Remembering Luther Vandross, Celebrating Rock Legends, ‘Missing You’ on Netflix, College Football Playoff Quarterfinals

The “velvet voice” of R&B superstar Luther Vandross (1951-2005) underscores an admiring biographical documentary with archival footage and interviews with collaborators and close associates including Mariah Carey, Dionne Warwick, Valerie Simpson, and Roberta Flack. Renowned for his love songs, Vandross never came out publicly as gay, and the film explores his unrequited love life and his health issues as well as his musical triumphs.

If you missed the livestream in October, ABC presents three hours’ worth of musical highlights from the ceremony at Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, when rock and pop legends Cher, Mary J. Blige, Peter Frampton, Dave Matthews Band, Kool & The Gang, Foreigner joined the illustrious roster of inductees, with Dionne Warwick, MC5, and the late Jimmy Buffett honored for Musical Excellence. The dazzling list of performers and presenters paying tribute includes James Taylor, Keith Urban, Roger Daltrey, Dua Lipa, Demi Lovato, Chuck D, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, Julia Roberts, Jelly Roll, Sammy Hagar, Kenny Chesney, and many more.

The mega-streamer kicks off the new year with its latest adaptation of thriller writer Harlen Coben, relocating the story to the U.K. and starring Slow Horses’ Rosalind Eleazar as missing persons detective Kat Donovan. The five-part mystery begins with Kat experiencing her own missing-persons trauma when her fiancé Josh (Ashley Walters) suddenly vanishes. Fast-forward 11 years, and Kat discovers Josh’s face on a dating app while investigating another disappearance, upending her existence and plunging her into a world of deception that also involves revelations about her father’s cold-case murder.

The playoffs move a step closer to the championship game with three highly anticipated bowl games. The action starts at the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl (1 pm/ET), where No. 4 Arizona State takes on No. 12 Clemson, followed by the Rose Bowl (5 pm/ET), with No. 1 Oregon facing No. 8 Ohio State, and the Allstate Sugar Bowl (8:45 pm/7:45c), featuring No. 2 Georgia vs. No. 7 Notre Dame.

INSIDE WEDNESDAY TV:

• From Vienna: The New Year’s Celebration 2025 (8/7c, PBS): Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville hosts the Great Performances presentation of the annual concert from the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, with Riccardo Muti conducting a tribute to Johann Strauss on the 200thanniversary of the waltz master’s birth.
• Liberation: D-Day to Berlin (8/7c, Smithsonian Channel): Colorized archival footage brings to life the turning points in history that led to the liberation of Western Europe from the horrors of World War II. The series opens with the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day in 1944.
• Homicide Squad New Orleans (10/9c, A&E): From Dick Wolf’s true-crime division, a docuseries follows homicide detectives of the New Orleans Police Department, opening with Detective Maurice Stewart’s investigation into the murder of a 15-year-old boy who was shot after walking his younger sister home.
• Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever (streaming on Netflix): A documentary profiles Bryan Johnson and the controversial wellness regime he adopted in his quest to defy the aging process.