‘Creatures’ in Wartime, ‘Miss Scarlet’ Minus the Duke, NFL Wild Card Weekend, Down Under at the Australian Open and With Hallmark

SUNDAY: The beloved adaptation of James Herriot’s books continues to adjust to wartime in 1941 as the fifth season gets underway on a poignant note. While James (Nicholas Ralph) serves as a Royal Air Force pilot, though never far away from a veterinary crisis, back on the Yorkshire homefront of Darrowby, the usually crusty Siegfried (Samuel West) dotes on baby Jimmy, to the delight of his mother Helen (Rachel Shenton), who pines for James’ return. Ted Lasso’s Jeremy Swift joins the cast as officious air-raid warden Mr. Bosworth, who makes the grievous error of assuming housekeeper Mrs. Hall (Anna Madeley) isn’t suitable for service because of her gender. And it wouldn’t be Creatures without a terrific animal story, this time involving a housecat who has a surprising reason for playing dead.

SUNDAY: The Duke (Stuart Martin) has left Scotland Yard for the New York Police Department, which brings a new challenge to pioneering female private detective Eliza Scarlet (Kate Phillips), who’s going to spend much of the fifth season of this charming Victorian mystery trying to win over a new professional partner. Tom Durant Pritchard joins the series as the Yard’s stern new detective inspector Alexander Blake, a former soldier who is adamant about refusing the help of independent contractors like Miss Scarlet. That obviously won’t last. Their meet-cute occurs over a dead body, with Scarlet as usual a step ahead of the authorities.

SATURDAY: The opening round of the NFL playoffs is a bonanza for football fans, with two games Saturday, three on Sunday and a final wildcard game on Monday (relocated from California to Arizona because of the wildfires). The action begins Saturday on CBS (4:30 pm/ET) with the No. 5 Los Angeles Chargers at No. 4 Houston Texans, with Prime Video streaming the evening match between No. 6 Pittsburgh Steelers at No. 3 Baltimore Ravens (8 pm/ET). Sunday’s all-day lineup kicks off on CBS (1 pm/ET) with No. 7 Denver Broncos at No. 2 Buffalo Bills, moves to Fox (4:30 pm/ET) for the clash of No. 7 Green Bay Packers vs. No. 2 Philadelphia Eagles and ends in primetime on NBC (8 pm/ET) with No. 6 Washington Commanders at No. 3 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

SATURDAY: The first of the year’s Grand Slam tennis tournaments kicks off with day matches airing in prime time (evening matches air live in the wee hours at 3 am/ET). World No. 1 players Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka are reigning champs hoping for repeats. For a full schedule, go to espn.com.

SATURDAY: For those viewers caught in the grip of winter, Hallmark reminds you there are even colder climes out there in the story of Emma (Rhiannon Fish), whose journey to reach her father takes her to Antarctica. But first, she has to find a vessel to take her there, and when she misses a boat in South America, she sneaks onto a cruise ship, where an engineer (Markian Tarasiuk) provides distraction from her quest.

INSIDE WEEKEND TV:

• StuGo (Saturday, 8/7c, Disney Channel): A family-friendly animated series, which will air regularly on Sunday mornings at 9 am/8c, depicts the misadventures of six middle schoolers tricked by a mad scientist into attending an academic summer camp in the Florida wilds that’s a front for wilder experiments. The voice cast includes Girls’s Zosia Mamet, Empire’s Gabourey Sidibe, and The Equalizer’s Lorraine Toussaint.
• A Snapshot of Forever (Saturday, 8/7c, Great American Family): A wedding photographer (Natalie Dreyfuss) loses focus when a famous Hollywood star (Anthony Konechny) attends his sister’s small-town lakeside vineyard wedding.
• Terror Comes Knocking: The Marcela Borges Story (Saturday, 8/7c, Lifetime): Orange Is the New Black’s Dascha Polanco stars in a fact-based thriller as a pregnant mom protecting her family from masked gunmen who invade their Florida home and demand $200,000 which they don’t have.
• 60 Minutes (Sunday, 7/6c, CBS): Bill Whitaker reports from the site of the Los Angeles wildfires, Scott Pelley interviews outgoing FBI director Christopher Wray, and Cecilia Vega debriefs former State Department officials who left their jobs over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
• The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper (Sunday, 8/7c, CNN): Anderson Cooper reports from fire-ravaged Los Angeles for “LA Burning,” exploring the conditions that led to the devastating wildfires and interviewing survivors who lost everything.
• Heartland (Sunday, 7/6c, UPtv): The long-running Canadian family drama opens its 17th season with Amy (Amber Marshall) welcoming her very pregnant neighbor Mallory (Jessica Amlee) to the ranch with a wild horse. Elsewhere, her older sister Lou (Michelle Morgan) faces a familiar foe in her mayoral reelection bid.
• Anne Rice’s The Mayfair Witches (Sunday, 9/8c, AMC): While Rowan (Alexandra Daddario) confronts Lasher (Jack Huston) to try to halt his Mayfair killing spree, the supernatural series goes for baroque when trapped-in-stone Cortland (Harry Hamlin) encounters the spirit of his malicious and ravenous father, Julien (Ted Levine).
• Rogue Heroes (Sunday, 9/8c, MGM+): The WWII action drama from Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight returns for a second season, with Special Air Service (SAS) leader David Stirling a prisoner of war, leaving hotheaded Paddy (Jack O’Connell) to keep the unit from shutting down as the invasion of Europe looms.
• Landman (Sunday, 9 pm/ET, streaming on Paramount+): In light of alarming recent events, Tommy (Billy Bob Thornton) consults with Cami (Demi Moore) while the cartel makes its move in the Season 1 finale of Taylor Sheridan’s Texas oil drama.