NBA Finals, take 3
The Golden State Warriors host the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2017 NBA Finals (9 p.m., ABC). Do not adjust your set. This is not a repeat. It’s just that these two teams are meeting in the finals for the third straight year.
Such dominance by two teams is rare in any sport. In baseball, the New York Yankees won five World Series in a row between 1949 and 1953. While they played the Brooklyn Dodgers three times in that span (1949 and 1952-53), not even that great rivalry featured a three-peat, or a “three-match” as this has been called.
A special edition of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-14) anticipates the big game.
HIGH DRAMA IN MUSIC CITY
“Nashville” (9 p.m., CMT, TV-PG) resumes its fifth season with a talky episode that might just as well be called “From Here to Paternity.”
Scarlett (Clare Bowen) is torn up because she doesn’t know the father of her unborn child. Her on-and-off love interest Gunnar (Sam Palladio) sure hopes it’s his, but it might be the result of a brief fling with the director of a music video. Upon such dilemmas are soap operas made.
Meanwhile, Daphne (Maisy Stella) finally gets her chance to act out after years in the shadow of her drama-queen sister, Maddie (Lennon Stella). Deacon (Charles Esten) just can’t understand why she’s misbehaving. Could it be that she’s an adolescent who just lost her mother five minutes ago? A girl whose biological father, Teddy (Eric Close), is in prison? And who is now being raised by her sister’s father, but not her own? Deacon tries to talk this through, and both see a therapist to hash out their feelings. And this fills the episode with so much earnest and obvious chatter.
Not to give too much away, during a rebellious moment, Daphne happens upon a talented kindred spirit who is also a homeless person. Didn’t Scarlett do that a few seasons back?
For all of its soapy moments, “Nashville” continues to delight viewers with great harmonies and catchy numbers. It’s one of the few shows with “montage” music that seems organic to the story.
Sadly, not long after the fictional death of its star, Rayna James (Connie Britton), the “Nashville” family lost the actor Powers Boothe (1948-2017), who played Rayna’s politically powerful father, Lamar, in the show’s first several seasons.