A remarkable film featuring a can’t-miss-performance, “Elizabeth Is Missing” on “Masterpiece” (9 p.m. Sunday, PBS, TV-14, check local listings) may be too harrowing for some. Glenda Jackson, in her first television role in three decades, stars as Maud, a feisty elderly woman living alone, in spite of encroaching dementia. She goes about her life, making tea, gardening and visiting her old colleagues at her former haunt, the Salvation Army, but needs Post-it notes to remind her of the most mundane details, like locking the front door.
Her dwindling powers of concentration become sporadically focused after her longtime friend Elizabeth (Maggie Steed) vanishes.
Maud is also haunted by a mystery from her past. After discovering an old compact buried in Elizabeth’s garden, her mind travels back to 1949, when her older and far more glamorous sister also disappeared.
As distant memories and waking reality blend, Maud continues to collect evidence about both missing women, and in doing so allows Jackson to not only portray a woman in decline but the latest iteration of the “defective detective” genre that has stretched from Sherlock Holmes to “Monk” and beyond.
2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the program once called “Masterpiece Theatre.” It also marks a half-century since the BBC production of “Elizabeth R,” a miniseries profile of the first Queen Elizabeth, starring Glenda Jackson in the title role. Its 1972 broadcast on “Masterpiece Theatre” helped establish the PBS institution.
— Fox premieres “Call Me Kat” (8 p.m. Sunday, TV-PG). Mayim Bialik (“Blossom,” “The Big Bang Theory”) stars in this remake of “Miranda,” a hit U.K. series starring Miranda Hart (“Call the Midwife”) as a woman of a certain age and a certain size who has long since stopped caring about what other people think of her choices, her looks, her single status and her quirks.
The comedy requires Kat to interrupt the action and speak directly to the audience about her real feelings about the situation. This technique was most recently employed in the U.K. hit “Fleabag,” which streams on Amazon Prime. Don’t go looking for the sexual content or frankness of that award-winning comedy. “Kat” is a perfectly silly and effervescent show, and Bialik frequently charms.
A strong supporting cast includes Swoosie Kurtz as Kat’s status-obsessed mother and Leslie Jordan (“Will & Grace”) and Kyla Pratt as her assistants at the Kat Cafe, her combination coffee shop and animal shelter. Cheyenne Jackson stars as the impossibly good-looking friend from her past and the object of Kat’s secret longings.
Also debuting, the animated comedy “The Great North” (8:30 p.m. Sunday, Fox, TV-PG) features the voice of Nick Offerman as Beef Tobin, a lonely, abandoned dad who has taken his family to the outer reaches of Alaska, the setting of a thousand Discovery Channel series. Jenny Slate voices Judy, his 16-year-old daughter who sees visions of her imaginary friend, Alanis Morissette (as herself) in the Northern Lights. The pilot revolves around the lies the kids tell to keep Dad from being miserable. Like “Kat,” this sad-com shows some heart, but isn’t exactly brimming with laughs.
— A glance back at a unique moment in history when popular culture, once consigned to “kids’ stuff,” encroached on the world of politics, governing and diplomacy, “Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President” (9 p.m. Sunday, CNN) includes interviews with the 39th president’s fellow Georgian Gregg Allman, Nobel laureate Bob Dylan and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about how music both influenced Carter and how the “soft power” of America’s pop culture came to influence the world.
SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— A dream vacation becomes a nightmare in the 2021 thriller “Kidnapped in Paradise” (8 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).
— “Pit Bulls & Parolees: My Favorite Moments” (8 p.m., Animal Planet) glances back.
— A singer’s (Tracee Ellis Ross) personal assistant (Dakota Johnson) reaches for her big break in the 2020 comedy “The High Note” (8 p.m., HBO).
— A ballerina helps a hockey star recuperate in the 2021 romance “Taking a Shot at Love” (9 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
— “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice” (9 p.m., CNN) profiles the popular singer over a half-century of hits and personal struggles.
SUNDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— Scheduled on “60 Minutes” (7:30 p.m., CBS): Victims of internet conspiracy theories fight back; the Supreme Court frees a man tried six times for multiple murders without evidence; Igor Levit, a German pianist who fought COVID isolation by streaming performances over Twitter.
— “The Watch” (8 p.m., BBC America, TV-14) debuts, adapted from the “Discworld” series by Terry Pratchett.
— After a woman is kidnapped on her wedding day, she can’t decide if her abductor may actually be a lifesaver in the 2021 shocker “Fatal Fiance” (8 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).
— Washington and Philadelphia meet in NFL action (8:20 p.m., NBC).
— Time flies on the 9th season premiere of “Last Man Standing” (9:30 p.m., Fox, TV-PG).
— Truth and consequences on the third season premiere of “The Rookie” (10 p.m., ABC, TV-14).
— Michael uncovers a blackmailing plot on “Your Honor” (10 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).
CULT CHOICE
— Recently published, “Alright, Alright, Alright” by Melissa Maerz (Harper Collins) offers an oral history of the making of the 1993 coming-of-age classic “Dazed and Confused” (8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Saturday, Vice, TV-14), directed by Richard Linklater.
SATURDAY SERIES
Guilt on “Magnum P.I.” (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14) … “Ellen’s Game of Games” (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG) … Athena’s risk on “9-1-1” (8 p.m., Fox, r, TV-14) … “To Tell the Truth” (8 p.m., ABC, r, TV-PG).
Thin-skinned on the blue wall on “Blue Bloods” (9 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14) … “The Wall” (9 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG) … A gender-reveal fiasco on “9-1-1: Lone Star” (9 p.m., Fox, r, TV-14) … “Shark Tank” (9 p.m., ABC, r, TV-PG).
“48 Hours” (10 p.m., CBS) … A vintage helping of “Saturday Night Live” (10 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14) … A shocking discovery on “The Rookie” (10 p.m., ABC, r, TV-14).
SUNDAY SERIES
“Football Night in America” (7 p.m., NBC, TV-14) … “Supermarket Sweep” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … “Penn & Teller: Try This at Home Too” (8 p.m., CW, r, TV-PG).
Murder and abduction on “NCIS: Los Angeles” (8:30 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … Comic book guy: the next generation on “The Simpsons” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” (9 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) … Overwhelmed on the finale of “The Outpost” (9 p.m., CW, TV-14) … High-tech evidence on “NCIS: New Orleans” (9:30 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … The starving daughter of a vanished officer on “NCIS” (10:30 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
