Rip & Beth On The ‘Dutton Ranch,’ ‘Outlander’ Finale, ‘Rivals’ Returns, Tip of the ‘Top Hat’

Dutton Ranch

The Yellowstone spinoff that fans have been anticipating since the original series signed off in December 2024, Dutton Ranch follows the fierce Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and her rugged cowboy soulmate Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) from Montana to Texas, where they start anew. This time they’re underdogs in the burg of La Paloma, where they soon lock horns with a ranching dynasty led by Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening). Like the Duttons, the Jacksons harbor dark secrets they’d kill to keep private. Oscar winner Ed Harris co-stars as a compassionate veterinarian who bonds with Beth over an ailing horse, revealing her softer side. (See the full review.)

Outlander

Can Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitríona Balfe) cheat fate one last time? Or has their history already been written? Such questions haunt the time-tripping romantic fantasy as it presents its final chapter after eight enthralling seasons (with a final volume yet to be written by book author Diana Gabaldon). With the American Revolution as a backdrop, Jamie rushes into the battle of King’s Mountain in colonial North Carolina, aware that a history book written by Claire’s first husband, Frank (Tobias Menzies), in the 20th century cites him as a casualty of war. However it turns out, their love story spanning centuries will endure.

Rivals

The 1980s were a golden age for prime-time soaps, and this juicy British melodrama about media, politics, sex, and scandal evokes that vibe colorfully, depicting the high-stakes war being waged in 1987 between local media magnate Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) and dashing MP Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell). The second season (launching with three episodes) opens at, where else, a polo match in the Cotswolds’ county of, ahem, Rutshire, where passions ignite among the many tangled lives in these high-profile antagonists’ orbit. Joining the cast: Hayley Atwell as Rupert’s ex-wife and Rupert Everett as her husband, who was once ex-Olympian Rupert’s show-jumping coach and mentor.

Great Performances

A throwback to the Art Deco 1930s, in particular the 1935 film classic starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, a revival of the stage adaptation of Irving Berlin’s Top Hat was filmed in January in London’s West End as a highlight of Great Performances’ “Broadway’s Best” series. Distinguished by Tony winner Kathleen Marshall‘s (Anything Goes) tap-heavy choreography and the timeless Irving Berlin score (featuring such standards as “Cheek to Cheek,” the title song and, from the Berlin songbook, “Puttin’ on the Ritz”), the musical comedy stars So You Think You Can Dance alum and Astaire Award winner Phillip Attmore as song-and-dance man Jerry Travers and Amara Okereke as socialite Dale Tremont, whose romance is complicated by a mistaken-identity farce. After watching this, seek out the original movie. It can’t be topped.

For All Mankind

A tense episode of the first-rate alt-history space drama finds the Sojourner crew weighing the risks of an away mission now that they’ve landed on Titan. Things are even more fraught on Mars, where a military force, including third-generation space traveler A.J. (Ines Asserson), is approaching to take back control of the asteroid, prompting the weakened rebels to take drastic action.

INSIDE FRIDAY TV:

• Celebrity Jeopardy! All Stars (8/7c, ABC): The season finale pits Steven Weber, Mina Kimes, and Season 1 champ Ike Barinholtz in a trivia battle, with the winner earning $1 million for their charity.
• Sheriff Country (8/7c, CBS): Country star Maren Morris guest-stars as Skye’s (Amanda Arcuri) sponsor in Season 1’s penultimate episode, with Sheriff Mickey Fox (Morena Baccarin) helping feds investigate local land deals in a case involving interstate crime. Followed by Fire Country (9/8c), where Station 42 comes to the rescue when a fire at Pineville Dam causes a series of infrastructure meltdowns.
• Amadeus (9:20/8:20c, Starz): Marriage brings anything but bliss to Mozart (Will Sharpe) and Constanze (Gabrielle Creevy) as the composer clashes with his hypercritical father (Jonathan Aris) and suffers a terrible personal loss. Pouring his grief into his music, Mozart’s genius sends his envious rival Salieri (Paul Bettany) into a self-pitying spiral, raging against God: “You gave me just enough talent to know how little I truly possess.”
• The Last Woodsmen (9/8c, Discovery Channel): The reality series’ third season brings winter to the Pacific Northwest, with the Cypress Creek Crew scrambling to raise $1 million in eight weeks to get control of the Forever Claim.
• Boston Blue (10/9c, CBS): Someone’s targeting cops in the penultimate episode of the Blue Bloods spinoff’s first season. On the political front, D.A. Mae (Gloria Reuben) makes a revelation that causes her detective daughter Lena (Sonequa Martin-Green) to make a fateful decision.

ON THE STREAM:

• It’s Not Like That (streaming on Prime Video): The appealing family drama, with elements of Parenthood, 7th Heaven, and This Is Us in its DNA, expands beyond the Wonder Project platform, starring Scott Foley as a widowed pastor and Erinn Hayes as his newly divorced best friend, whose intertwined families grew up together.
• Couples Therapy (streaming on Paramount+): Four new couples consult Dr. Orna Guralnik in Season 5 of the acclaimed docuseries. (The first three episodes air Sunday at 10/9c, back-to-back-to-back on Paramount+ with Showtime.)
• The Crash (streaming on Netflix): A true-crime documentary explores the 2022 tragedy when Ohio teenager Mackenzie Shirilla drove a car into a brick wall, killing her boyfriend, Dom, and his friend Davion in an incident that detectives soon realized was not an accident.
• Your Friends & Neighbors (streaming on Apple TV): The shady billionaire Owen Ashe (James Marsden) invites Coop (Jon Hamm) and his crew to his Hamptons mansion for the weekend, but interlopers crashing the party give everyone, including Ashe’s girlfriend Sam (Olivia Munn), second thoughts about the charismatic mystery man. Back home, Mel’s (Amanda Peet) vendetta with her neighbors takes its most mortifying turn to date.
• Lisa Ann Walter: It Was an Accident (streaming on Hulu): The Abbott Elementary star returns to her stand-up roots for a bawdy set before a crowd in Philadelphia, Abbott‘s setting.