It’s the most wonderful time of the year! There’s plenty new television to watch tonight, including the triumphant return of a classic 1990s newsroom comedy and liberal warrior (now with an even more polarizing foil than famous potato-misspeller Dan Quayle), but it’s all prelude and nightcap to the return of Screen Scholars current favorite The Good Place, as we get to see how our four souls, now granted a new lease on their mortal-plane lives, unwittingly try to balance the scales.

KATHERINE’S PICK:
The Good Place [NBC, 8p]
The gang is back on Earth for another shot, and maybe we’ll see how Tahani and Jason fare, now that they get a second chance. (At the very least, Michael takes public transportation, and we’ll see him save the crew.) Tonight’s premiere is an hour, which is really nice of NBC, because we’ve been dying for more since season two ended last spring.

JASON’S PICK:
The Good Place [NBC, 8p]
What happens when the afterlife itself goes through an existential crisis? As Michael, the demon, bonded more with the one-time victims of his grand torture scheme, he began to question the fairness of his universe’s value system if four people condemned to its “Bad Place” could become better people once they leave the trappings of the mortal world. While we got to see Eleanor’s new world and the briefest glimpse of Childi’s, tonight we are promised to get a fuller picture of Michael’s four-human redemption plan. And I, for one, am a giddy goat!

BRAD’S PICK:
The Good Place [NBC, 8p]
The Good Place went off the rails in the best way on its second season so we can’t wait to see what season 3 has in store as Michael tries creating a new timeline to see if Eleanor and the gang can become better people!

ALSO ON TAP TONIGHT:

• Could there be more perfect timing than today for the CBS return of the ’90s vanguard comedy starring Candice Bergen, Murphy Brown (or a more timely title for its first new episode in just over two decades than “Fake News”)
• While it may have been a less necessary reboot, S.W.A.T., whose second season, also on CBS begins today and we’re both thankful and annoyed that its original’s Billboard Number One theme is stuck in our head today (could be worse).
• Put your money in tentpoles today as ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and NBC’s Law & Order: SVU return for their 15th and 20th season premieres, both two hour events, tonight.