1) Vice presidential debate, 9 p.m. ET, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS and news channels. Onstage will be Tim Walz and JD Vance – both Midwesterners, both ex-military, yet opposite in almost every way. Margaret Brennan (shown here) and Norah O’Donnell will ask the questions and will be able to mute the microphones. Vance won the coin-flip and gives his conclusion last.
2) Debate preview. Most networks will fill the 8 p.m. ET hour with news specials, looking at the V-P and presidential candidates. Exceptions are Fox (see No. 3) and PBS, which has a fairly well-made hour on “The American Vice President.” It recalls times when the job was ignored, and two men (Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford) who showed its importance.
3) “Murder in the Small Town,” 8 p.m., Fox. In last week’s opener, we met good-hearted people in a seacoast Canadian town. There’s a librarian (Kristin Kreuk) and her new love interest (Rossif Sutherland), a soft-spoken police chief with strong empathy. This hour starts noisily – it’s homecoming week – and then settles into another beautifully crafted mystery.
4) “WWE NXT” debut, 8-10 p.m., CW. Launched as a sort of futures league for younger wrestlers, this has bounced beteen cable (Syfy and USA) and web. Now it gets a broadcast-TV spot, with a five-year CW deal. And it starts on a night when there should be debate-skippers available.
5) ALSO: Baseball starts its playoffs today, with four wild-card games packed into ESPN and ESPN2. Movies (some overlapping with the debate) are led by “Beetlejuice” (1988), 6:45 to 8:50 p.m., Freeform; “Terminator” (1984), 6:59 to 9:30 p.m., Syfy; and “Heat” (1995), 7-10 p.m., Showtime.