This Is Us sends the Pearsons back to “The Pool”

Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Tuesday, October 1. All times are Eastern.

Top pick

This Is Us (NBC, 9 p.m.): Last week, NBC’s weepiest, time-jumpingest, surprise-twistiest multi-generational family drama returned with some new characters, a big leap in time, and a mega hit song of, it must be said, questionable quality. Here’s Caroline Siede on the show’s fourth season premiere:

The reason the big twist at the end of the This Is Us pilot worked so well is because no one was expecting a twist from a series that had been billed as a sentimental drama about strangers who share the same birthday. It’s a trick the series could only ever pull off once. So even though in many ways the season four premiere, “Strangers,” feels a whole lot like that pilot, the experience of watching it is totally different. That episode was about introducing us to the complex emotional realities of a set of characters before landing at a surprising endpoint. This one is about using the complex emotional realities of a brand new set of characters to tease out a big reveal we all know is coming.

She also said this: “I’m sorry, but Jack Jr.’s song is terrible.”

It’s unclear whether or not the song will make an appearance in “The Pool: Part Two,” but it does see the show return to the scene of one of its other greatest hits, season one’s “The Pool.”

Caroline will recap, even if the song comes back.

Regular coverage

Wild card

Sorry For Your Loss (Facebook Watch, 3 p.m., second-season premiere): This thoughtful drama, which stars Elizabeth Olsen, Janet McTeer, and Kelly Marie Tran, returns for a second season tonight, and it looks likely to be as good or better than its already solid first.

It’s worth braving Facebook and all 97 of the notifications you don’t yet even know you have in order to catch up. The cast, Olsen in particular, is great.