unassuming British couple who have long harbored a dark secret. (The title is a pun referring to the fact that her dreadful parents have been buried in their backyard for 15 years.) As the Edwards are forced to face the music, Susan retreats into a fantasy world reflecting her obsession with vintage Gary Cooper movies. Likewise, Landscapers repeatedly shifts from color to black-and-white, breaking the fourth wall and otherwise plunging into a world of stylized artifice as the police and media demonize the couple. (See the full review.)
Spectrum
Joe Pickett
The Wyoming game-warden hero of C.J. Box’s (Big Sky) best-selling contemporary Western mysteries is brought to life by For All Mankind’s likably laconic Michael Dorman, whose understated style is perfect for this soft-spoken character who’s too easily underestimated. He’s an appealing underdog who keeps being urged to “learn how to bend,” but that’s not his way. Especially when a poacher is found dead outside his home in a woodpile, and he fears for his family’s safety.
Jack Zeman/FOX
9-1-1
It’s not easy to have yourself a merry little Christmas when emergencies keep happening on Christmas Eve. In the midseason finale, there’s no rest or much revelry for the 118 crew, and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) is further distracted by his son Christopher (Gavin McHugh), who needs additional emotional support during the holidays.
Jean Whiteside/FOX
The Big Leap
Will this compellingly soapy melodrama about second chances get one of its own with a renewal? We may not know for a while, so for now fans can savor the season finale, where a blackout threatens the final performance of Swan Lake by the amateur dancers and reality-TV stars. Producer Nick (Scott Foley) is focused on convincing the network that the show-within-the-show is something special—something one can imagine The Big Leap’s own producers are engaged in at Fox HQ.
Courtesy Vanessa Lachey
NCIS: Hawai’i
Marking the 80th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks, the crime drama tackles a poignant cold case involving WWII-era bones. The team is shocked when they discover the bones belong to a 100-year-old survivor of the attack.
Inside Monday TV:
- A Very Boy Band Holiday (8/7c, ABC): They’re no longer boys, but they’ve still got the goods, when members of iconic boy bands *NSYNC (Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick, Lance Bass), Boyz II Men (Wanya Morris, Shawn Stockman), New Edition (Bobby Brown, Michael Bivins), NKOTB (Joey McIntyre), O-Town (Erik-Michael Estrada) and 90 Degrees (Nick and Drew Lachey, Jeff Timmons and Justin Jeffre) gather for a musical holiday special.
- Secretly Santa (8/7c, Lifetime): The holiday movie du jour tells the story of business rivals who find common romantic ground after an anonymous meet-cute during a costumed Santa crawl.
- Bob Hearts Abishola (8:30/7:30c, CBS): From the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished department, Bob (Billy Gardell) regrets his gesture of flying his bride Abishola’s (Folake Olowofoyeku) son and mother in from Nigeria as a surprise when mother-in-law Ebun (Saidah Arrika Ekulona) keeping cutting Bob’s business acumen down.
- Michael Bublé’s Christmas in the City (10/9c, NBC): The crooner celebrates the 10th anniversary of his popular “Christmas” album with a musical special featuring Leon Bridges, Camila Cabello, Jimmy Fallon, Kermit the Frog and Ted Lasso’s Emmy-winning Hannah Waddingham, a musical-theater veteran who demonstrated her pipes during the show’s own Christmas episode (which aired in August).
- Under the Vines (streaming on Acorn TV): A six-episode romantic dramedy from New Zealand brings together a socialite from Sydney (Rebecca Gibney) and a grouchy UK lawyer (Charles Edwards) when each inherits half of a failing vineyard in rural New Zealand. We’ll drink to that.
- Voir (streaming on Netflix): A six-part series of video essays explores our personal connection with capital-c Cinema and why movies loom so large in our lives.
