Best Bets
7 p.m. on DISC Gold Rush
The coronavirus pandemic shut down most of the world in March 2020, but it also provided the opportunity of a lifetime to gold miners, driving up the value of gold to record highs even as a miner’s biggest expense — fuel, to drive his equipment — plummeted in price. In the all-new season that opens tonight with a three-hour special, veteran miners Parker Schnabel, Tony Beets and Rick Ness take huge gambles to make up for lost time, while greenhorn miners hope to make their own mark.
7 p.m. on LIFE Movie: Christmas on Ice
Courtney, a former champion figure skater who now runs her city’s outdoor ice skating rink, falls in love with Noah, an unlikely benefactor, just as she embarks on a critical endeavor: rallying the resources of her young skating class to throw a Christmas carnival and save the recreational heart of her community. Abigail Klein, Ryan Cooper, Caroline Portu, Will Lyman and Meara Mahoney-Gross star in this 2020 romance.
7 p.m. on LMN Movie: Trapped by My Father’s Killer
Five years after her testimony sent Louis (Craig Olejnik) to prison for the murder of her father and his fiancée, Diana (Lindy Booth, “The Librarians”) is horrified when she returns home to discover Louis has escaped from prison to confront her. Holding her captive, Louis tries to convince Diana he is not guilty of those two murders. Eventually, Diana begins to doubt her recollections of what she really saw on the night of the killings in this 2020 thriller.
7:15 p.m. on MAX Movie: The Quarry
Adapted from a novel by Damon Galgut, this 2020 mystery thriller from director and co-screenwriter Scott Teems stars Shea Whigham (HBO’s “Perry Mason”) as an enigmatic new minister who arrives in a desolate Texas town to take over services at a rundown church. Over time, his congregation begins to grow, but so do the suspicions of the hard-bitten police chief (Michael Shannon) and several other locals. Catalina Sandino, Bobby Soto, Bruno Bichir and Alvaro Martinez also star.
8 p.m. on CW World’s Funniest Animals
Host Elizabeth Stanton, along with her panelists and guests, observe a fresh batch of clips featuring animals caught in unusual and amusing acts in tonight’s new episode. A deer who crashes into a diner is among the highlights, along with a window-washing cat and one of the boldest baby birds anyone has ever seen.
8 p.m. on OWN Ready to Love
Host Tommy Miles welcomes an all-new cast of 10 men and 10 women from Houston as this relationship series opens Season 2, this one filmed under health regulations dictated by the coronavirus pandemic. Executive producer Will Packer joins Miles to introduce the new re
cruits, all of whom have been pre-tested for COVID-19 and cleared to quarantine together at a luxury mountain resort for the duration of production.
8:30 p.m. on PBS American Masters
The new episode “Michael Tilson Thomas:
Where Now Is” profiles the celebrated conductor who burst onto the classical music scene in 1969 when he stepped in for Boston Symphony conductor William Steinberg, who had fallen ill in mid-concert. From there, he embarked on a distinguished and occasionally idiosyncratic career that has earned him 11 Grammy Awards. This documentary follows Tilson Thomas from his childhood in California to the world stage. In addition to the conductor, interviewees include composer Steve Reich, architect Frank Gehry and Joshua Robison, Tilson Thomas’ husband.
9 p.m. on MAX Warrior
As the police prepare to exact retribution, Chao (Hoon Lee) comes to Bill (Kieran Bew) with a mutually beneficial proposal in the new episode “If You Don’t See Blood, You Didn’t Come to Play.” Meanwhile, a sympathetic Sophie (Celine Buckens) offers Leary (Dean Jagger) a new plan. Elsewhere, Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji) and Penny (Joanna Vanderham) share a meaningful moment as he confides to her his plans for the future. Langley Kirkwood, Tom Weston-Jones and Christian McKay also star.
10 p.m. on HBO How to With John Wilson
Documentary filmmaker and self-described “anxious New Yorker” John Wilson embarks on an amusing odyssey of self-discovery and cultural observation in this new six-episode “docu-comedy” in which he dispenses everyday advice on relatable topics, while obsessively filming the behavior of his fellow New Yorkers. The episodes take some wildly unexpected turns that remain grounded in Wilson’s refreshing candor. First up: “How to Make Small Talk.”