Bugging Out, School Daze on ABC, Early Hitchcock, Freeform’s Scam Goddess

Get down and dirty with the Earth’s smallest creatures in a second season of the nature series cheekily narrated by Awkwafina. From National Geographic and inspired by the 1998 Pixar hit A Bug’s Life, the five-part Season 2 (all episodes available for binge-watching) includes a behind-the-scenes account of how the filmmakers capture and magnify these intimate images of buggy behavior. Locations include Tennessee’s Smoky Mountain Forest, where fireflies and stag beetles look for love, a tropical beach that provides the backdrop for a young hermit crab’s survival story, an English pond where a delicate damselfly evades predators, and Australia, with a preening peacock spider and a weevil taking the spotlight.

Launching to strong ratings last week, Tim Allen’s new sitcom heads to high school, where Allen (as custom-car restoration shop owner Matt) grunts and rants at an open house about new-fangled “accommodations” made for anxious students like his own grandson, Carter (Maxwell Simkins). Unsurprisingly, it’s another opportunity for Grandpa Matt to lock horns with sardonic daughter Riley (Kat Dennings), who sets up a former classmate with Matt’s co-worker Gabriel (Seann William Scott).

Coming off last week’s sensational crossover with the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the teachers get back to the business of educating, with Janine (Quinta Brunson) rethinking her approach after her class underperforms on a practice test. While Jacob (Chris Perfetti) tries to inspire a bored student, Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) plays mentor when the district sends him a new custodian to train.

TCM explores the formative years of legendary director (and personal obsession) Alfred Hitchcock in England with a series of films, starting with Laurent Bouzereau’s 2024 documentary that identifies themes and cinematic techniques that Hitchcock would carry with him to Hollywood (at 8/7c). Becoming Hitchcock focuses heavily on the 1929 film Blackmail, which bridged the silent and sound eras and is considered England’s first full-length sound feature. The film was shot in a silent version, with separate takes to prepare for an innovative use of sound. TCM screens both versions of Blackmail, the silent edition at 9:15/8:15c and with sound at 12:15 am/11:15c. The tribute continues overnight with 1930’s Murder! at 2 am/1c and 1931’s The Skin Game at 4 am/3c. More movies follow next Wednesday.

Comedian Laci Mosley turns her Scam Goddess podcast into a series, hitting the road to expose small-town swindlers and big-city hucksters. The journey begins in Dixon, Illinois, where the town treasurer Rita Crundwell bilked more than $53 million from the community to help fund her obsession with horses. Mosley interviews the whistleblower who helped unseat Rita from her high-priced saddle. Future episodes unravel Ponzi schemes, a duplicitous pastor, and fake royalty.

INSIDE WEDNESDAY TV:

• Celebrity Jeopardy! (9/8c, ABC): Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson competes in the season’s second quarterfinal, which would intimidate me, but will it faze celeb contestants Melissa Peterman (Happy’s Place) and Jackie Tohn (from GLOW and The Boys)?
• An Update on Our Family (9/8c, HBO): A three-part docuseries, airing weekly, examines the social-media phenomenon of family vlogging, focusing on the rise and fall of Ohio parents Myka and James Stauffer, whose celebrated adoption of a 2.5-year-old Chinese boy they named Huxley backfired when they stopped showing the youth in their videos.
• Racers Roundtable (10/9c, MAVTV): Racing legends Danny Sullivan and Tony Stewart return with more conversations with their peers, starting with an Indianapolis 500-focused chat with past winners Scott Dixon, Will Power, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Arie Luyendyk.
• Love Island: All Stars (streaming on Peacock): Reality stars from the U.K. head to South Africa for romantically charged hanky-panky, with episodes streaming daily at 9 pm/ET.
• Matlock (streaming on Paramount+): No relation except by name to the current CBS hit starring Kathy Bates, all nine seasons of the 1986-95 Andy Griffith legal drama (including the NBC and ABC runs) are now available for streaming.