Every generation gets the “Columbo” it deserves. And now it looks like we have two. Peacock’s “Poker Face” stars Natasha Lyonne as a detective on the run, a woman evading her pursuers and finding killers on an episodic basis with her unerring ability to tell when people are lying. CBS joins the fray with “Elsbeth” (10 p.m., TV-PG), a spinoff of “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” affording the recurring character Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston) a series of her own.
As fans of those series know, they were set in Chicago (but shot in New York). Here, Elsbeth is portrayed as a once-busy lawyer sick of using her skills to free the obviously guilty. She takes an assignment from a federal prosecutor to monitor the activities of New York officers under legal scrutiny.
Dressed as a goofy tourist, she arrives in the Big Apple wearing a foam Statue of Liberty hat. She projects the disarming image of a rube to disguise her legal acumen and keen observational skills. While tailing a detective, she soon develops theories of her own about the apparent suicide of an acting student, found dead in her posh high-rise apartment, paid for by her real estate tycoon parents. While a trail of despondent texts points to a desire to end it all, Elsbeth smells a rat in the presence of the deceased student’s acting teacher (Stephen Moyer), a man, she discovers, who had a history of casting-couch relationships with fetching young thespians.
NYPD officer Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson) comes to overlook Elsbeth’s evident quirks and learns to appreciate her gut instincts learned over years as a defense attorney. Her gruff superior, Captain C.W. Wagner (Wendell Pierce), takes a little longer, but he soon warms to her abilities enough for her to fully partner with the department at the end of the pilot episode.
Preston’s Elsbeth is a winning blend of Columbo’s shambling and annoying persistence with the no-nonsense “mom” energy projected by Frances McDormand as Det. Marge Gunderson in the original “Fargo.” Elsbeth’s naive tourist routine can seem almost campy at times, as if Flo from those Progressive commercials had branched into crime detection. But it also offers an interesting take on the show’s setting. With the exception of cops, over the course of the pilot episode, Elsbeth never encounters any “real” New Yorkers, like cab drivers or pizza chefs. From Times Square to Lincoln Center, the town is depicted as a succession of gleaming facades, a place only for tourists, students and out-of-towners. Whether a genuine hick or only playing a part, it looks like Elsbeth will fit right in.
While only the pilot was made available for review, it’s worth noting that the episode has a TV-PG rating. Clearly a murder mystery, it is free of the dark, paranoid violence of so many CBS procedurals. Just another way it hearkens back to “Columbo” and other detective series from a kinder, gentler era.
— Produced by ABC News, the new Hulu true-crime series “Me, Hereafter” allows murder victims to describe their final days and hours from beyond the grave.
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— An active shooter targets a hospital on “Law & Order” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
— A creep targets budget tourists on “Law & Order: SVU” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
— Murder stalks a beach town on “Law & Order: Organized Crime” (10 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
— A prison interview proves revealing on “Will Trent” (10 p.m., ABC, r, TV-14).
— The absence of a school cafeteria lunch dessert sparks mayhem in the Adult Swim cartoon “Royal Crackers” (midnight, Cartoon Network).
CULT CHOICE
Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, Bill Murray and Chevy Chase star in the 1980 country club culture clash comedy “Caddyshack” (11:30 p.m., BBC America, TV-14).
SERIES NOTES
A watch on the Rhine on “Young Sheldon” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … “Next Level Chef” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … Hometown visits on “American Idol” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-14) … A near-death experience spoils the holiday mood on “Ghosts” (8:30 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … Margaret defends a notorious peer on “So Help Me Todd” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … “Farmer Wants a Wife” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
LATE NIGHT
Jimmy Fallon welcomes Millie Bobby Brown, Gordon Cormier and ScHoolboy Q on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC) … Eugene Levy, Anna Sawai and The Kid LAROI appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (11:35 p.m., ABC).
Jamie Dornan and Fred Armisen visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC) … Taylor Tomlinson hosts W. Kamau Bell, Nish Kumar and Anjelah Johnson-Reyeson “After Midnight” (12:35 a.m., CBS).
