The Stale Prince of Bel-Air (7 p.m. Sundays, NBC): Will (Will Smith) returns to the East Coast, still trying to break into the music industry. Though he works as a nanny for his fashion designer cousin Hilary (Karyn Parsons) and still bankrolls his perpetually underemployed friend Jazz (DJ Jazzy Jeff), he realizes his precocious young nephew has the talent to become a dubstep wunderkind—if the now-serious Hilary will let him, and if Will can design the perfect papier- mâché animal head in time for the big show.
Imperfect Strangers (8 p.m. Fridays, ABC): Recently divorced Larry Appleton (Mark Linn-Baker) starts a new life on the island of Mypos, moving in with his repatriated cousin, Balki (Bronson Pinchot), and his family. Now a fish out of water himself, former reporter Larry struggles to adjust to his new career as a rural shepherd while looking for love and letting himself be ridiculous.
Enemies (8 p.m. Thursdays, NBC): Bonding over their shared experiences of being jilted by six young Manhattanites, lovestruck coffee shop manager Gunther (James Michael Tyler), nasal office worker Janice (Maggie Wheeler), paleontologist Julie (Lauren Tom), and recovering alcoholic Fun Bobby (Vincent Ventresca) form an unlikely friendship. The quartet hangs out regularly at a Williamsburg dive bar managed by the ghost of Mr. Heckles (Larry Hanklin) and Marcel the monkey (Katie the monkey).
Rideshare (7:30 p.m. Mondays, NBC): Finding it hard to make ends meet in retirement, eighty-year-old Alex Reiger (Judd Hirsch) returns to the workforce. While driving for multiple rideshare apps, he befriends a series of quirky regulars, and gives them sage career advice they consistently ignore—until the night he picks up his old nemesis, Louie DePalma (Danny DeVito), who has an offer he can’t refuse.
Eight Remains More Than Sufficient (7 p.m. Saturdays, ABC): The Bradford house has never been fuller as the coronavirus-driven recession forces Abby (Betty Buckley) to open her home to David, Mary, Joanie, Susan, Nancy, Elizabeth, Tommy, Nicholas, their spouses, their children, a menagerie of exotic pets, and her own orphaned nephew, Jeremy (Ralph Macchio). Each character struggles to carve out their own space in the overpacked house, while each equity actor struggles to get at least one line per episode. Every week, audiences will vote off one character until the family reaches a manageable level.
After AfterMASH (8 p.m. Mondays, CBS): Max Klinger (Jamie Farr) has been living in the psychiatric ward at General since 1985, when he faked insanity to avoid prison. With the years passing and his friends moving away, nobody left in the hospital knows he has been faking his condition, allowing him to sneak out at night and go on adventures. When he discovers a time machine that takes him back to 1950s Korea every afternoon, he tries to stop the war without erasing his own existence or being late for bed check. Gary Burghoff guest stars.
Jeff Fleischer is a Chicago-based author, journalist and editor. His fiction has appeared in more than seventy publications including the Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row Journal, Shenandoah, the Saturday Evening Post and So It Goes by the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. He is also the author of non-fiction books including “Votes of Confidence: A Young Person’s Guide to American Elections,” “A Hot Mess: How the Climate Crisis is Changing Our World,” “Rockin’ the Boat: 50 Iconic Revolutionaries,” and “The Latest Craze.”
