ESPN, 4:00 p.m. ET
The men’s and women’s championships at this year’s U.S. Open couldn’t be more different. On the women’s side, one high-ranked seed after another fell before the championship match, including top-ranked and calendar-Slam-chasing Serena Williams, leaving the fight for the biggest trophy to a pair of Italian women: No. 26 seed Flavia Pennetta and unseeded Roberta Vinci. Pennetta, 33, won in an elegantly fought match, then stunned the crowd, and everyone else, by announcing that she’d decided, a month ago, to retire after the U.S. Open – allowing her, thanks to her play the last two weeks, to retire as champion, with her first major victory ever. Amazing, dramatic – and it only happened because Vinci upset Williams in their match the day before. Now compare that unexpected drama, between two relatively unknown players, with today’s championship match on the men’s side: No. 1 seed Novak Djokovic vs. No. 2 seed Roger Federer, who accomplished everything they needed to do to get here. They’ve played each other 41 times before, and Federer has won 21 times, Djokovic 20 – so as personal rivalries go, it couldn’t be any more even. At Wimbledon, Djokovic beat Federer in the final last year (pictured), and the year before. Overall, Federer has 17 major titles, Djokovic nine. At the U.S. Open, Federer won five times, consecutively from 2004-2008, including one victory over Djokovic in 2007. Djokovic has won the U.S. Open once, in 2011. In this year’s Open, both players defeated their semifinal opponents in straight sets rather commandingly, and today’s championship ought to be a dramatic and impressive win – but only for one of them.
PBS, 8:00 p.m. ET
Part 2 of 3. This stylish miniseries, based on a true account in the life of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, casts Doc Martin star Martin Clunes as Holmes, who’s investigating the cold case of a Scottish-Indian lawyer, played by Arsher Ali, who was convicted, and served time, for a series of crimes Doyle suspects he didn’t commit. Charles Edwards from Downton Abbey plays Alfred Wood, Doyle’s personal assistant, who, like Watson to Holmes, is there to help, and to provide occasional bits of levity. Check local listings.
NBC, 8:20 p.m. ET
NBC already presented its season-opening game on Thursday, but this is the first Sunday Night Football broadcast to be played this year on an actual Sunday. It’s Dallas Cowboys vs. New York Giants, a game that has the Cowboys favored overwhelmingly, but Eli Manning providing continued marquee value, and a bit of unpredictability, on the New York side.
AMC, 9:00 p.m. ET
After taking a week off for Labor Day weekend, this top-rated new cable series is back – and since this is the first of the shows AMC didn’t provide to critics for preview, I don’t know what happens next. All I know is, I want to watch.
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
In tonight’s episode, Person of Interest co-star Sarah Shahi, guest stars, playing an Armenian pop star. While that may be surprising in itself (Armenia has pop stars?), it’s especially notable because it allows Shahi to share scenes not only with Ray Donovan titular star Liev Schreiber, but with Ray’s assistant Lena, played by Katherine Moenning, who starred with Shahi on a previous Showtime series, The L Word.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
SERIES RETURN: This illuminating reality series on creative filmmaking premiered in 2001, ran for a few seasons, then became dormant – until now, when HBO picked it up for a new run. In the original series, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were the big names attached to selecting filmmakers to make their first movies, with a documentary crew capturing the behind-the-scenes process, problems, and occasional solutions. A lot of the day-to-day producing work, overseeing the new talent, went to Chris Moore, who went on to head his own reality series about filmmaking, Starz’s The Chair. That series, by choosing the most insecure or too-secure filmmakers to follow, ended up being horrible to watch – as did their films. Let’s hope Project Greenlight, after more than a decade off, fares better.
HBO, 10:40 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: The first season of Doll & Em was all about the power struggles, and shifts, between actress Emily Mortimer and best friend Dolly Wells – who play exaggerated versions of themselves. For this second season, the two TV characters, like their real-life creators, have decided to collaborate, isolating themselves in a lighthouse to write a play, which they rush right to Broadway to try and sell as first-time playwrights. And if it seems obvious where this season is going, straight to disillusionment and failure, it’s not going there. Before the season opener is over, Doll and Em not only have a play, they have a New York theater.