What to Watch This Week: March 15 to 20

From culinary competitions to St. Paddy’s Day cartoons, we round up the top 10 shows to watch this week

1. The Juno Awards – Sunday, March 15, 5 p.m. & 8 p.m., CBC

The 49th annual Juno Awards will be broadcast live from the Sasktel Centre in Saskatoon, with two-time Juno winner Alessia Cara making her debut as host for this year’s salute to the best in Canadian music. In addition to hosting, Cara will also perform, as will artists including City and Colour, The Dead South, Daniel Caesar, Ali Gatie, Lennon Stella, The Glorious Sons, Tory Lanez, Quebec pianist Alexandra Stréliski and country singer Meghan Patrick. And for a moment that promises to be as Canadian as it gets, the legendary Anne Murray will return to the Junos stage to induct Jann Arden into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

2. Westworld – Sunday, March 15, 8 p.m. & 11:45 p.m., HBO Canada | Season Premiere

While the storyline is, as always, top secret, here’s hoping that the confusing season-two finale will be explained. What we do know is several new cast members have joined the show, including Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Lena Waithe (The Chi) and Vincent Cassel (Black Swan).

3. Bob’s Burgers – Sunday, March 15, 9 p.m., City & Fox

Linda and Teddy get a little too caught up in trying to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, while Bob and the kids decide to help out a needy fellow restaurant owner.

4. Black Monday – Sunday, March 15, 9 p.m. & 9:30 p.m., Crave1 | Season Premiere

The first season of the dark Wall Street comedy, named after the worst single-day stock market crash in history on October 19, 1987, culminated in the real-life event that shook the American economy. But what the finale left in its wake for Black Monday architects Maurice “Mo” Monroe (Don Cheadle), Dawn Towner (Regina Hall) and Blair Pfaff (Andrew Rannells) was far more complicated than just the Securities and Exchange Commission closing in on our protagonists. Indeed—spoiler alert—the Jammer Group’s evil founder Rod “The Jammer” Jaminski (Bruce Dern) ended up being the mystery man from the pilot who fell to his death, crashing through the Lamborghini limousine (possibly taking out a Lehman Brother in the process), after pulling a gun on Mo, Dawn and Blair. “Season one was a hard mystery as far as what happened and how that happened,” says co-creator Jordan Cahan. “Season two is, who is going down for the crime? Our show does have consequences and stakes. Who’s going to pay for that?”

5. Roswell, New Mexico – Monday, March 16, 6 p.m., Showcase; 9 p.m., The CW | Season Premiere

The sexy, timely reboot is back for a second season, and it seems like there’s plenty of intrigue to look forward to right off the bat. With Rosa back from the dead and Max having sacrificed himself to make it happen, there’s a karmic debt that needs to be repaid.

6. 9-1-1 – Monday, March 16, 8 p.m., Global & Fox

Now that spinoff Lone Star has wrapped its heart-stopping inaugural season, it’s time to get reacquainted with the original first responders whose over-the-top antics we first fell in love with, as the California squad makes its spring debut this week.

Now, they didn’t exactly leave us with a cliffhanger, but according to the powers-that-be, there will be a time jump of about three or four months, accelerating several of the ongoing storylines we’ve been glued to. As we pick back up, Athena and her family grapple with the harsh reality of Michael’s brain tumour, while Chimney’s half-brother arrives from Korea. Meanwhile, the valiant flame dodgers of Station 118 must deal with: “a skydiving trip gone wrong, a bank rep injured in a home repossession and a lovestruck assistant whose lunch run ends in disaster.”

7. The Plot Against America – Monday, March 16, 8 p.m. & 11 p.m., HBO Canada | Series Premiere

In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Roth imagined an America in which Franklin D. Roosevelt, after his second term, was defeated in the presidential election by Charles Lindbergh (Ben Cole), the man whose solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean cemented his place in history as a fearless explorer and hero of a nation. While respected, and the most famous celebrity of his day, Lindbergh was also well-known for his isolationist views. In Roth’s novel, Lindbergh is elected president in 1940, embarking the United States on its own program of anti-Semitism after negotiating a treaty with Nazi Germany.

The six-episode TV adaptation comes from The Wire creator David Simon, who was presented with the novel right after Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012. “Somebody came to me with the book and said, ‘I think this would make a great miniseries,’ and I said to him, ‘I enjoyed the novel. It’s a nice little artifact. It was fascinating in its moment, but that doesn’t seem to be our political moment,’ ” recalls the producer. “How wrong was I? The reason to do this is that—and not merely because of the current administration but because of the forces that are now in play politically—the piece is incredibly relevant. That’s why we’re all here.”

8. Top Chef – Thursday, March 19, 7 p.m. & 10 p.m., Food | Season Premiere

Some of your favourite Chef-testants are back in the TC kitchen, as season 17 of the Emmy- and James Beard Award-winning competition welcomes 15 all-stars from seasons gone by. They’ll battle it out in Quickfires and eliminations across Los Angeles, before packing up their pots and pans and jetting off to Italy for the finale, where a
Top Chef record $250,000 prize awaits. This year’s guest judges include Always Be My Maybe co-stars Ali Wong and Randall Park, Iron Man director Jon Favreau, actor Danny Trejo (Machete) and the inimitable Kelly Clarkson!

9. The Blacklist – Friday, March 20, 8 p.m. & 9 p.m., Global & NBC

Red Reddington and all the people in his nefarious orbit are hitting the air with back-to-back episodes in tonight’s return from hiatus. With Liz and Katarina unexpectedly reunited and more secrets between Liz and Red than ever, the creators promise a fun start that will explode into a major family brawl by season’s end.

10. Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker – Friday, March 20, Netflix | Series Premiere

One of the brilliant side effects of having so many streaming services and networks with high-quality, big-budget shows these days is that we now have the ability to experience full and complex stories about real people who may have otherwise been relegated to the sidelines of history. Madam C.J. Walker is a perfect example.

The woman was a bona fide inspiration for many, having overcome a tough upbringing as the daughter of former slaves (she was born just two years after Emancipation), to launching a pioneering haircare line that eventually catapulted her into becoming the first self-made black female millionaire. So who do you get to play such an icon? Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer, of course! She’s joined in the four-part series by an all-star cast that includes Tiffany Haddish, Garrett Morris, Bill Bellamy and Blair Underwood.