Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Sunday, September 18. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
68th Primetime Emmy Awards (ABC, 8 p.m.): Television’s greatest night—at least according to the Academy Of Television Arts And Sciences—is upon us again, with Jimmy Kimmel hosting the latest round of the Emmys. Again, it’s a robust list of nominees despite some worthy contenders being left off the list. Game Of Thrones remains as unstoppable as an undead Mountain with nine nominations (including half the Best Supporting Actress In A Drama field), but The People Vs. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story supplanted it for the most with 13 total. (Both shows already cleaned up at the Creative Arts Emmys last weekend, along with wins for beloved shows Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jessica Jones and beloved figures like Amy Poehler and Character Actress Margo Martindale.) Of particular interest this year are The Americans and its stars Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell earning long-deserved praise in the top drama categories, critical darlings UnREAL and Mr. Robot garnering series and performer nominations (for Constance Zimmer and Rami Malek respectively), and streaming comedies Master Of None and Catastrophe scoring writing nominations alongside the more prolific HBO series. We’re expecting a night that’s at equal turns predictable and unpredictable, and as usual The A.V. Club will be there to live-chat its way through the night. Join us with the hashtag #avctv on Twitter or visit the site for the full spectrum of reactions from “Ughhhhh” to “WTF?!?!”
Sunday Night Football, Packers at Vikings (NBC, 7 p.m.): Yep, it’s the first Green Bay Packers prime-time game of the regular season—and against their traditional rivals the Minnesota Vikings no less—so you know what that means. All bow your cheeseheads, down your beers in one gulp, bite into your communion bratwurst, and give praise to the Giant Spider Invasion Prophecy that it may ring true yet again.
Vice Principals (HBO, 10:30 p.m.): It’s the winter break for Vice Principals as the series reaches its halfway point, and all the pieces are in place for Russell and Gamby to really blow things up in the wake of Teacher Work Day. Kyle Fowle didn’t have a chance to review last week’s episode—probably because of something involving wrestling—but he’ll be doing the makeup work and reviewing both episodes tonight. For extra credit, he can attempt to answer LaToya Ferguson’s burning question from her last review: “Is Ms. Snodgrass’ young adult novel just a bunch of human-on-dragon bestiality?”
Premieres and finales
Live From The Red Carpet: The 2016 Emmy Awards (E!, 6 p.m.): The only thing television fans love more than seeing their favorite shows not win awards are the fancy suits and dresses worn by those up for the awards, E! brings you two hours of red carpet coverage. Just for once we’d like to see this coverage take a look at the comfortable old T-shirts and sweatpants that most of the home viewer audience is wearing, and lavish similar praise onto them.
The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey (CBS, 8:30 p.m.): Because network TV never found a prevailing trend from cable networks that it didn’t immediately try to appropriate for its own purposes, CBS offers this project that both capitalizes on the hunger for true crime stories and the newly discovered value of titles built on the words “The” and “of”. This three-part series focuses on the 1996 murder of child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey, combining new forensic technologies with the experience of the original investigators. No word on whether or not they’ll be able to disprove the theory that an owl was involved. We believe it. The owls are not what they seem.
Ray Donovan (Showtime, 9 p.m.): Ray Donovan is done again, with the fourth season finale airing the same night Liev Schreiber has his second shot at a Best Actor In A Drama award. Ray is caught between the Russian mafia and the FBI, and Schreiber is caught between the intense stares of Rami Malek, Matthew Rhys, Kyle Chandler, and Kevin Spacey. In the stare-off, Bob Odenkirk is expected to sneak off with the trophy, Slippin’ Jimmy-style.
World War II’s Most Daring Raids (Smithsonian, 9 p.m.): Smithsonian’s latest documentary series looks at the greatest surprise Allied attacks, starting with “an elite group of British paratroopers who launched a midnight raid to capture Hitler’s secret radar.” It’s essentially the army equivalent of trying to get your ball back from the mean old man’s backyard after it went over the fence.
Regular coverage
Narcos (Netflix, 3 p.m.)
Fear The Walking Dead (AMC, 9 p.m.)
Power (Starz, 9 p.m.)
Streaming pick
BoJack Horseman, “It’s You” (Netflix): Should your personal Emmy picks fail to win trophies, take heart in the likelihood that the awards may have been picked by an easily distracted labrador retriever and an equally distracted twentysomething slacker, who needed to fill an entire roster after losing the list of nominees on a wacky misadventure. Or feel the absolute soul-crushing devastation of BoJack when he both gets and loses award recognition within 24 hours. Your call.