Best-bets for Dec. 12: Five voices chase victory

1) “The Voice,” 8-10 p.m., NBC. The five finalists have one last chance to get viewer votes. Three — Brayden Lape, Bryce Leatherwood and Bodie – are with Blake Shelton; Camila Cabello has Morgan Myles (shown here), John Legend has Omar Cardona … and Gwen Stefani, alas, has no one. Read more…

1) “The Voice,” 8-10 p.m., NBC. The five finalists have one last chance to get viewer votes. Three — Brayden Lape, Bryce Leatherwood and Bodie – are with Blake Shelton; Camila Cabello has Morgan Myles (shown here), John Legend has Omar Cardona … and Gwen Stefani, alas, has no one.

2) “Baking It” celebrity special, 10 p.m., NBC, This is the gentlest of TV trifles. A spin-off of the terrific “Making It,” it has a six-part series that arrives today on Peacock, plus this celebrity hour on NBC. Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph offer a goofy theme song, then challenge Kristen Bell, Fred Armisen, Nicole Richie and JB Smoove.

3) “American Masters,” 8-9:30 p.m., PBS. For Saul Bellow, biography and literary-analysis blend seamlessly. Each protagonist felt autobiographic, flaws and all. There are hints of bitterness, betrayal, misogyny, even an oddly racist passage; there’s also great craftsmanship. Bellow loved women; he divorced four and had a daughter at 84 with his fifth wife. In his defense, the late Philip Roth said: “You can’t be a novelist and manage your reputation.”

4) “The Cleaning Lady” and “The Great Christmas Light Fight” season-finales, 8-10 p.m., Fox and ABC. On Fox, Thony and her two men – an FBI guy and a crook – link in an effort to bring down the evil Kamdar. On ABC, the at-home spectaculars include a 40-foot pirate ship, an eight-foot star and a couple villages, one reflecting Charles Dickens’ era.

5) British dramas, www.acorn.tv. One show (“Midsomer Murders”) starts its 23rd season, overlapping with another (“Whitstable Pearl”) ending its second one. The latter wraps with two good mysteries: Pearl probes odd events in her mother’s house, then caters a deadly wedding. The “Midsomer” season has four weekly, movie-length tales. This first one, involving survivalists, gets quite tangled; the next two are excellent, before the final one falls apart.

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