1) “St. Denis Medical,” 8 p.m. Tuesday, NBC. After a three-week break, this reminds us that it’s one of the season’s best new shows. Two prisoners (shown here) arrive, after stabbing each other; now nurses tell the cynical Dr. Ron they can soothe them. Two other stories are fairly good; the prisoner one is hilarious. And in the final minute, all the stories combine for a comedy peak.
2) “Law & Order” return, 8 p.m. Thursday, NBC. After a longer break (seven weeks), the Thursday dramas have new episodes. First, a man is pushed in front of a train. Then “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” has a woman face a video of a night she can’t remember. And on “Found,” a woman searches for her boyfriend … who’s also sought by outside forces.
3) Football, 5 p.m. PT today, ABC. The first round of the pro playoffs concludes. The Vikings have a 14-3 record, tied for the third best overall; still, they didn’t win their division, so they’re on the road against the Rams (10-7). The winner joins five winners from this weekend, plus two byes (the Chiefs and Lions), with games Saturday and Sunday.
4) “Abbott Elementary,” 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, ABC. Janine frets when her students flub a practice test; she considers changing her lesson plan before the real test. Also, Jacob tries to nudge a disinterested student and Mr. Johnson must train a young custodian. That follows Tim Allen’s “Shifting Gears,” which had an excellent debut episode last week.
5) “Going Dutch,” 9:30 p.m., Thursday, Fox. The first two episodes were merely OK, but this one has a smart, slick plot. Denis Leary plays a hard-boiled colonel, relegated to a soft Army base where his estranged daughter was in command. He gets angrier than usual, when a CIA guy (wearing flip-flops, no less) arrives; some clever twists follow.
6) “Outlander” and “The Couple Next Door,” 8 and 9:05 p.m. Friday, Starz; repeating at 10 and midnight. It’s Sam Heughan night. In the season-finale of “Outlander,” he’s an 18th-century warrior married (via time-travel) to a modern surgeon. Then he starts a six-parter, playing a cop who has an open marriage … and sees a young couple move in next door.
7) “I Am JFK Jr.” (2016), 8-10 p.m. Saturday, CW. OK, you might be busy with football or Tom Cruise. (“Top Gun” is 2:30 and 11 p.m. on the Paramount Network; “Top Gun: Maverick” at 5 and 8.) But there’s also this portrait of a busy life: John Kennedy Jr. was a lawyer, a magazine publisher and a society favorite, before dying in a plane crash at 38.
8) “Tracker,” 8 p.m. Sunday, CBS. This network has two ratings giants on Sundays – but keeps pre-empting them for specials. The next new episodes of “Tracker” and “Equalizer” (Feb. 16) will be the first in 10 and nine weeks. Here, at least, we get reruns of both. In a good “Tracker,” Reenie asks Colter to find a woman who vanished at an upscale Napa retreat.
9) “Miss Scarlett,” 8 p.m. Sunday, PBS. Last week, Eliza (a detective) argued with the chief inspector (who dislikes detectives). Still, they solved a case. Now he has a job for her, but not what she expects. In a smartly written hour, she wedges into another case. At 9 p.m. is “All Creatures Great and Small,” with its turnaround: Unable to be a pilot, James is back home.
10) “Mayfair Witches,” 9 p.m. Sunday, AMC. Yes, this is about black magic, murder and other eerie stuff. But it’s richly filmed and skillfully written and acted. Lasher, a demon, is now in human form and has killed three Mayfair women. Now Rowan Mayfair plans to gather the clan and kill him. Her plan is iffy and unfolds slowly, but the final minutes are powerful.