1) “Saturday Night Live” season-opener, 11:29 p.m., NBC. “SNL” has seen big transitions, but this is a dilly. Gone are its biggest star (Kate McKinnon) and its pop-culture phenom (Pete Davidson), plus Aidy Bryant, Alex Moffat, Melissa Villasenor, Christopher Redd, Kyle Mooney and Aristotle Athari. Returning are the “Update” duo, Kenan Thompson and more, joined by four newcomers. Miles Teller (shown here in “Top Gun: Maverick”) hosts, with Kendrick Lamar as music guest.
2) “The Gabby Petito Story.” 8 and 11:03 p.m., Lifetime. A year ago, this story drew intensive news coverage. Petito was a high-spirited 22-year-old, using social media to record her second cross-country trip with her boyfriend. Then she vanished; a follow-up hour is at 10:03.
3) “31 Days of Halloween” start, Freeform. This began in 1998 as “13 Days of Halloween,” then kept growing. The opening day has three films from brilliant director Tim Burton – “Edward Scissorhands” (1990) at 7 a.m., “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993) at 1:25 p.m. and “Beetlejuice” (1988) at 9:25 p.m. It also has the first two “Hotel Transylvania” cartoons at 3:05 (2012) and 5:10p.m. (2015), plus “Hocus Pocus” (1993) at 7:15 p.m. and more.
4) More movies: There are other Halloween films, including the well-crafted “Halloween” (1978) at 8 p.m. on AMC and the “Scream” reboot (2022) at 8 p.m. on Showtime, plus a family-friendly tale, “Under Wraps 2” (2022), at 8:30 p.m. on the Disney Channel. Or you can ignore all of that and see “On the Waterfront” (1954) – one of the all-time best-acted films – at 6 p.m. ET on Turner Classic Movies.
5) “The Equalizer,” 8 p.m., CBS. On the eve of its season-opener, this show reruns the episode in which Robyn risks her freedom to save the district attorney who’s been after her. That’s followed at 9 by “NCIS: Los Angeles,” eight days before its season-opener. In this rerun, the team tries to rescue Callen, after he falls for Katya’s trap.