Hugh Laurie has played a canny politician before (notably on “Veep”). Tonight, he gets to use his natural English accent to play an ambitious UK minister about to about to be upgraded despite a few secrets in his closet. David Hare wrote the four-episode “Roadkill” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings), with a lot of machinations among its numerous story lines. Laurie has charm enough to compensate for his character’s flaws. But you may have to put on the closed caption to get everything that’s being said.
They’ve got their hands full with COVID, but the scientists and researchers documented in “Virus Hunters” (National Geographic, 8 p.m.) are also looking for the next virus that could cause a pandemic.
The World Series prevented the Halloween episodes of Fox cartoons from being shown last week, so here they are, a day late, in standard time: “The Simpsons” (Fox, 8 p.m.) presents Treehouse of Horror XXXI, leading into a Halloween themed episodes of “Bless the Harts” (Fox, 8:30 p.m.) and “Bob’s Burgers” (Fox, 9 p.m.).
The week, Keith Raniere was sentence to 120 years in prison, and we are given a third episode of “Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult” (Starz, 9 p.m.).
“The Comedy Store” (Showtime, 10 p.m.) spends its final episode looking at the death of club owner Mitzi Shore.