While its first season about the Ebola pandemic started before the current pandemic, the second season of the anthology “The Hot Zone: Anthrax” (National Geographic, 9 p.m.), as the title indicates, concentrates on the deadly white powder that started to appear just after 9/11 when everyone was already on edge. Daniel Dae Kim, Tony Goldwyn and Dylan Baker star. There’s a lot of facts about anthrax that you’ve already forgotten, and a serviceable tension established in the first episode. But it may be worth watching if only for Harry Hamlin’s terrible Tom Brokaw impersonation.
It figures that the now-grown John Boy, Richard Thomas, would take on the narrator’s duty for “The Walton’s Homecoming” (CW, 8 p.m.), a Depression era tale with a whole new John Boy in Logan Shroyer. Ben Lawson and Bellamy Young play the parents of the famous rural family. The family Christmas movie is a rarity for the CW.
It’s one of an astounding five new original Christmas movies on tonight all at the same time, including “The Christmas Contest” (Hallmark, 8 p.m.) with both Candace Cameron Bure and Barbara Niven; “Miracle in Motor City” (Lifetime, 8 p.m.) with Tina Mowry and Smokey Robinson; “A Christmas Witness” (ION, 8 p.m.) and “Christmas is You” (GAC Family, 8 p.m.).
“One Last Time: An Evening With Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett” (CBS, 8 p.m.) pairs the classic crooner on the occasion of his 95th birthday — and his quitting of concerts — in a show taped with Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall last August.