1) Orange Bowl, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN. We’re one day from the semi-finals, with the four teams that have a shot at the national championship. First, we see the teams that almost got there; this has Tennessee and Clemson (hown here), ranked No. 6 and 7 … which means the Orange Bowl has two teams with orange as their school color. (Alabama, at No. 5, is in the Sugar Bowl on Saturday.) ESPN has two more bowls, with Maryland-North Carolina State at noon and Notre Dame-South Carolina at 3:30; CBS has Pittsburgh and UCLA at 2.
2) “iHeart Radio Music Festival,” 8-10 p.m., CW. On the eve of New Year’s Eve, we get an early burst of pop music. This rerun continues Saturday. Over the four hours, you can catch Halsey, Luke Combs, Avril Lavigne, Sam Smith, Maren Morris, Pitbull, Megan Thee Stallion, Morgan Wallen, Marcus Mumford, Diplo, Black Eyed Peas and Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo.
3) “Gone Girl” (2014), 7:25 p.m., HBO; or “A Soldier’s Story” (1984), 8 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies. Both movies started with smart stories that were already developed, then did everything else right. “Gone Girl” had Gillian Flynn adapting her best-selling novel, with Ben Affleck and an Oscar-nominated Rosamund Pike in the leads. “Soldier’s Story” had Charles Fuller adapting his intense, Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
4) “The Wheel” finale, 8 p.m., NBC. This British transplant wraps its two-week, 10-episode trial run. Tonight, contestants tackle questions on such varied subjects as meat, pregnancy and “Saturday Night Live.” An “SNL” veteran (Chris Kattan) is one of the celebrities helping. Others are skateboarder Tony Hawk, chef Curtis stone and actresses Christina Ricci, Kym Whitley and Jackie Tohn.
5) “Criminal Minds,” 10 p.m., CBS. After a 15-season run, this show disappeared for a year, then returned as a mini-series on the Paramount+ streaminhg site. Here’s a rerun of the opener; on Jan. 12, the streamer will start the second half of the 10-episode run.