1) “Modern Family” season-opener, 9 p.m., ABC. It’s the 11th and final season for one of TV’s best comedies. For five straight years, this won the best-comedy Emmy; one year, all six adults were nominated. A lot has happened since this began: Haley, then barely a teen, tonight (shown here) is arguing with her parents about how to raise her twins.
2) “Stumptown” debut, 10 p.m., ABC. Sure this is a bundle of old and new cliches. The old – a broken-down private eye, drowning in debt and self-pity; the new – a tough-as-nails woman. But “Stumptown” does it beautifully, with Cobie Smulders as a private-eye with a warm heart (as seen in scenes with her brother, who has Down syndrome) and a steely surface.
3) “The Masked Singer” season-opener, 8-10 p.m., Fox. “We’re kind of a big deal,” Nicole Scherzinger yells. Well, she yells a lot, but this time she was shouting the truth. An oddity based on an Asian hit, this became a mid-season ratings success. Now it’s back with more contestants and, alas, more commotion. There are two editions this year and the first has 16 people. Tonight, we see half of them – some of them surprisingly good – and unmask two. Once you survive the shrill hype, it’s kind of fun.
4) “Country Music” finale, 8 p.m., PBS; rerunning at 10. By 1984, the slick sound was fading. Sales were down; country needed new stars. It got a bundle of them – George Strait, Randy Travis, Reba McEntire, the Judds and, especially, Garth Brooks. This masterful series ends in 1996 – three years after Brooks sold out four Texas Stadium shows. It also reminds us that this music is about emotion, wrapping Johnny Cash’s life and catching the story of Vince Gill’s “Go Rest High on That Mountain.”
5) Much more. Two CBS reality shows go back-to-back, with one season starting (“Survivor,” 8 p.m.) and another ending (“Big Brother,” 9:30). And NBC has the season-openers of its three Chicago shows. That starts at 8, with a “Chicago Med” episode that’s definitely big; in different ways, the show loses two doctors. It’s also overwrought; this hospital has the subtlety and credibility of a wrestling ring.