Rueben's Ramblings

Here is the list of the programming options to expect on TV this coming week:

On January 2: The second season premiere of Fantasy Island will air on FOX on January 2 at 8 PM and the reboot of Quantum Leap will be back with new episodes starting on NBC at 10 PM.

On January 3: The season finale of Welcome to Chippendales will air online on Hulu; also FBI, FBI: International and FBI: Most Wanted will all return to CBS tonight at 8, 9 and 10 PM respectively; also The Resident will be back with new episodes starting tonight on FOX at 8 PM; and New Amsterdam will return with new episodes from its final season on NBC at 10 PM.

Also on January 3, The Rookie and The Rookie: Feds will move to a new night on ABC, airing back-to-back at 8 and 9 PM respectively, starting with a crossover episode tonight followed by the debut of the new drama Will Trent at 10 PM. This new series, based on the Karin Slaughter best-selling book series, focuses on Special Agent Will Trent (Ramon Rodriguez) of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI), who was abandoned at birth and endured a harsh coming of age in Atlanta’s overwhelmed foster care system; but now, determined to use his unique point of view to make sure no one feels as abandoned as he was, Trent has the highest clearance rate in the GBI. The cast includes Erika Christensen, Jake McLaughlin, Sonja Sohn and Iantha Richardson.

On January 4: The returns of Chicago Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. will air on NBC at 8, 9 and 10 PM respectively; Big Sky will be back with new episodes on ABC starting tonight at 10 PM; and AMC will air a sneak peek of the network’s new drama Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches [check your local listings for airtime].

On January 5: The winter finale of Doom Patrol will air online on HBO Max; also the second season premiere of Ginny & Georgia will air online on Netflix; and So Help Me Todd and CSI: Vegas will both be back with new episodes on CBS starting tonight at 9 and 10 PM respectively and the NBC dramas Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Organized Crime will all be back with new episodes at 8, 9 and 10 PM respectively.

The second season finale of The Mosquito Coast will air online on Apple TV+ on January 6; and that same night the CBS dramas S.W.A.T., Fire Country and Blue Bloods will all return with new episode starting tonight at 8, 9 and 10 PM respectively.

Also on January 6:

* The Rig, a new drama on Amazon will debut. The show’s synopsis: Rose (Emily Hampshire), Magnus (Iain Glen) and Fulmer (Martin Compston) are amongst many others working on an oil rig off the coast of Scotland. When the time comes for them to return back to land, the oil rig becomes engulfed by a supernatural mist. Will they make it back?

* The AMC+ movie Vesper will debut online. Set after the collapse of the Earth’s ecosystem, the sci-fi thriller follows Vesper (Raffiella Chapman), a headstrong 13-year-old girl who uses her survival skills to subsist in the remnants of a strange and dangerous world with her ailing father, Darius (Richard Brake). When Vesper finds a mysterious woman, Camellia (Rosy McEwen), alone and disoriented after an aerial crash, she agrees to help find her missing companion in exchange for safe passage to the Citadel – the dark central hub where oligarchs live in comfort thanks to state-of-the-art biotechnology.

* The box office movie The Pale Blue Eye will debut online on Netflix. A world-weary detective (Christian Bale) is hired to investigate the murder of a West Point cadet. Stymied by the cadets’ code of silence, he enlists one of their own to help unravel the case – a young man the world would come to know as Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling). The cast includes Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Robert Duvall, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

On January 7, the following movies will debut:

* A Royal in Paradise on Great American Family at 8 PM. Olivia (Rhiannon Fish), struggling with writer’s block after a break up, takes a tropical holiday in hope of some inspiration and meets Prince Alexander (Mitchell Bourke), who needs some distance from his duty to marry royalty.

* Reba McEntire’s The Hammer on Lifetime at 8 PM. The film follows Kim Wheeler (Reba McEntire), an outspoken, firecracker lawyer who is appointed Judge of the 5th District of Nevada and is one of the few traveling judges left in America. After the reigning judge passes away under suspicious circumstances, Kim finds herself covering a circuit that stretches between Las Vegas and Reno – a rugged, often desolate area where anything and everything can happen. With gavel in hand, she lays down the law with a no-nonsense brand of justice that quickly earns her the nickname “The Hammer.” As the investigation of the former judge’s death heats up, Kim’s sister Kris (Melissa Peterman), who runs the local brothel, suddenly becomes the prime suspect, and Kim must work even harder to make certain the appropriate justice is served.

* The Wedding Veil: Expectations on the Hallmark Channel at 8 PM. Avery and Peter (Lacey Chabert and Kevin McGarry) try to keep the romance alive while renovating an old house and juggling work, but everything takes on a new perspective when Avery has a surprise for Peter. Autumn Reeser and Alison Sweeney reprise their roles from the original trilogy.

On January 8: The season finale of George & Tammy will air on Showtime at 9 PM; the PBS dramas Miss Scarlet and the Duke, All Creatures Great and Small and Vienna Blood will all return with new seasons at 8, 9 and 10 PM respectively; and the CBS dramas East New York and NCIS: Los Angeles will return with new episodes at 9 and 10 PM respectively.

Also the following dramas will debut on January 8:

* Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches on AMC+ and also on AMC at 9 PM. Based on Rice’s best-selling trilogy, Lives of the Mayfair Witches, the 8-episode series focuses on an intuitive young neurosurgeon, Rowan (Alexandra Daddario), who discovers that she is the unlikely heir to a family of witches. As she grapples with her newfound powers, she must contend with a sinister presence that has haunted her family for generations. The cast includes Annabeth Gish, Beth Grant, Erica Gimpel, Harry Hamlin and Jack Huston.

* Alert at 8 PM on FOX. This procedural drama is about the Philadelphia Police Department’s Missing Person’s Unit (MPU). Each episode will feature a heart-pounding, life-or-death search for a missing person that runs alongside police officers Jason Grant (Scott Caan) and his ex-wife Nikki Batista’s (Dania Ramirez) series-long quest to find out the truth about their long-lost son.

Lastly also on January 8, the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries movie Family History Mysteries: Buried Past will debut at 7 PM. Genealogist Sophie McClaren (Janel Parrish) is an expert at bringing families together. When her close friend Jonathan (Niall Matter) urgently needs to find a bone marrow donor, the case becomes personal.

Mark your calendars!