Strike-time “Sydney” will be back

Amid last year’s strike-time scrambling, CBS emerged with at least one good thing:
“NCIS: Sydney” (shown here) was a ratings success; now it’s been renewed for a second season.
Wiih big holes in their schedules during the strikes, networks scrambled. Some of the ideas – rerunning “Yellowstone” and “Only Murders in the Building” – worked well; others (the British version of “Ghosts,” for instance) were so-so.
But “NCIS: Sydney” worked well for its brief, eight-episode season. It stuck to familiar ground: Australian cops and American agents reluctantly worked together. Their leaders were headstrong and telegenic; their tech people were quirky.
The result was short on originality and long on entertainment. In the Nielsen ratings for new shows this season, CBS said, it’s No. 3 behind its “Tracker” and “Elsbeth.”
In other TV news:
— Less than a month after it ended its season, “TMZ Investigates” is back with a special, looking at Kate Middleton’s disappearance of late and the botched moves around it, including a failed photoshop. That will be 9 p.m. Thursday (March 21) on Fox, bumping “Farmer Wants a Wife.”
— And “Community” reruns will now be on Peacock, starting April 1. The comedy was a modest success on NBC, but its people – Donald Glover, Joel McHale, Allison Brie, Ken Jeong and more – keep growing in popularity.