Thursday TV Blitz: ‘Elsbeth’ Season 4 and New Legal Drama ‘Cupertino’ Hit CBS; ‘Avatar: Seven Havens’ Lands Friday on Paramount+

Thursday is the busiest night of the fall TV season. CBS stacks its Thursday lineup with the Season 4 return of Elsbeth at 9 p.m. ET and the series premiere of the new legal drama Cupertino at 10 p.m. ET — and the next night, Paramount+ launches Avatar: Seven Havens with a three-episode premiere. Here is your complete guide to the 48-hour blitz.

NEW YORK — First up: Carrie Preston is back as Elsbeth Tascioni, the delightfully unconventional attorney who helps the NYPD outthink New York’s most clever — and most theatrical — killers. Elsbeth Season 4 premieres Thursday, October 8, at 9 p.m. ET on CBS, with episodes streaming on Paramount+.

The premiere, titled “Crazy in Love,” finds Elsbeth investigating a deadly case connected to celebrity matchmaker Serena Collyer, played by guest star Nicole Scherzinger. The season’s brief, per CBS: killers among New York City’s elite, with fresh mysteries, familiar faces and a new lineup of high-profile suspects for television’s most cheerful crime-solver.

The core team returns intact: Wendell Pierce as Captain C.W. Wagner, Carra Patterson as Officer Kaya Blanke, Danny Mastrogiorgio as Detective Bobby Smullen, plus Daniel K. Isaac and Lindsay Mendez. The season balances the case-of-the-week machinery with family stakes — Teddy sets a wedding date — and increased pressure inside the 11th Precinct. The trailer even teases a will-they-won’t-they spark between Scherzinger’s character and the happily married Bobby Smullen.

The guest-star bench is the show’s signature, and Season 4 does not skimp: Nicole Scherzinger, Lea Michele, Gloria Reuben, Jemima Kirke, Succession’s Nicholas Braun and Knicks star OG Anunoby, with John Doman, Isaac Powell, Tommy Dorfman, Richard Thomas, Betsy Aidem, Nat Faxon and Sam Richardson also appearing. The series remains a spinoff of The Good Wife, run by showrunners Robert King, Michelle King and Jonathan Tolins.

The 10 p.m. hour belongs to the new kid. Cupertino, from Robert and Michelle King, stars Mike Colter as Michael Price, a Silicon Valley attorney cheated out of his stock options and fired by the tech startup that employed him. Rather than accept the loss, he teams up with Olivia Siffre (Rachel Keller), a fellow recently fired attorney, to launch an underdog firm devoted to clients exploited by the tech elite — suing powerful tech giants for each other and for other exploited workers in what CBS describes as a “Strangers on a Train”-style tactic.

The ensemble is stacked with King-universe talent: Renée Elise Goldsberry as Nichole E. Ferebee, a brilliant opposing attorney with a romantic history with Michael; Busy Philipps as Natalia Boutella, the ex-wife of an AI billionaire who bankrolls the new firm as payback against the ex who dumped her at 40; Ella Stiller as Christy Palladino, the team’s young assistant; and Nik Dodani. The premiere, “Michael & Olivia,” features guest stars Joe Morton and Steven Pasquale. The series takes its name from Cupertino, California — the Santa Clara County city that is home to Apple Inc. — and it is already leaving marks on the map: the borough of Leonia, New Jersey, is hosting the production this week, with its Municipal Center and police station appearing in the new drama.

The Kings describe Cupertino as a David vs. Goliath story for the age of big tech. Robert King has said the idea grew from watching the “move fast and break things” disruptors become the people in charge — the interesting stories, to the Kings, belong to the people getting squeezed at the bottom trying to correct what the people at the top are doing. Colter is blunter about his character’s engine: “At first it’s sort of a personal vendetta.” Cupertino airs Thursdays at 10/9c on CBS and streams on Paramount+ — live via the Paramount+ Premium plan, or next day on any plan — on a weekly release.

Then, on Friday, October 9, a new Avatar era begins. Avatar: Seven Havens premieres its first season on Paramount+ with a three-episode drop — the first new animated chapter of the Avatar universe in years.

The series is set about 225 years after The Legend of Korra, in a post-apocalyptic world where a massive cataclysm has shattered both the physical and Spirit Worlds. Humanity now survives inside seven fortified strongholds — the Seven Havens of the title. It is there that Pavi, a 9-year-old earthbender, discovers she is the next Avatar.

It is a bold swing for the franchise: the youngest Avatar protagonist yet, in the bleakest world the series has ever shown. For a universe built on balance, starting from a shattered world is the most interesting possible premise — and a three-episode premiere means viewers get a real movie’s worth of story on night one.

How to watch it all: Elsbeth Season 4 premieres Thursday, October 8 at 9/8c on CBS, streaming on Paramount+. Cupertino premieres Thursday, October 8 at 10/9c on CBS, streaming on Paramount+. Avatar: Seven Havens premieres Friday, October 9 on Paramount+ with three episodes. For more on TV’s big swings, see our HBO’s ‘War’ report and the East of Eden limited series. The full catalog lives in TV browse.