NBC, 8:00 p.m. ET
In tonight’s episode, one of the most popular characters and actors from the original Heroes shows up: the time-traveling Hiro Nakamura (played by Masi Oka), who may lure some of the show’s former fans who, like me, already have declared this reboot a subpar sequel. What Hiro does in this hour, I’m not sure – but what he should do is travel back in time to when the pilot for Heroes Reborn was being shot, and persuade them to rewrite it, and put him in the show from the start. Even time travelers can fall victim to the adage “Too little, too late.”
Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET
This week’s guest star is Betty White, playing a forensics expert. And if that sounds improbable, try this: Next week, Bones will do a one-time, same-night crossover episode with… Sleepy Hollow.
Bravo, 8:00 p.m. ET
This new edition of Inside the Actors Studio features Sarah Silverman, who’s bound to have some really funny responses, premeditated or not, to host James Lipton’s concluding questions. And maybe to some of the earlier ones, too. Her dramatic starring role in the film I Smile Back opens tomorrow, and other roles she’s likely to discuss with Lipton include her prostitute in A Million Ways to Die in the West, her lesbian in Showtime’s Masters of Sex, and herself in FX’s Louie and her own Comedy Central series, The Sarah Silverman Program.
Fox, 9:00 p.m. ET
Next week, this series presents a special Halloween crossover episode with Bones. Like tonight’s episode, it features the villain of this season’s Sleepy Hollow arc: Pandora, the mythical woman with the box full of evil. She’s played by Shannyn Sossamon (pictured) – and is not to be confused with Elizabeth Montgomery, who played a good witch on the classic Sixties sitcom Bewitched. Why might there be confusion? Because, on that witchly sitcom, Montgomery, who starred as Samantha, also occasionally played her lookalike cousin, an impish free spirit named Serena. And in the credits of those episodes, the role of Serena was credited, as a joke, to an actress named… Pandora Spocks. There. It took me 40 years, but I finally found an occasion on which to use that particular bit of worthless trivia.
NBC, 9:00 p.m. ET
In tonight’s episode, Red (James Spader) and Liz (Megan Boone), while still on the run themselves, try to track down a mysterious woman who specializes in fulfilling fantasies of revenge. She’s called the Djinn – and perhaps next week, to conclude the story, Red and Liz will look for a man named Rummy.